The Cocktail Party

Writing about the cocktail party we went to at Elle's college in Canberra reminded me that these days, a cocktail party rarely involves cocktails. It's usually some champagne, lovely wines, beers and sparkling water. 

Amazingly, (you'll get the irony shortly) I actually recall a real cocktail party when I was at college. How anyone thought an event offering more than a dozen different cocktails for 17 - 22 year-olds to work their way through was a good idea, is beyond me - even if it was the 1980s.

The common room was set up with different stations, each offering a different, extremely alcoholic concoction. These included but were not limited to; Grasshoppers, B-52s, Harvey Wall Bangers, Martinis, Long Island Iced Teas, Blue Lagoons, Fluffy Ducks and few with 'hilarious' names like Sex On The Beach and A Comfortable Screw.

Hydration wasn't such a big thing in the 80s. Why drink water when you could just keep drinking cocktails? Especially, if you were starting to feel a little dizzy, there was a very tasty light option - kahlua and milk. 

For most of us, we'd only indulged in these exotic mixtures on occasion and certainly not all at once. We were even issued with a check list - just to be sure we didn't miss any.

These days, a sense of responsibility usually means serving food at such events, often something like chicken sandwiches, mini burgers and other substantial finger food to slow the uptake of alcohol among an excitable crowd.  Back in the 80s, it was a couple of bowls of Burger Rings and some Twisties.

We had loads of drunken, raucous parties at college, but this would have to have been the fastest. It started at 8pm and was done and dusted by 10.30pm. There wasn't a conscious soul left as everyone had either passed out, vomited, become disorientated and lost in the gardens or successfully crawled off to bed.

Based on this, my only experience of a cocktail party with both scope and scale, perhaps it's just as well that most are beer and wine.

Quite possibly the worst event I have ever attended

I'm old and been to an awful lot of events - but this one may have taken the cake for the most ill-conceived one of all time. It'll be hard to top (or bottom?)

It was the parent event at Elle's college.

Last year, it was a black-tie dinner at a hotel. That was a perfectly fine event, but they realised there was limited opportunity to mingle and, perhaps more importantly, a black-tie event could be a bit intimidating for some parents - and fair enough.

So this year, they aimed to address those issues with a cocktail party. I paid just north of $450 for Geoff, Elle and I to attend - plus airfares and accommodation. But as the details emerged, I was increasingly apprehensive.  

It was being held on the college grounds, in a marquee. Now for those of you unfamiliar with our nation's capital, Canberra is renowned for being hot in summer and cold in winter. Here's a snapshot of what we were dealing with on the night in question - yes, outdoors in sub-10 degree conditions. What the picture fails to capture is that there was also rain.

Someone said the walls of the marquee would be insulated - and they may well have been - but as they were all drawn back, who'd know. We were also assured there would be 'loads of heaters'. There may have been more, but I only saw five small free standing ones outside the marquee - hardly adequate for a crowd of over 400.

The dress was cocktail, but I'd settled on a pant and block heeled boot, as we'd also been warned there were areas of grass. In fact, the whole thing was on bare ground save for some scattered hay from the bales that had been placed about for seating. I felt sorry for the few women who didn't get the memo and were wearing stiletto sandals.

Just prior, Elle had confirmed that dress code was more 'rustic cocktail' - what the heck does that mean??

On arrival, we located the single caravan serving drinks. Cute - but totally impractical to get drinks into the hands of hundreds of people who all arrived within 30 minutes. Having queued, we discovered the beers were not dispensed here, but from a separate station at the other end of the 'paddock'.

They ran out of sparkling wine at 8pm. Someone must have done a runner to the bottle shop because more appeared around 10pm.

We knew the catering was via food trucks and, yes, they're very 'on trend' but 3 food trucks was optimistic. Elle introduced me to one of the guys who works in the college kitchen - who, I hastily add, had nothing to do with the organisation. 
I looked at that girl standing in the pancake truck and just thought, yeah, that's not going to work, he observed. 
He was right. The hamburger truck ran out of hamburgers. The pizza people were putting whole pizzas on a table just away from their venue, which were being set upon like seagulls on dropped chips. 

I could go on - it was dark, the sound system was dreadful, I was hungry and the cold had seeped up from the ground, through my boots and I was numb from the knees down.

But, and it's a big but, on the upside, we met amazing, fabulous, interesting and diverse people; students, parents and staff. We had a great time, proving the adage that a great night really is all about the company.