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So you’re looking to celebrate this year’s Halloween with the ultimate party? It doesn’t have to be a hassle with our guide to hosting the best Halloween party for you and your friends. No matter what your budget is, we’ve got ideas for everyone.
Halloween Party Theme Ideas
Murder Mystery
Movie Madness
Zombie Apocalypse
Sinister Circus
Out of This World
Halloween Decoration Ideas
Shindigz is a great online party supply store that you can use to find great decoration ideas with over 34,000 party supplies for every occasion and next day delivery!
Stumps Party is another awesome party supply store offering custom event supplies and regular deals and discounts.
10 Best DIY Halloween Party Decorations
- Hang witch hats from light shades using invisible string to make it look like they’re mysteriously floating in the air.
- Throw a white table cloth over a small table and fill it in eyes and a mouth with black marker pen to make it look like a cute little ghost!
- Carve pumpkins and put them on your porch. Colouring in oranges with marker pen also works great if you want mini pumpkin decorations.
- Cut out a spider web template using paper or hang some white string in the corners of the room to create easy cobwebs.
- Cut out bats on black paper using a template and use white tac to pin them across the wall near a window.
- Wrap a cereal box in paper and spray paint it grey then decorate to create DIY tombstones. Don’t forget to put something inside them to weight them down.
- Melt red crayons crayons over a white candle to create some creepy bleeding candles!
- Spray empty glass bottles with black paint and decorate them to make easy customised potion bottles.
- Add some old fashioned street signs in your garden on a post directing your guests to various spooky locations like Elm Street or Salem.
- Hang a skeleton at the top of your porch so your guests get a fright when they look up!
Halloween Party Games and Activities
Every great Halloween party needs some games to keep the guests entertained! Here are 7 of our favourite Halloween party games and activities that you can try out!
Apple Bobbing
This is a classic Halloween party game that’s perfect for both kids and adults.
What you’ll need:
- Large tub
- 5 apples per round
How to play:
- Fill the tub full of water and put it in a room where you don’t mind water spilling.
- Add all the apples and let the guests take it in turn trying to bob for dummies without using their hands.
- Replace the water after each guest takes their turns so it doesn’t get too gross!
Wrap the Mummy!
This Halloween party game is a bit messy but a lot of fun! It’s a quick game that’s guaranteed to get your guests laughing.
What you’ll need:
- Plenty of loo roll!
How to play:
- Split your guests into teams of three.
- Each team must decide who is the “mummy” and who is doing the wrapping.
- Set a timer for 1 minute and each team must wrap their “mummy” in loo roll covering them as much as possible.
- You then decide which team has done the best job!
Pumpkin Carving Competition
This is a classic Halloween party activity that’s great for getting everyone involved in a bit of friendly competition. Simply grab a load of pumpkins so your guests all have one each and give them 15 minutes to carve a unique design, then you can judge the winner!
Ouija Board
This spooky Halloween party activity isn’t for the faint hearted! Set up a Ouija board on a table in a quiet and dimly-lit room with around 4-6 seats. It’s a good activity for later into the party when everyone gets a bit braver, but watch out for cheaters!
Spooky Charades
Charades is a party game classic, but you can put a Halloween party spin on it by taking inspiration from horror films, books and plays. It’s great because you don’t need anything to set it up and it’s really easy to play.
- Just your guests!
How to Play Charades:
- Each guest needs to get in a pair.
- One person in the pair thinks of a book, play or film usually, but it can be anything you choose, just make sure people know the categories.
- The player then tries to act it out without making any noise and their partner must guess what it is in under a minute.
- If they manage to, they earn a point.
- Some common clues used in charades are: pretending to read a book, pretending to crank a movie camera, and pretending to sing.
- You can hold up your fingers to indicate the number word you are trying to act out as well.
Who Am I?
This the perfect ice breaker game to play at a Halloween party and is great for large groups.
What you’ll need:
- Post-it note for each guest
- A Pen
How to Play:
- Write the name of a celebrity on a post-it note and ask each guest to put it on their forehead.
- They must then ask yes or no answer style questions to try and figure out which celebrity’s name they’ve been given.
- The first to guest to guess correctly wins!
Halloween Pictionary
Pictionary is the perfect game for a relaxed Halloween party with close friends. It’s a favourite for lots of people and has a great competitive edge.
What You’ll Need:
- Paper
- Pen
- Timer
How to Play Pictionary:
- Get into pairs and choose who is the artist and who is guessing.
- The artist starts drawing a picture from a pre-selected secret list and their partner must guess what they are drawing.
- If they guess in under a minute, the pair earns a point.
