How to organise a street party
Are you thinking of organising a street party? A street party is easier to organise than you’d think – but it takes teamwork and planning!
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.
Apply for a road closure
Road closures should be applied for at least 8 weeks in advance. 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.
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
Set up
When the road closure is in force, set up the road closure barriers and any signs, it may be useful to have someone managing this closure and to assist if anyone needs to get in or out. Once the road is closed, you can set up your tables and chairs, hang bunting etc.
Take pictures
This is a historic day you’ll want to look back on and share with future generations, be sure to take plenty of photos on the day and share them with us so we can showcase the events across the district!
Keep neighbours in mind
If not all of your neighbours can or want to attend, be sure to be respectful in terms of noise and music and finishing up at an acceptable time.
Clear up and reopen the road
Once your event is over, clear and put away your tables, chairs and decorations and clear any litter.
Tell us about your event!
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.