No Invite? Just Crash!
Dec 11, 2003
FORMER Capital FM presenter, Edward Zizinga once proudly and boldly, I might add announced, “I don’t need an invitation card to parties.
By Timothy Bukumunhe
FORMER Capital FM presenter, Edward Zizinga once proudly and boldly, I might add announced, “I don’t need an invitation card to parties. It is all about face value.†His face value, as he put it, worked for him on a number of occasions.
With December here, the society scene has moved into high gear. Weeks ago, just about everybody was fighting for invites to the Big Brother parties at Kampala Casino and Viper room. Last Friday, those not invited begged for invitations to the Uganda Breweries Sunset Cruise and yesterday there was chaos, as people made frantic last minute calls to get on the MTN Y’ello bash at Ange Noir. And today at Speke Resort Munyonyo, is Natasha Karugire’s fashion show. Oh, how people frantically called anybody with links to the first family in a bid to get on the invitation list.
But not everybody will get an invite to the functions that will roll out this December, yet they want to go to and more importantly, be seen. They want to mingle with the notables in society. They want to be photographed, to be written about and to be shown on television shows like Showtime Magazine on WBS or Vogue on UTV. But just because you do not have an invite, does not mean it is the end of the road. Rule number one: Every party can be gate-crashed. It all lies in the approach one takes to get them through the front door.
Getting Invited
This is the hard part. Most of the big companies like MTN, Nile Breweries, South African Airways, and Celtel no longer handle their invites. Rather the job of coming up with a guest list and sending out the invites, is contracted to public relations firms like The Studio, Scanad, MCL Mcann and GQ Saatchi and Saatchi. So whether you know MTN’s Philip Besimire or Aggrey Kagonyera, UBL’s Marion Adengo or Sandor Walusimbi or Nile Breweries’ Billy Blick it will not help.
Most of the time, they do not even know who is on the guest list to their parties. Anyway at the first sniff of the magic word ‘Party’, launch an immediate full-scale charm offensive on anybody you know who works for a public relations firm and woo them with drinks at say The Venue. If that does not work, start sending them thinly veiled threats like “my cousin works for the Red Pepper!â€
Gate-crashing
Never demean yourself by saying you have to gate crash a party! The public relations firm either forgot to send you your invitation card or by the time it was delivered to your office, you had already left for the day. Nevertheless you still have to attend the party but there is protocol to be observed. Go to the venue during the afternoon and check out the set up. That way you will know what sort of function it is and you can dress appropriately. The last thing you want is turning up at a black tie function in second hand baggy T-shirt from Owino Market. That will only get you bounced and earn you space in the gossip columns the following week.
As you walk up to the door, do not cower and start freaking out when you find there is a bouncer and one of those pretty girls from Arapapa at the door asking for invites. As you walk, look them straight in the eye and have a demeanour about yourself that reads: purpose, in control and I am an important person.
Talk to the bouncer and the pretty girl before they have a chance to ask you for your invite. In fact, control the conversation by asking them how many guests have arrived and where you can get a glass of water to take your medicine. Also ask the bouncer for his name and then tell him to look for you when your driver returns with your car keys. Before you know it, you have waltzed through.
Making an entrance
A much underestimated art in these informal times. Your entrance should not be low key as to arouse suspicion, but well calculated that you blend in. The people at the door — usually Santa Anzo’s models, even the guard from APS or Tight Security are not stupid. You may have gotten past the door, but for 10 minutes they will monitor your movements to see if you fit in, if you know anybody. So don’t go sprinting for the bar or tuck yourself in a corner and start hiding.
Establishing territory
Like wars and games, parties are mainly won or lost on the amount of territory you gain. You should set up shop somewhere where everyone else desperately wants to be and jealously guard it, the way a hyena would guard the entrance to its lair as it looks after its cubs. Hovering somewhere near the bar is a good idea so that you do not have to keep on fighting through the crowds to get a drink. If the party is at somebody’s house, an ideal spot is the kitchen, or if this is not possible, as near to the kitchen doorway as you can get, without ending up spending your whole time passing things out to other guests. This is a prime pitch because:
a) You are close to the catering,
b) People have to pass you to get another drink/chicken wings. This means you can effortlessly mingle and size up all the talent without looking for one moment as though you are.
c) You can make a quick and painless exit if your discover you are surrounded by a party full of boring accountants and bankers from Barclays, Crane and Standard Chartered.
