It’s almost time for the race that stops the nation! Melbourne Cup only happens once a year – in 2024 that’s Tuesday, November 5 – so make the most of it and host your own soirée at home to celebrate with family and friends.
Here are some great ideas to help you plan the ‘mane’ event to ensure your guests get that first past the winning post feeling:
Sweepstakes:
Sweepstakes are half of the fun of a great Melbourne Cup party – even those who aren’t really interested in the race are excited to try their luck with a random choice of horse. It’s a good idea to get the sweepstakes going at the start of your party so the anticipation builds for the race start at 3 pm Melbourne time.
You can grab a MC sweepstake that morning from a local newspaper, or download one from a betting site and print it off. If you have less than 24 people attending, you can let each person select more than one horse.
Don’t forget to make a note of who has which horse and display it where everyone can see it to keep the excitement going!
Get dressy:
Melbourne Cup is as much about dressing up as it is about the actual race – turn things up a notch by setting a dress code asking everyone to ‘frock’ up for the day, offering prizes for best dressed, best fascinator or best suit to ramp up the competition.
Encourage female guests to wear their brightest, shiniest colours and biggest hats, while the men can turn up with funky and strange ties and socks.
Organise extravagant catering, or make extraordinary canapés:
Melbourne Cup is all about extravagance, so make sure this extends to your food and drink! Whether you organise a catered spread or make extraordinary canapés yourself, it needs to be a smorgasbord of goodies and plenty of bubbles.
Serve your mouth-watering spread before the race begins, so the action doesn’t get interrupted. If you looking to host a lunch, then a buffet of salads, cold meat, seafood and desserts is a great way to go as guests can serve themselves whenever they feel hungry.
It’s important to make sure you have enough food to soak up all that Champagne everyone will be downing! You also need to have non-alcoholic choices available for those who don’t want a sore head the next day.
Click here to discover recipes for five retro canapés with a modern twist for party inspiration.
Fun and games:
Melbourne Cup can be a long day, often starting well before lunch and continuing after the race, so plan some fun activities. The day is all about winning, so how about a Cup trivia competition?
Ask questions about Melbourne Cup history, the horses in this year’s race, the jockeys and other interesting facts you can source about the event. Make the questions as easy or as hard as you want with prizes at the end. It’s all fun and games anyway!
While everyone is all dressed up, get them to show off their outfits with a Melbourne Cup Fashion Parade and hand out awards for best dressed, hat etc.
The race itself:
This is the whole reason of having the party in the first place! Don’t forget to set up the visual aids before the race begins so everyone can watch it when it starts! There is nothing like not being able to turn on the TV when the event is about to commence – epic fail and a big party pooper.
