Building the Zeitgeist

In German, the term “zeitgeist” comes loosely from “the spirit of the times,” and this is something that largely happens without people really trying to set it intentionally. While some people will work to influence the overall zeitgeist of the culture, most people will simply settle in and enjoy the ride. However, you may not be the type to just “go with the flow,” preferring instead to build the kind of flow you want to have.

Setting the tone of events doesn’t need to involve becoming a major figure of society as a whole. In fact, a lot of the time, you can simply set the zeitgeist of a short time period, such as a single evening. When you want to build the spirit of the season into just being the spirit of a single exceptional night, you have the power to do precisely that. There are several ways you can do just this.

Mood Lighting

Setting the lights to be a shade or two dimmer will subconsciously make people want to stand more closely together, in order to see one another more clearly. This has the side effect of making their conversations just a bit more intimate. While you can take this even further, having your entire night be at the lighting level of candlelight may be too much.

Of course, you can take the lights down that’s very low for the entire space, especially in the evening. This hides subtle flaws in people’s complexions, and will tend to increase the number of people who don’t leave your event alone, even if they showed up alone. If this is your intention, use it sparingly and get some fantastic effects.

Food and Drink

Any good get-together is going to involve offering people something delicious to eat and drink. The trick is you don’t want people to get too full, especially if they might become nervous about potentially gaining weight. You just want the people who come to your event to eat enough that their stomachs don’t growl, and to drink enough that they can talk all night long without becoming parched. This is a painful experience for anyone to have, and avoiding this consequence is one of the basic elements of a successful party of any kind.

Generally speaking, you want your drinks to be in one spot, while your snacks are in another. This encourages people to migrate around the room and open themselves up to new conversations. If you can, you may even put intentional “obstacles” near both the food and beverage areas to get people a little bit closer to one another. 

Gifts

When you want to give something amazing, you can check out wine and snack collections. Offering people luxury wine gift baskets that may also have chocolates or caviar is a perfect way of showing people that they are special to you. When you present something extraordinary, you can bet the person will remember it down the line.

Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

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