What not to do when planning your next company happy hour

We think our corporate customers are pretty smart. Recently, we asked our them their main reason for using Drizly - 60% said that their companies host regular happy hours in the office. Something we can get behind! As your resident event planning partner on the drinks front, we've been frequent attendees of happy hours over the years. Over said years, we've had some awkward encounters at said happy hours. As such, we thought we'd sum up a few things we've learned along the way – essentially what not to do when planning your next happy hour.

Don't not have food. Give the people what they want. What do they want, you ask? Snacks. Lots of snacks. You keep your employees from being hangry, and avoid Tim falling asleep at the party because he worked through lunch and now is running solely off a liquid diet.

We know what we said. Liquid diet? Not awesome. Lack of casual libations though? Bad, very bad. We kind of feel like not having drinks at a company happy hour is like having a birthday party without cake. Also, shameless plug here–you can schedule your booze delivery with Drizly up to two weeks in advance. Click this handy little link and get started.

Listen, we are all about mindfulness and meditation. BUT, during an event, silence can be weird. We're here to promote the monumental impact of dun dun dun...background music. Don't amplify lulls in conversation by not having that soft jazz or fire summer tune playing in the background while people nom on their hos' d'oeuvres. Keep it neutral or cause a civil war over what you're playing. Either way, have music.

You know what's lame? Music school-style parties that end up with people sticking with their cliques. The whole time. You're not about that, and we know it. You're perfect. Don't do the same thing over and over. Try to change it up to get people to mingle more. Themes can help, so can activities. Maybe you're all about trivia one week, make your own tacos the next and a cornhole-style tourney the one after that.

Has so much time passed between happy hours that rumors are swirling about Roger's retirement (sorry for spoiling the news, Rog)? Don't have your happy hours at an irregular pace. Make them consistent–quarterly, monthly, bimonthly, whatever your vibe is, just let your people know (we do weekly here at Drizly). Because people are ya know, busy. By being consistent, it becomes a regular occurrence that people count on to catch up with one another outside of their regular work day.

Planning for your next happy hour? You can place a Drizly order here or get help from our White Glove team to curate the perfect list.

Have other questions? Reach out to our Driz for Biz team (they're real humans!) any time via email at [email protected]. If you are ready to take the jump and add Drizly to the party planning committee for your next event, simply start shopping now or submit an order and we'll start working on an estimate right away.