Dancing
If the carpet was meant to be danced on, how come you never see a nice polyester Axeminster in a night-club? The simple truth is that everybody looks like an idiot dancing on a carpet. When the Afrigo CD starts playing, you can either decide to refuse to come out of the kitchen on aesthetic grounds, or leap in and make a complete fool of yourself like everyone else, with total impunity.
Party sex
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. The thought of playing a quick and totally unexpected game of Trains and Tunnels is, after all, the only thing that makes the whole ridiculous charade even vaguely tolerable. However, outside of teenage birthday parties and gatherings involving the small brown things from campus, actually achieving it in-situ, is altogether another matter.
l Timing is everything: Leave it too late and you will either be too drunk to raise anything other than the toilet seat or all the bedrooms will be full of guests who got their act together, while you were still pretending to be interested in what she is studying at Makerere. On the other hand, if you go for it too early, before you have had your quota of Tuskers, everybody will see and remember you as the guest who stormed the party with only one intention — looking for sex!
l Women sometimes have this weird reluctance to move in a matter of minutes from polite conversation about how much the host spent on furnishing his house, to going at it like dogs in a dark spot at the bottom of the garden. Overcome this hurdle by pretending that you live there and that it is perfectly OK to do IT on your blanket and that nobody will see you. However, this move might not work quite, so well if your potential bed-partner turns out to be the hostess.
l Do not be fussy. It is hard enough getting to even talk to the good-looking ones without trying to take them roughly from behind in a complete stranger’s garden shed. That said, set your priorities — do not despise the fat pimpled-faced girl who is standing alone in the corner downing Amarula after Amarula. After all, when you are at the bottom of the garden getting it on, will you care?
Making your exit
This is important: A party is never over as long as the beer and spirits are still flowing. And soft drinks are not classed as drinks! Anyway, like your entrance, your exit should be accomplished with style and flair. Don’t hang around all night waiting for a special hire taxi to show up. Just put your clothes on, swing by the bar and pick up a bottle of wine, kiss the hostess and run for your life before the bouncer, the fat faced-pimpled girl, the security guard from Tight Security and the girls from Arapapa discover you were not invited!
Ends
FORMER Capital FM presenter, Edward Zizinga once proudly and boldly, I might add announced, “I don’t need an invitation card to parties. It is all about face value.†His face value, as he put it, worked for him on a number of occasions.
With December here, the society scene has moved into high gear. Weeks ago, just about everybody was fighting for invites to the Big Brother parties at Kampala Casino and Viper room. Last Friday, those not invited begged for invitations to the Uganda Breweries Sunset Cruise and yesterday there was chaos, as people made frantic last minute calls to get on the MTN Y’ello bash at Ange Noir. And today at Speke Resort Munyonyo, is Natasha Karugire’s fashion show. Oh, how people frantically called anybody with links to the first family in a bid to get on the invitation list.
But not everybody will get an invite to the functions that will roll out this December, yet they want to go to and more importantly, be seen. They want to mingle with the notables in society. They want to be photographed, to be written about and to be shown on television shows like Showtime Magazine on WBS or Vogue on UTV. But just because you do not have an invite, does not mean it is the end of the road. Rule number one: Every party can be gate-crashed. It all lies in the approach one takes to get them through the front door.
Getting Invited
This is the hard part. Most of the big companies like MTN, Nile Breweries, South African Airways, and Celtel no longer handle their invites. Rather the job of coming up with a guest list and sending out the invites, is contracted to public relations firms like The Studio, Scanad, MCL Mcann and GQ Saatchi and Saatchi. So whether you know MTN’s Philip Besimire or Aggrey Kagonyera, UBL’s Marion Adengo or Sandor Walusimbi or Nile Breweries’ Billy Blick it will not help.
Most of the time, they do not even know who is on the guest list to their parties. Anyway at the first sniff of the magic word ‘Party’, launch an immediate full-scale charm offensive on anybody you know who works for a public relations firm and woo them with drinks at say The Venue. If that does not work, start sending them thinly veiled threats like “my cousin works for the Red Pepper!â€
Gate-crashing
Never demean yourself by saying you have to gate crash a party! The public relations firm either forgot to send you your invitation card or by the time it was delivered to your office, you had already left for the day. Nevertheless you still have to attend the party but there is protocol to be observed. Go to the venue during the afternoon and check out the set up. That way you will know what sort of function it is and you can dress appropriately. The last thing you want is turning up at a black tie function in second hand baggy T-shirt from Owino Market. That will only get you bounced and earn you space in the gossip columns the following week.
