How to throw a virtual birthday party on Zoom
2020 has changed the way many things work. One of the most obvious changes has been in the way we interact. From work meetings to happy hours, nearly everything is taking place online these days. While the medium may have changed, the important moments in our lives are still being celebrated. While it might not be possible to hold the birthday bash you had envisioned, you can still throw a remarkably fun virtual birthday party on Zoom if you plan things correctly. We’ll provide you with some key tips for a successful party to make sure your Zoom birthday party is a memorable one!
Manage the guest list
When you’re throwing a Zoom party, you need to think about the birthday girl/boy and the logistics of the event when you’re planning. If you’re planning for an extremely outgoing person with a large friend group, you’ll likely need to get a lot of people involved. If you have someone who isn’t good in crowds, you may want to keep the guest list to a minimum. Smaller is usually better when it comes to virtual birthday parties because it can get a little chaotic.
In the case of someone with a long guest list, you can break the party into groups so the guest of honor has an easier time connecting to people individually as opposed to a wall of dozens of guests. For adults this can be as simple as setting separate times for old high school friends, family, and friends from work. That keeps participants in familiar groups and makes communication easier for the celebrant.
Effective invitations and instructions
Nearly everyone has been on one or both sides of a Zoom call when people aren’t able to get into the event because they don’t have the right link or don’t know how the program works. Whether you use Zoom or another online meeting platform like Google Hangouts or Skype for your virtual birthday party you’ll want to make sure that the invitations contain all of the information necessary for guests to join in.
Oftentimes, people who aren’t technologically savvy need more detailed instructions than what comes in a standard Zoom invitation. You may want to supplement the basic invitation data with some more detailed instructions to help these folks join in the fun. If you create a customized virtual or paper birthday invitation, this is the perfect opportunity to write out a step by step process for joining the event and how to utilize features like how to share your screen.
Leverage delivery and planning to coordinate experiences
One of the best parts of a birthday party is opening gifts and sharing some tasty food – including the cake! But just because your guests can’t be there in person doesn’t mean that you can’t still partake in these birthday traditions. If your party is small and all the guests are all relatively local, you can order cupcakes and have them delivered to each guest so they can all have a bite after singing happy birthday to the lucky birthday boy or girl.
If you plan your party well enough in advance you can also let guests know that you can have presents delivered beforehand. You can offer to wrap gifts or encourage guests to order them from places that offer gift wrapping services. Amazon, for example, has several options for sending wrapped gifts.
Outside of food and gifts, you can also coordinate with guests on fun experiences like coordinating a special birthday sing along from the guests or requesting photos for a virtual slideshow. Another easy thing to coordinate is attire and backgrounds. Zoom’s virtual backgrounds allow everyone to use a theme, and you can have everyone wear outfits that go with that theme. Want to do a tropical island? Break out the Hawaiian shirts and beach backgrounds! If the birthday kid is into princesses or dinosaurs, you can incorporate those into your virtual party as well.
A virtual sleepover is another fun option for kids. The Netflix Party app makes it easy to watch movies in a group, and if you connect with Zoom or another video chat you can bring the fun of a movie watch party to a socially distanced birthday celebration.
You can really get creative by working together with your guests to pull together some fun and unique virtual birthday party ideas specific to the birthday person in question.
Do something truly unique and leave it to the pros!
Hosting a Zoom birthday party, just like any other party, is still a lot of work. If you’re looking for a truly outside the box and amazingly fun idea, you can throw a virtual murder mystery party. Our professional party planners will work with you to schedule the event and send you all the information you need to share with your guests so they can get into character before the party begins.
Even better? Even though you’re the host of the virtual party you can still participate along with the guest of honor. Our parties are hosted by a professional actor who will guide you through the hilarious caper as you try to crack the case and figure out which of your guests is guilty. Our virtual parties keep all of your guests engaged and provide you with an amazing and truly unique memory for the guest of honor.
Check out our other virtual party options:
Host your own Mystery Party!
Our Murder Mystery Experts are excited to talk to you about your personalized party plans.
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