The plates are pretty much empty, the food is all long gone. One or two people eye what remains of dessert, but everybody else is disinterested. When everybody starts lazily swirling the wine in their glasses, and somebody mutters something about Monday morning, you know for sure there’s no going back—the dinner party is over.

Hey, you tried. People eat, people drink, people get sleepy and want to go home. That’s human nature. But the energy zap that happens at the end of a dinner party isn’t inevitable. You can set the furniture, the lighting, and the music in a way that turns your dinner party into a loud, floor-shaking, hard-drinking cocktail party…..should you like. Just take these tips from some experts who basically throw a party every night.

Create a Zone (Or Three)

Make sure there are “different zones for people who are at different energy levels.” If you’re having any more than six people at your party, you need to do the same thing. You need space for people to splinter off. Two zones. Three is even better. The kitchen might be a high-energy zone (standing is great for story-telling), the living room might be a chill, relaxing zone, and wherever you’re serving food—in the dining room, at a table in the corner—might be somewhere in-between.

Alcohol In Full Effect

For a lively vibe right from the start, there’s really only one drink option: Lots of Liquor! Alcohol always breaks the ice. And it doesn’t all have to be too boozy. It can be a mix of champagne, spirits, mild cocktails and wine.

Upbeat Music To Start

Music is a metronome. It sets the pace for how people act. Start with something on the slower side of upbeat and slowly ramping it up from there. It maintains a nice consistent energy but never detracts from people talking.

Lower The Lights

Lighting is similar to music, but almost the inverse. Start out higher early in the evening, and as the night progresses, lights get lower: It can almost never be too dark. Candles are the preferred lighting (as long as they’re not scented). But just as important as the candles you light are the ones you blow out. When you all sit down, turn off most of the kitchen lights next to the dining room. It says: the cooking is done, time to enjoy time with friends.

Focus On The Middle

That slow and steady energy drop that happens when you have eight, ten, twelve people around a table? It doesn’t happen, when you seat people around a round table and put share plates in the middle. That encourages people to reach into the center together. We recommend foods that have the vibrancy and color you want your party to have, it’s fun to play with your food a little bit.

Start Shaking

Dinner’s done. Now’s the time to act fast. First tip: Don’t serve dessert right away, and definitely don’t serve it at the table. (You set up a dessert zone, didn’t you?) Your goal is to get people up from the table, and the best way to do that, is to start shaking cocktails. The best sound on Earth is shaking drinks. It’s just this amazing thing. All of a sudden, people are like, ‘what are you making over there?’ As the shaking starts, switch the music to something with more energy (less soul, more hip hop).

Its a real party now.

Source: Epicurious