As you walk up to the door, do not cower and start freaking out when you find there is a bouncer and one of those pretty girls from Arapapa at the door asking for invites. As you walk, look them straight in the eye and have a demeanour about yourself that reads: purpose, in control and I am an important person.
Talk to the bouncer and the pretty girl before they have a chance to ask you for your invite. In fact, control the conversation by asking them how many guests have arrived and where you can get a glass of water to take your medicine. Also ask the bouncer for his name and then tell him to look for you when your driver returns with your car keys. Before you know it, you have waltzed through.
Making an entrance
A much underestimated art in these informal times. Your entrance should not be low key as to arouse suspicion, but well calculated that you blend in. The people at the door — usually Santa Anzo’s models, even the guard from APS or Tight Security are not stupid. You may have gotten past the door, but for 10 minutes they will monitor your movements to see if you fit in, if you know anybody. So don’t go sprinting for the bar or tuck yourself in a corner and start hiding.
Establishing territory
Like wars and games, parties are mainly won or lost on the amount of territory you gain. You should set up shop somewhere where everyone else desperately wants to be and jealously guard it, the way a hyena would guard the entrance to its lair as it looks after its cubs. Hovering somewhere near the bar is a good idea so that you do not have to keep on fighting through the crowds to get a drink. If the party is at somebody’s house, an ideal spot is the kitchen, or if this is not possible, as near to the kitchen doorway as you can get, without ending up spending your whole time passing things out to other guests. This is a prime pitch because:
a) You are close to the catering,
b) People have to pass you to get another drink/chicken wings. This means you can effortlessly mingle and size up all the talent without looking for one moment as though you are.
c) You can make a quick and painless exit if your discover you are surrounded by a party full of boring accountants and bankers from Barclays, Crane and Standard Chartered.
Dancing
If the carpet was meant to be danced on, how come you never see a nice polyester Axeminster in a night-club? The simple truth is that everybody looks like an idiot dancing on a carpet. When the Afrigo CD starts playing, you can either decide to refuse to come out of the kitchen on aesthetic grounds, or leap in and make a complete fool of yourself like everyone else, with total impunity.
Party sex
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. The thought of playing a quick and totally unexpected game of Trains and Tunnels is, after all, the only thing that makes the whole ridiculous charade even vaguely tolerable. However, outside of teenage birthday parties and gatherings involving the small brown things from campus, actually achieving it in-situ, is altogether another matter.
l Timing is everything: Leave it too late and you will either be too drunk to raise anything other than the toilet seat or all the bedrooms will be full of guests who got their act together, while you were still pretending to be interested in what she is studying at Makerere. On the other hand, if you go for it too early, before you have had your quota of Tuskers, everybody will see and remember you as the guest who stormed the party with only one intention — looking for sex!
l Women sometimes have this weird reluctance to move in a matter of minutes from polite conversation about how much the host spent on furnishing his house, to going at it like dogs in a dark spot at the bottom of the garden. Overcome this hurdle by pretending that you live there and that it is perfectly OK to do IT on your blanket and that nobody will see you. However, this move might not work quite, so well if your potential bed-partner turns out to be the hostess.
l Do not be fussy. It is hard enough getting to even talk to the good-looking ones without trying to take them roughly from behind in a complete stranger’s garden shed. That said, set your priorities — do not despise the fat pimpled-faced girl who is standing alone in the corner downing Amarula after Amarula. After all, when you are at the bottom of the garden getting it on, will you care?
Making your exit
This is important: A party is never over as long as the beer and spirits are still flowing. And soft drinks are not classed as drinks! Anyway, like your entrance, your exit should be accomplished with style and flair. Don’t hang around all night waiting for a special hire taxi to show up. Just put your clothes on, swing by the bar and pick up a bottle of wine, kiss the hostess and run for your life before the bouncer, the fat faced-pimpled girl, the security guard from Tight Security and the girls from Arapapa discover you were not invited!
Ends