Halloween Party Food Ideas
10 Tasty Halloween party Snacks
- Caramel apples are a staple at Halloween parties. These tasty treats can be decorated as creatively as you’d like, are super easy to make and great for both kids and adults!
- Dip pretzels in white icing to make some cute magic wands that taste great and are really quick to prepare.
- Throw some popcorn in a cauldron style bowl for the easiest Halloween party snack ever. Add some edible glitter or chocolate frogs to make it even better.
- Prepare rice crispy cakes and add a touch of pink colouring to make them look like brains!
- Carve out a small pumpkin, pop it on a tray and fill it’s mouth with guacamole and spread it on the tray to make a puking pumpkin surrounded by nachos and more dips.
- Cut peppers to make them look like pumpkins and fill them with cheese and chilli to create some spooky stuffed peppers.
- Dip ice cream cones in black icing and decorate to make witches hats for quick and fun snack.
- Don’t forget to make some pumpkin pie for a festive and tasty dessert option!
- Get creative and decorate cookies and cupcakes with icing and sprinkles. They’re always a popular choice and you’ll get the chance to impress your guests with your baking skills!
Deviled eggs are a classic party food snack. They look great, are super tasty and don’t take long to prepare. They’re also perfect because they don’t need heating up.
Halloween Party Drinks
Don’t forget to keep your guests refreshed with some Halloween themed party drinks! Make sure you serve non-alcoholic options to keep everyone happy. Here are our favourite Halloween party drink ideas to give you some inspiration! They’re all really easy to make, taste great and can be made in batches.
Blood Red Party Punch
Ingredients per serving:
- 50 ml vodka
- 25 ml peach schnapps
- 100 ml cranberry juice
Simply mix all the ingredients in a beaker and add ice!
Poison Appletini
Ingredients per serving:
- 25 ml vodka
- 15 ml sour apple liqueur
- Juice from half a lemon
Mix all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, strain and garnish with an apple slice.
Witches Brew (non-alcoholic)
Ingredients per serving:
- Lemonade 500ml
- Small handful of Raspberries
- Sugar syrup 25ml
- Juice from 1/2 Lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon of edible purple pearl dust
Simply mix the raspberries, edible pearl dust, lemonade, lemon juice and sugar syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice, strain and serve.
Jellyfish Shot
Ingredients per shot:
- 30ml Creme de Cacao
- 15ml Amaretto
- 15ml Irish Cream
- Few drops of grenadine
Add creme de cacao to a shot glass and then layer amaretto on top by pouring it over the back of a spoon. Layer the Irish cream over the top of the amaretto and then add a few drops of grenadine.
Radioactive Waste Shot
Ingredients per shot:
- 15 ml Vodka
- 7.5 ml Lemon Juice
- 7.5 ml Simple Syrup (1:1 mix of sugar melted into water)
- Sprinkle of green edible pearl dust.
Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled shot glass.
Take a look at the 10 best party drinks and 10 best party shots for some more recipes!
Halloween Party Music
You’ll also need to get your guests dancing with some great music. It’s really easy to create your own playlist and play it at your Halloween party. All you’ll need is Apple Music, a mobile phone, AUX lead and some decent speakers. Check out our party playlist tips for everything you need to know!
Here are some spooky songs to get you started.
- Thriller by Michael Jackson
- Ghosbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.
- Disturbia by Rhianna
- Zombie by the Cranberries
- Highway to Hell by AC/DC
- Sweet But Psycho by Ava Max
- I Put a Spell on You by Marilyn Manson
- Monster by Lady Gaga
- Demons by Imagine Dragons
- Cannibal by Kesha
- Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation
- Poison by Alice Cooper
- Creep by Radiohead
- Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran
Apple Music is the perfect way to create a party playlist. It’s intelligent recommendation feature makes it really quick to add songs to create the perfect track list and it’s cross fade feature makes seamless song transitions. It’s only $9.99/ £9.99 per month and you can get a free 3 month trial to check it out. And don’t worry, you can use it on Android devices too!
Join over 50 million subscribers and sign up for your 3 month free trial today!
Throw in Some Karaoke
Halloween Party Costume Competition
Encourage your guests to get involved in the fancy dress spirit by hosting a Halloween costume competition! Remind your guests about it on the invitation so they know about the incentive of putting the effort in. You can give out a small prize to the winner for an added bonus!
If you’re looking for some great Halloween costumes, then look no further than HalloweenCostumes.com. They’ve got all the fancy dress costumes you could ever need and ship to over 200 countries!
Need some inspiration? Head over to our post on the 10 best Halloween costume ideas to make sure you dress to impress.
Fun.com is a online huge party supply store that has loads of great costumes to choose from!
Halloween Party Supplies
You’ll also need some party supplies if you’re hosting your Halloween party at home. Here’s a checklist to make sure you don’t miss anything important!
