Planning a street party

How to organise a street party

Are you thinking of organising a street party for the King’s Coronation? A street party is easier to organise than you’d think – but it takes teamwork and planning!

March

Talk to your neighbours about hosting a street party

See if they support the idea, you may want to write a letter and deliver it to everyone on your street or knock and talk to them. Perhaps you already have a neighbourhood group on Facebook, Neighbourhood or WhatsApp that you can use to contact them.

Agree on a date and time

When you have your neighbourhood on board, agree a day that works best for everyone. The King’s Coronation is a 3 day weekend, so you have multiple days to choose from. 

The Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III will take place on Saturday 6 May 2023.

The Big Coronation lunch is 6-8 May and you can find more information on the eden project communities website.

Apply for a road closure

Road closures should be applied for at least 6 weeks in advance, so you’ll ideally need to make your application by 24 March. You’ll need to email us at events@braintree.gov.uk and we’ll send you an application pack, explanatory letter and a risk assessment form.

Sign up volunteers

Once your neighbourhood has agreed to a street party, sign up some volunteers to help with the organisation. It’s a lot of work so don’t try to do it alone!

Set up a committee

When you have some interest and volunteers, organise a committee and share out jobs and responsibilities such as organising road closures, sorting out promotion of the event to residents, securing tables and chairs, organising food etc.


April

Promote your event

When you have a date and time agreed and the road closure secured, you can begin promoting your event to your neighbours.

Create or buy decorations

Start working on making or buying decorations such as bunting, table dressings and props. Try to opt for sustainable materials or reusing old materials.

Organise or prepare for rain

The British weather is famously unpredictable so ensure you have a back-up plan if it rains on the day such a gazebo or marquee.

Plan Activities

You may want to run some fun activities on the day, so agree these and timetable them into the day. You might want to decide if there is a competition element and if there will be prizes. Perhaps you could organise a raffle or tombola on the day to help towards the cost of the event.


1 Week Before

Send out a reminder of the event

Hopefully everyone is well informed, but a reminder the week before will help prompt people to attend, be mindful of the road closure and move cars from the road if necessary.

Display the legal order for road closure

Display the legal order for the road closure if you are required to.


On the Day

When your road closure is in place, put out your road closure signs and mark out the closed part of the street with traffic cones or floor markers.

Then you can begin setting up for your street party by bringing out tables and chairs and decorating the street with bunting, setting up activity areas, laying the table and setting out food and playing music.

You may want a grace period to let people arrive before enjoying food and refreshments or you might prefer more of a buffet/grazing approach.

You might want to have activities or events throughout the day such as a bake off judging, races, crafting, so schedule these in but try and keep the day casual and not too rigid in time.

Be sure to take lots of photos and videos throughout the day to remember this special day and share with future generations.

Try and stick to your proposed times so as not to disturb those who didn’t wish to attend, have young children or work shifts. If playing music, keep this at an acceptable level and aim to keep the noise down after 7pm.

Once your event is over, clear and put away your tables, chairs and decorations and clear any litter.

Tell us about your event!

List your event on Visit Braintree District.

We would love to hear about your street parties and share photos of your event! Please contact us via marketing@braintree.gov.uk to tell us about your party and send pictures. Please get permission from participants to share photos and fill in our consent form.