Rabid Reseller: Party time

Whenever Rabid throws a party, we make sure the guests know the event is BYO. And we’re not just talking about booze, it’s BYO everything. We’re providing the venue, so we expect guests to bring their own food, drink, entertainment and anything else they might need. This usually works just fine, although we weren’t quite ready for some of the BYO entertainment. Next time we’ll be a bit more specific and limit that category to CDs and DVDs — the jumping castle made it hard to fit anything else into the lounge room.

We’ve been doing parties this way for years, when we discovered some bloke in Kirribilli has worked out a way to profit from a party. That’s a lark Rabid hadn’t thought of before, and we usually pride ourselves in being fairly quick to spot a chance to make an extra dollar. People were paying $8000 each to attend this bloke’s parties. Granted they get food, booze and entertainment included, but the price sounds a tad optimistic.

However, getting any amount of money out of partygoers would provide a boost to the bottom line, so we decided to start small and work our way towards the bigger target. For our first profitable soiree we asked for a donation towards the cost of cleaning up after the event. That seemed like a good idea, but either the guests had no idea what cleaners charge or they all thought they were very tidy. Still, from little things big things grow, and we knew we’d get better at it with practice.

For the second paying party we set the price at $100 per head and to our great surprise and delight they all paid up! With hardly a pause we arranged the next event and bumped the price to $500 per head. Not a single taker. Okay, so we’re not in Kirribilli but $500 is still a long way from the $8000 target, so some market research was required. Sending the nephew around asking people to explain their absence is an allowed deduction according to his accountant father.

Everyone thought $100 was fine because they’d spend that at the pub, but much more was expected for the extra dollars. They wanted to meet somebody famous from government and apparently the bloke who manages the council’s cleaning service doesn’t qualify. We pointed out that he works for the government, and spends all day examining everyone’s dirty laundry, but they demanded somebody higher up and preferably elected.

After making a few phone calls we discovered there are plenty of politicians looking for increased exposure so we asked a few to attend the next soiree, and got their permission to use their names on the invitations. Nix. Nada. Nothing. No takers. It seems they want members of government, not just any old politicians. What have people got against One Nation and the Shooter’s Party?

Might as well go straight to the top. A quick phone call secured our very own invitation to a party at Kirribilli, where we were assured we’d meet a huge array of suitable candidates, any one of whom could be a huge draw card at our next event. All we had to do was turn up, join them for drinks and nibbles and sound out their availability for the next Rabid Reseller revelry. Anyone got any suggestions on how to raise $8000?

Gotta go! Customers waiting!

“Some bloke in Kirribilli has worked out a way to make a profit from a party.”

collaboration networking party time