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Comment by morisy | Hacker News Reader

Offline community is such an important part of building online community, and Patron captured this well, but the part I really liked about this post was how they looked at the typical available options (hosting parties at a bar) and then took a perpendicular decision: Let's spend that money on our own terms.

If you've ever done event planning, having a catered gig at a restaurant, etc., can be extremely prohibitive, but renting a boat and using your own people can cut through all those overhead costs and deliver a better ROI.

I do wonder: With only ten people, what does Patron do if one of the 10 turns out to be a real creepy individual, ruining the experience for everyone?

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There was a lot of staff on hand so I'm sure if someone got rowdy... "man overboard!". In all seriousness, we got lucky -- everyone enjoyed the event. Food was amazing delicious. I wish they put the recipes online for the food instead of just the cocktail ones..

Seems like an awful lot of overhead -- in terms of cash and labor -- to only touch a small amount of people. Compare, for instance, to a nightclub event sponsored by a liquor in Miami that turns out 500+ people.

I wonder how many of those 500 people would write an effusive blog post like this one about the event.

I think you're overestimating this one blogger's reach vs. 500/X's Facebook likes, checkins or comments (X being a vague social non-participation factor which is shrinking quickly). Consider the size of all those people's social graphs, how many impressions are made. The event would still have to be excellently run and inventive (like the Patron event in the article) to maximize impact, but I don't see a reason for such small groups like this unless money is literally no object.

How many of 500+ people will have negative experiences which they will share online?

That's the danger of an event like that.

So you're saying you would purposely invite fewer people to an event (even if that means a much higher cost per participant) in order to minimize negative reviews? That doesn't make very much sense to me.

The possibility of negative experiences is the danger of a Patron event too. It's easier for one person to ruin an "exclusive" event with only 9 other people, more likely to generate whining from people that have missed out and easier for the grumpy person to be the only one that actually has a blog. People arbitrarily selected for a hugely lavish "exclusive" event are strangely more likely to object to being treated as a glorified photo opportunity, delays and not liking one of the dishes on the 5* menu than people lured into a moderately exclusive nightspot by the promise of entertainment and selected free drinks if they and their friends can stomach the queues.

You can make more compelling YouTube videos of your branded live music event too.

The reality is that it all ultimately depends on whether you're trying for mass appeal or exclusivity.

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