5 Essential Steps On How To Throw A Melbourne Cup Party At Your Office

Are you searching for ideas on how to throw a Melbourne Cup party for your office? If you have marked the first Tuesday in November for an awesome office party, then it’s time to get everything together for the best corporate event of the year! So let’s get started!

When you are organising a party at work, you only want the Melbourne Cup decorations in one room, albeit, a large room, but you don’t want to have to clean more than one room! One of the best rooms to select is the common room or lunchroom because that’s where everyone usually mingles, and if some people need to work or return to their desks early, then they won’t be interrupted by the rambunctious party goers.

To cut down on your work, don’t forget to ask your volunteers to help purchase the decorations, arrange them around the room and take them down at the end of the day. It might be a pain to take all the decorations down before you leave, but no-one will want to be faced with the problem the next morning!

The Melbourne Cup party decorations you select will be based on your budget (you can calculate the overall cost and ask everyone to pay into a pot to cover all the costs), but here are a few ideas that have proven their worth. Cover the floors with fake grass to resemble a race track (and also to keep spilt food and drinks off the floor) and organise for lots of lovely flower bouquets to be sprinkled around the room (there are lots of flowers at the racecourse and it adds a sophisticated edge to the party).

Other Melbourne Cup decorations include horseshoe banners, jockey and horse stripes, jockey hats, cardboard jockey cut-outs and horse racing streamers. You can also set the food table with a horse racing theme, including themed napkins, plates and tablecloth, and even include a gold trophy as a centrepiece. So if someone asks you how to decorate a room for the Melbourne Cup – you will have all the answers!

Now you know how to decorate a room for the Melbourne Cup, it’s time to plan a few games and competitions to keep everyone entertained before the main event. However, there are so many different games to play for a Melbourne Cup party, it’s difficult to know where to start! As an example, you can organise a desk decorating competition, encouraging everyone to decorate their desks with a Melbourne Cup theme; the best-decorated desk wins a prize. You can also organise this as a competition between different departments and have teams of people competing against each other! The best and the worst Melbourne Cup hats can be another game, as well as the best and worst Melbourne Cup costumes, best-dressed lady and gentleman, etc.

A trivia game is also another way to get everyone involved and a Melbourne Cup trivia game is even better! You can arrange people into teams and hand out prizes for first, second and third places. The office sweep is another competition you can host for the day, but make sure that someone holds the money and that you nominate one person to watch the race and identify the winning horses! Even though everyone will be watching and the winners will be advertised everywhere, where the money is concerned, it’s best to hedge your bets on the day!

If you are still looking for games to play for your Melbourne Cup party, then consider a Pinata in the shape of a horse, pin the tail on the horse, game of horseshoes or a game of charades based around Melbourne Cup winners (horses and jockeys).

Knowing how to decorate a room for the Melbourne Cup and organising the games and competitions is one thing, but the next big element you need to arrange is the food! When you are thinking about how to throw a Melbourne Cup party, it’s all about finger food! Finger food is the best way to cater for your Melbourne Cup party, as no-one will want to sit down to a meal and there might not be enough room anyway!

Engaging outside caters is usually the best course of action because you can be sure that there will be sufficient food for everyone. If you only have a small office staff however, you might consider asking everyone to contribute food, rather than money for the catering. If everyone cooks a selection of finger food that can be shared, you won’t have any worries on the day.

One of the basic steps in knowing how to throw a Melbourne Cup party, however, is to always plan your food ahead. This ensures that there won’t be any last-minute hiccups! Examples of popular finger foods include pork and fennel sausage rolls, mini sun-dried tomato and feta quiches, mini beef pies and nori rolls. You could also opt for vegetable sticks and lots of dips, sliced meats and Brie with French bread, pork sliders with coleslaw, and Peking duck pancakes with rice paper rolls. You can also try chicken skewers, BBQ chicken, salads and fresh bread rolls, gourmet sandwiches, tapas, cheese platters and savoury tarts. The list is endless, but your selection will depend on your budget and whether you will be hiring caters or asking everyone to contribute a plate. These are great Melbourne Cup party ideas!

The final step in knowing how to throw a Melbourne Cup party is the drinks! Champagne is the drink of choice for the Melbourne Cup, but you don’t have to just offer everyone Champagne, you can think outside the box and include Champagne cocktails! Obviously, the party is being held in a work environment and people have to arrive home safely at the end of the day, so some discretion is required. Some people may even need to continue working after the race, so heavy drinking is not part of the celebrations. This means that you don’t need an overwhelming amount of alcohol, just one or two drinks per person should be sufficient to celebrate their win or drown their losses!

Also, remember that not everyone will want to drink alcohol, so you need to have fruit juices, sparkling water or some other non-alcoholic drinks available. It’s often a good idea to arrange delivery of the alcohol a few days ahead of time so that it can be chilled on-site (you can order alcohol deliveries online). Don’t forget to buy lots of ice and arrange for a few barrels or plastic tubs to act as ice buckets, as well as making sure that you have enough glassware for catering - Champagne glasses, large tumblers and wine glasses. You can even use your Melbourne Cup party decorations to create a fabulous drinks area where everyone can congregate to watch the race.

Once the celebrations have come to an end, someone has to do all the cleaning! This is where your team of volunteers comes in handy because all the decorations need to be packed away, food is thrown away or covered and placed in the fridge, glasses washed and stored away, and the room returned to normal. Even if the celebrations last into the evening, someone has to clean up the office for work the next day, it can’t be left for the cleaners! Having said this, cleaning up isn’t so hard when you have had a fabulous day with your co-workers on Melbourne Cup Day, is it?

Now you know how to throw a Melbourne Cup party, the rest is up to you! However, if you need even more Melbourne Cup party ideas, check out the guys at CostumeBox for lots of great Melbourne Cup party decorations and costumes!