How to Throw a St Andrews House Party

The house party is essential to surviving university; if done right, you wake up sore in unexpected places but refreshed and revived in the hope that everything will be okay and just maybe you’ll even get a job straight out of St Andrews. But throwing a house party is a skill set that not everyone is equipped or ready for: it’s not for the weak-hearted SD students or the pathetic bots of the town who study in SPACE. You want to hold the legendary title of the flat of 111B, not someone who took an edible because they got too anxious wondering if everyone was having a good time. 

Do not fret, for I am the Martha Stewart of St Andrews. With my expertise, you can avoid the treacheries of being a one-trick pony who can only have people over for a nice candlelit dinner and instead be known for your kegstands. 

Florine Stettheimer, Studio Party (Soirée), 1917-19.

Dress code: None of that “dress as your type,” wear a wig, or come as a frat boy. And please, for everyone’s sake, ditch the black tie. Leaving Tesco, buying Barefoot Wine in your suit, is overdone and boring. You need something better, more specific. Think in terms of dressing as your preferred type of milk, or even your favourite St Andrews town celebrity (for example: the guy who used to obsessively comb his red hair on Market Street).

Venue: Nothing quite compares to the venue of an in-home party. And it doesn’t have to be fancy, just make sure it’s in town (insert mass criticism from the Badlands Occupants). You don’t have much competition in terms of venues. No matter how many rebrands it attempts, the house party will always be better than the Vic, The Rule, or a ‘nostalgic’ trip to the Union. Just make sure to have two main rooms at your disposal and at least one bedroom for that ‘clay pigeon stuff’ (this will come in later).

Guest List:  This is absolutely essential: you need to assemble an A-team. There’s a long-standing theory that if you put a group of sixes to eights in a room together, they’ll do whatever you tell them. Unfortunately, this is St Andrews: almost every girl is a ten (men are a different story), so instead, build strategically.

Start with the people already in your life: the theology student you’ve never spoken to but always wave at across St Mary’s Lawn, the Palompos barista who makes hearts in your flat white, the person you sit next to in tutorials who lets you hit their watermelon vape. Why not? From there, you need to fill key roles. Every good party relies on a very specific bunch: the fresher you’ve somehow enlisted as a concierge (red tailcoat), the guy who swears he’s in a secret society (he will kiss anyone who vaguely resembles a woman), a crush to kiss, evoking the most euphoric feeling of your twenties, and the American who is never actually in St Andrews, permanently ‘abroad’ somewhere but mysteriously reappears for a management tutorial and any ‘top’ fashion show.

Beer Bathtub: If you’re feeling generous, you might offer to provide the booze for your house party, which is rare, but giving out free beer is basically like giving a fresher their first-ever extension request. They will abuse it to no end. Sure, you could just leave the beer out on a table and let people go through the stash throughout the night. But why would you, when you could fill an entire bathtub with beer bottles and ice? Yes, you were bathing naked in bubbles there last night, but nobody has to know. This is your house party: a classy establishment. Live a little.

Now, this is just a light starter guide; the more practical details (flamethrowers, clay pigeon things in the bedroom, etc.) you’ll have to sort out yourself, but it gives you a solid foundation for forging the best house party in St Andrews.

Image from Artvee