DrBoost
MegaDork
4/27/20 12:18 p.m.
So my daughter has graduated, we were planning a graduation party....then the 'rona happened. I don't want my daughter to miss out on a graduation party because of the corona virus, but I'm tryin to figure out what choices I have, and figured I'd turn to the hive for advice.
Here's the details we have to work with:
Guest list north of 100.
My wife and I have been talking about a zoom meeting, but that's just going to suck. Imagine 120 or more people on a zoom meeting. It hurts my ears just thinking about that. Then we thought about breaking it into manageable chunks, say multiple parties scheduled through out the day with a smaller amount of guests per party, say 30 guest per party, 4-5 parities that day or weekend. Have you every tried to do table assignments at a weeding? This seems like that, but worse. And each guest will not see many other guests.
Here's a thought I had, not sure if it's any better. I build 360º virtual tours of houses for real estate companies. I could do a virtual tour of our house. When you virtually arrive you click the icon to enter the house. There is an icon on the wall for the typical photo-wall. Click that to view the photos. There's an icon over there that says Game Room, click on that and you enter a zoom meeting and there's a Jackbox or Block Party game going on. You can join if you'd like. Or click down the hallway to click on this other icon. There's a zoom meeting going on, people just sitting, hanging out. Maybe 3 or 4 different "rooms" with different zoom meetings going on. Join and leave as you like. The family will just cruise around through the different zoom meetings and mingle. Maybe another icon will take you to a place where you can sign a guest book and maybe write an inspirational message for the grad.
I don't know if any of that makes sense, would be neat, or is easily doable. But I'm trying to allow my daughter to enjoy a grad party of sorts. I thought about just waiting this out, but it may be quite some time before it's legal, or socially acceptable to gave gatherings of more than a dozen people
So, what ideas do you have? Has anyone hosted or attended an online party? What did you think?
What about an outdoor party, masks are required, and have areas sectioned off for your family and different groups? The Boost family would be in Section A; the "Smith" family in Section B, and the "Franklin" family in Section C. Bonfire in the middle. Smith's and Franklins are allowed to be there from noon to 1, then htey have to leave. Two more families come at 1:30, they leave at 2:30. Two more families at 3, etc.
Plan it for sometime in Mid-July so that you have time to cancel if the virus mutates into something more sinister than it is, as well as having time to plan a real party if we find a cure.
Students at my daughters school were talking about building a stage on a Minecraft server than then doing a virtual minecraft stage walk. Not sure if that's really going to happen or not, but it has been discussed. I know they're doing a livestream coverage awards thing in about a week. Mailing awards to the parents to present to the kids watching it in real time. You could follow that model and have people send their presents/well wishes and have them presented live. It's really hard to do a back and forth with 100 people.
Following with interest as KazooJr. is a 2020 graduate. He's rolling with it, but it does really suck.
DrBoost
MegaDork
4/28/20 11:35 a.m.
I'm going with the virtual tour idea. I threw together a proof on concept last night. The idea has legs. Here's what I'm going to do:
Send out a digital invitation. That invitation will have the link, of course, but it will also have a basic description of what this is, what how the user will make it work.
Upon clicking the link in the e-mail, they will be taken to the virtual tour. This will plop them in front of the house, that will be decorated for the party (virtually decorated, this will test my photoshop skills!). There will be an info icon that, if they click on it will, again, tell them how this works. There will also be an icon on the front door saying "click me" or something. That will take them in the house. The first room (living room) they enter will have my daughter standing there. They will be prompted to click on her, starting a video of her, maybe us, welcoming the guests and thanking them for attending. The video will also draw attention to the virtual guest book that will be on a stand right next to them. From there, they can click to get into another room, from there you will find hotspots to click on to enter one of two ongoing Zoom meetings where people can mingle and enter as they wish. There will also be two game rooms, with constantly running Jackbox games that people can enter and play as they wish (maximum number of players for the game in mind is 100, so that'll work). On the dining room table there will be a virtual photo album that will take place of the typical photo wall at a grad party.
I'm working on coming up with 'easter eggs' hidden around the house. Basically, invisible hot spot links that will play a video, show a picture, do something neat to encourage folks to spend more than just a few minutes there.
We are also going to send gift bags with snacks and stuff to all that are invited.
I dont know how well it'll work, but we really want to do something. When this is all over, maybe we'll invite everyone to a park for a BBQ or something, but we want to do something now because we have no idea what the future holds.