Play parties and clubs

The word party sets the wrong expectation. What these mostly are is a room full of adults having a cup of tea and a chat, with some organised activity going on at one end and a person by the door making sure nobody is an idiot about it.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

Everything here is adults over 18 in private or hired spaces. If you have not been to a munch yet, start there instead, because almost every route into a party runs through one.

What a party is, and what it is not

A munch is a pub. Nothing happens, that is the point, and it is the safest introduction to any of this.

A play party is a space, private or hired, where people actually do things. It has a host or an organiser, a set of rules, and somebody whose job is the room rather than their own evening. It is not a nightclub, there is rarely anything resembling dancing, and the atmosphere is closer to a village hall event run by slightly nervous volunteers than to anything in a film.

Two kinds, and they behave differently. Private house parties run on invitation and reputation, tend to be a dozen people or fewer, and the rules are whatever the host says they are. Hired venues are larger, have published rules, usually charge on the door and generally have more structure: a sign-in, a briefing, and monitors. Neither is better. The private one lives or dies by the host, the hired one by the organiser.

Getting invited at all

This is the actual barrier and people underestimate it. You do not find these by searching, and if you can walk into one with no history and no introduction, consider what that says about who else got in the same way.

The route is unglamorous. Go to munches. Go more than once, because the second and third visits are when people start recognising you. Be pleasant, be normal, help stack the chairs. In time somebody mentions there is a thing on, or an organiser asks whether you fancy coming to one, and that is how it happens for almost everybody.

A good host vets people rather than filling a room, so expect to be asked who you know, whether anybody can vouch for you, and what you are looking for. That is not gatekeeping for its own sake. It is the same work described on vetting a partner, done by somebody else on behalf of everyone in the building.

What the evening actually looks like

You arrive, and there is admin. A sign-in with a name, sometimes a form, sometimes a wristband. At a hired venue somebody will run through the rules out loud, and it is worth listening even if you have heard it before, because house rules vary and it tells you who to go to if something goes wrong.

Then a long, ordinary social stretch. People change if they are going to, get a drink, and talk for two hours. If you brought equipment, expect it to be looked over, and do not take that personally. The play itself is a smaller part of the night than the word party suggests: two or three scenes may run at one end of the room while everybody else carries on a conversation about parking.

Dungeon monitors

Most organised events have somebody whose only job is the room. The traditional name is a dungeon monitor, and there is a glossary entry on the term.

Newcomers assume they are security, so here is what they actually do. They are there to interrupt as much as to assist. They will stop a scene that has gone somewhere it should not, move a spectator who is standing too close, notice somebody who has gone grey and needs to sit down, and be the person you tell if somebody will not leave you alone.

If one of them speaks to you, the correct response is to stop and listen rather than to explain.

Watching, which is where newcomers get it wrong

Watching is normal and expected. Watching badly is the fastest way to be remembered for the wrong reason, and the rules are not obvious from outside.

• Do not stand close. If you are near enough that they could reach you, you are part of it and you were not invited.
• Do not comment, coach, laugh or make a noise of appreciation. Silence is the etiquette.
• Never interrupt a scene, for any reason short of somebody being in danger, in which case find a monitor.
• Do not touch anybody, and do not touch anybody's equipment, which is treated as an extension of them. Ask before you pick up anything that is not yours.
• Do not join a conversation that is already happening, particularly if one of the people in it has just finished a scene.
• Move on. Standing in one place watching one couple for forty minutes is unnerving even if you meant nothing by it.

The general etiquette of the scene is on its own page and most of it applies here in a stricter form, because the room is smaller and everybody can see you.

Negotiating in a room full of people

Harder than at home, and the difficulty is social rather than practical.

A loud room pushes people towards agreeing. You cannot hear properly, so you nod. People are nearby, so you do not want to seem difficult. Somebody experienced is being generous with their time and you feel the pull of not wasting it. Every one of those pressures runs the same way, towards agreeing to more than you want.

So do it somewhere quiet, sitting down, with nobody listening. Take as long as you would at home, and use the same list you would use at home, which is on negotiation. Agree the safe word out loud and agree what happens if the room is too noisy for it to be heard, which is a real problem and usually solved with a hand signal.

And do not negotiate on the spot, in front of an audience, with somebody you met forty minutes ago. Being asked to decide quickly in public is the exact condition under which people agree to things they regret, and anybody worth playing with knows that and will suggest talking somewhere else themselves.

Playing in public for the first time

Performance pressure is real and it catches out people who were sure it would not. Being watched changes what both of you do. Tops go harder than they meant to because an audience is present. People receiving stay quiet longer than they would at home, because saying stop in a room full of strangers feels like announcing a failure.

Two rules I would not bend. Do nothing new at a party: the first time in a room is a terrible moment to try an implement or an intensity you have not done privately. And agree beforehand that either of you can stop for no reason, including simply not liking being watched, with no discussion afterwards.

Aftercare in a public space

Almost nobody plans this and it is the part that most often goes wrong.

The room is loud, there is nowhere private, the sofa is occupied, and the person who has just come out of a scene needs somewhere to sit, something to drink and twenty minutes of not being spoken to by strangers. Work out in advance where that will be. Ask the host if there is a quiet room, because there often is. Bring water and something sugary rather than relying on what is provided.

Drop is not suspended because you are out. If anything the comedown is worse after a party, because the adrenaline of being somewhere unfamiliar is added to it, and then you have to get home. Everything on aftercare applies, just with less privacy and more effort.

Phones, drink and getting home

Photography is banned at essentially every event worth attending, and at many the phone goes in a box at the door. Do not argue with this and do not be the person who takes their phone out to check the time in the middle of a room. The rule protects everybody, including you, and one photograph can cost somebody their job.

Alcohol is limited or absent at good events, and the reasoning is on drink and drugs. Playing after a drink is the fastest way to hurt somebody, and organisers who take that seriously are telling you something reassuring about the rest of their judgement.

Plan the journey home before you go, because these run late and the last train does not care. Take your own money for a taxi. Do not accept a lift from somebody you met that evening, however pleasant they have been, for the same reasons set out on meeting safely. Tell somebody outside the scene where you are and when you expect to be back.

You do not have to go to any of this

I have left this to the end, because the scene can give the impression that parties are the real thing and everything else is practice.

They are not. Plenty of people do this happily for decades in their own house and never set foot in a hired venue. Parties help if you want to meet people or learn by watching. If that does not appeal, you are not missing a qualification.