A pool party is a great event that you and your loved ones can enjoy during the summer, as the pool can help people beat the summer heat while also enjoying the company of friends or family members. Even though pool parties are very fun, the process of planning and organizing the party can be quite complicated. In this article, we will give you several ideas that can help you in hosting the best and most fun pool party for your guests. Here are 20 great ideas for throwing a summer pool party.
Rent a Nice Event Place with a Pool
If you already have a pool in the backyard of your house, then you really won’t have any difficulties setting up a pool party with friends and family members, as you can just easily invite them to your home. However, if you don’t have a pool and you want a change of ambiance or environment, you can rent a nice event place that has a pool.
If you search online, you may already find dozens of different events places near you or within your city. But, be careful in renting events places since there are some that may not have a good reputation among their previous clients. In order for you to know which event places are considered the best, you should check online for reviews on each event place and see their ratings.
Plan Out When the Party Will Take Place
Once you have found a good event place that has one or more pools, you should start to plan out when the pool party will actually take place. The date of the party should be the day when you think all or most of your guests are free, and the days when they may be free are usually Saturdays and Sundays. Then, you should also search for weather forecasts online to see which days are relatively sunny with little to no chance of rain. There are some people that like rain while they are swimming in a pool, but the rain can also make the tables and chairs wet, which can sometimes lead to them getting damaged.
Choose the Right Time for the Party
After picking the date of the party, you can then decide the right time for the party. The perfect time for summer pool parties is during the afternoon, specifically a few hours after 12 noon, as the temperature outdoors wouldn’t be too hot or too cold during that time. Mornings are also a great time to hold an event, but many of your guests may not be able to wake up early to attend the party. Making the party comfortable for your guests should be one of your priorities, and one way to do so is by starting the event at the right outdoor temperature.
Hire Catering Services for Food
If you don’t want the hassle of cooking large amounts of food for your guests, you can just hire catering services that will already prepare and serve food for your guests. Much like events places, you may find dozens of different catering businesses in your area, and for you to choose the best business, you should look for reviews and feedback written by previous customers or clients online.
Rent Tables and Chairs Instead of Buying Them
Chairs and tables are essential pieces of furniture for parties, although having too many of them at home is not really ideal. If you buy these chairs and tables per piece, you will find them to be inconvenient to own since you would most likely not have enough storage space in your house to store these furniture pieces. So, the only way for you to get chairs and tables for the party without being inconvenienced is by simply renting those pieces from party rental businesses. The events place you have chosen may also have offers for chair and table rentals.
Buy Summer-Themed Decorations
If you want the party to look more appealing, you should buy decorations for the event that are suitable for the summer. Some of the best decorations that you can add are plastic palm trees, flamingo statues, tiki torches, and beach balls. These decorations will make the party livelier for your guests.
Pick Who to Invite
When you have already decided on the venue and the date of the party, you would then have to create a guest list so that you can see who you will be able to invite for the event. You can just create a list of people you want to invite first, and then ask them if they are free for the day of the birthday. If they are not, you can replace them with other potential guests. Besides knowing which ones to invite, you should also count how many you can invite, since inviting too many people can be difficult to manage, especially if you just rented a small events place.
Send Invitations to Guests
While physical invitations are considered old-school nowadays, they are considered a way to make the guests and the party itself more special. You can customize invitations using different programs or tools on your laptop or desktop computer, or you can hire someone to make invitations for you if you aren’t skilled in design. Then, make sure that you print enough invitations for all of your guests. You have the choice to deliver the invitation on your own to each guest, or you can just have the invitations shipped through a courier if some of the guests live miles away from your home.
Provide Guests with Refreshing Drinks
Since it will be a summer pool party, you should provide guests with cold and refreshing drinks, which could come in the form of simple drinks like soda and juice or complex concoctions like cocktails and mixed drinks. In order to keep the drinks as cold as possible (without being frozen), you should have an electric cooler ready as storage for the drinks. This electric cooler enables your drinks to remain cold without the need for you to regularly fill the cooler with ice.
Get Some Snacks Ready
Besides providing the food served by the catering business, you should get some snacks ready so that guests will have something to bite or chew on for a few minutes before getting back to the pool. Potato chips are usually the simplest and most popular snacks to get for summer pool parties, but if you want the event to look fancier, you can serve complex snacks like tacos, burritos, overloaded nachos, and more.