- Plates
- Cups
- Cutlery
- Table cloth
- Napkins
- Shot glasses
- Wine glasses
Ebay and Amazon are you great for party supplies and decorations. But you can also have a look at your local party supply store for some great budget ideas.
Set a Budget
Creating an excel document is the easiest way to do this. Simply use the formulas to track how much you’ve spent and how much money you’ve got left. This way, you won’t lose track and overspend!
Finalise the Guest List
Choose the Best Time
Since Halloween parties are usually held at night, you should aim for a start time of around 9-10pm. Most Halloween parties last around 3-4 hours. This is usually enough time for plenty of food, games and fun!
We think Saturday is the best day to host a party at night, because your guests won’t have to rush back from work to get ready in time. But if Saturday isn’t an option, then Friday will still work well. Just remember to avoid weeknights if you’re hosting at night!
How to Host a Halloween Party at Home
Hosting your Halloween party at home is a great way to keep the cost down, but what if you don’t have a lot of space? Well, there’s no need to worry because we’ve got some top tips for hosting a Halloween party in a small space.
Get Rid of Any Clutter
The first thing you need to do to maximise your party space is get rid of all the clutter. Furniture or ornaments that don’t serve a purpose at your Halloween party need to go elsewhere. Moving clutter either upstairs or in a garage is a great way to help host a party in a small space.
Think About Re-arranging the Furniture
Stackable chairs are a great space saver. You can have them upstairs to keep your main party space free, and bring them out if more of your guests want to sit down.
If your living room is square-shaped, rather than rectangular, it’s best to have all of your furniture on the edge of the room and your food and drinks tables in the middle to maximise the space. Your guests are likely to congregate around tables, so dot them around to spread people out. You can have a few different small tables to ensure your guests can move between them without creating a queue.
But if your space is narrower instead, it can be a good idea to have one long table in the centre with all your food and drink. Then you can place chairs around the edge. This will create a flow around the area that prevents congestion when your guests are moving about.
If you don’t have enough room for many chairs, you can always throw down some pillows and blankets. It’s a good space saver because more people can usually fit on a blanket than a bench and it’ll take up less room.
Have Plenty of Bins
Make sure there are enough bins at various places in your house. Number one, it’ll make the cleaning up process a lot quicker. Plus it’ll stop more people getting up and moving around creating congestion if there is a bin near them. Having a lot of people moving about is what makes your area seem smaller. When people are sat down and settled, you’re likely to feel the effects of a small space a lot less.
Stagger the Arrival Time
Another thing you can do that’ll help you host a Halloween party in a small space, is to stagger the arrival time. Having a large window for your guests to arrive, stops a massive influx of people at one time. This will make it seem like the area is larger, because trying to cram everyone in at once will highlight a small space even more.
Halloween Party Invitations
So now you’ve got all the essentials sorted, you’re in a position to start sending your Halloween party invitations. But there are a few options to consider when deciding what format to send your invites.
You can mail invitations that you’ve created using a Microsoft programme like Powerpoint or Office. This way is much quicker to create a lot of invitations and you can design them however you like without needing to know a lot about IT.
Our favourite way of creating professional looking invitations easily is to use Canva. It’s a website that allows you to create a range of graphic design media using a range of ready-made templates. They look great, are really easy to create and you can print out as many as you need.
If you want an easy and quick way of sending your invitations, make a Facebook event. It’ll allow you to add everyone in one go, and keeps a track of everyone’s response so you know exactly who’s coming.
Whichever option you choose, there’s a few things that need including on your invitations.
- Date and time
- Location
- RSVP instruction
- Theme (if you’ve chosen one)
Halloween Party Planning Timeline
So now you know everything you need to do to plan the ultimate Halloween party, but when should you do it? Here’s a quick Halloween party planning timeline to help keep you on track!
8 Weeks Before
- Set a budget
- Make your guest list
- Book the venue
- Choose a party theme
4 Weeks Before
- Send your invitations
- Create your menu
- Shop for your party supplies
- Decide on the music
1 Week Before
- Plan any games and activities
- Follow up with any guests that haven’t responded to your invites
1-2 Days Before
- Shop for the food
Day of the Party
- Prepare the food
- Decorate your venue
- Prepare the tables
- Set up any games and music
- Get your camera charged and make sure it’s got plenty of storage space available
So that’s it! Now you have plenty of ideas to plan the perfect Halloween party. We hope you have a great time!
Don’t forget to take a look at our party planning timeline to make sure you’ve got everything covered. It’ll tell you everything you need to do at each stage of the party planning process so you can create an amazing party without any stress or worry about forgetting anything! It even includes a free printable party planning checklist to make sure you stay on track.
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