Add Some Floats or Inflatable Toys to the Pool
If there are going to be kids at the summer pool party, you should definitely decorate the pool with colorful floats and inflatable toys that they can also play with. Some of the best inflatable toys that you can add to the pool include inflatable swim rings, inflatable flamingos, inflatable slides (if the pool is big), and inflatable dolphins. There are even some floats that can light up, and these ones are perfect for parties that can last from the afternoon to the night.
Set a Party Playlist
A party playlist will help set the mood of the event, and to keep the guests uplifted, you should blast some upbeat music using a large set of speakers and your smartphone. You can download different songs to your smartphone, but a convenient, fast, and easy way to create a playlist is to make it through music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. These streaming apps will allow you to easily search for different party anthems or specific songs that you want to add to the playlist. If you pay for a subscription to these apps, you can even download the playlist you created so that it can be played even without an internet connection.
Offer Sunscreen to Your Guests for Protection
Even if you are going to hold the party during the afternoon, there is still a chance that you and your guests can get sunburned, which can be quite painful for the skin. So, you should offer sunscreen to your guests for their protection, although some of them most likely already brought sunscreen with them. But, if they don’t have sunscreen or if they ran out of it, you can offer them sunscreen every two hours.
You Can Make the Party Last Until Nighttime
There are a lot of people that enjoy nighttime swimming more than daytime swimming, and if you have guests that do like to swim at night, you have the choice of making the party last until nighttime. A nighttime pool party is enjoyed more by adults, particularly those that are close to each other. If you have best friends or close friends at the party, you can consider a nighttime pool party that has alcoholic drinks and plenty of snacks. But, if you have kids with you, a nighttime party may not be advisable since it would be more difficult to monitor kids at night because of how dark it can be outdoors.
Schedule Fun Games and Activities for Kids and Adults
A summer pool party wouldn’t be complete without some fun games and activities for kids and adults. Kids are most likely the ones that will enjoy games more, but there are also adult-oriented games that are as fun and as exciting as the games played by kids. Children can participate in games that are more physical like relays and races, while adults may enjoy playing board games, charades, and other games for the brain.
Offer Waterproof Phone Cases
People tend to use their smartphones anywhere, including the sides of the pool. So, in order to prevent the guests’ phones from getting damaged due to being splashed with or submerged in water, you should offer them waterproof phone cases or pouches that can fit almost any smartphone. Fortunately, waterproof phone cases and pouches are affordable nowadays, so you can just give them to guests as a souvenir or a party favor.
Set Up a Photobooth for Guests
Photos are a great way to preserve and store memories in physical form, and what better way for you and your guests to preserve the memories made from the party than by setting up a photobooth that kids and adults can use. There are some businesses that offer mobile photobooth for parties and other special events, but you can also make a DIY photobooth if you have an HD camera, a photo printer, and several pieces of photography equipment that will make photos look better.
Provide Different Forms of Entertainment
To keep the guests entertained after swimming in the pool for hours and participating in games and activities, you can provide different forms of entertainment like movie marathons, talent showcases, mini concerts, and more. These forms of entertainment can help strengthen the bond of friends and family members, as they can share insights or opinions about the movie or concert they are watching. In addition, they can also participate in the showcase and concert if they have the talent for singing or playing instruments.
Create Conversations Between Guests
To make the party more engaging for adult guests, you should create conversations with guests and then let other people join in on the conversation. Remember that you are the host of the party and it is your responsibility to make the guests feel happy and comfortable, and one way to do that is to keep them engaged through activities, games, and simple conversations with other guests.
Give Souvenirs to Your Guests
To leave a lasting impression on your guests, you should give them souvenirs that may include different items like candies, figurines, and accessories. These souvenirs should be memorable and are usable as display pieces, as fashion items, or as consumables. Some of the best summer-themed souvenirs that you can give to guests are mini slime tubs, kinetic sand tubs, and inflatable toys.
So, those are 20 of the best ideas we can give to you when it comes to organizing and hosting a summer pool party with friends or family members. Follow the ideas we provided and create the most fun and exciting party that will surely be memorable for your loved ones.