10:17 p.m.
Okay. Here's an update on Sparky's Den after I did some phone calling today.
* We can rent Sparky's Den on Saturday or Sunday night; both are
currently available. Cost would be $155/hr.
* Sparky's Den, as previously mentioned, has 8 lanes of bowling, 14
billiards tables, 2 table tennis tables, foosball, 4 tvs, and an
arcade. The cost for all of these activities, including bowling shoe
rental, is included in the $155/hr cost. Sparky's is open until 11pm.
* We would need to utilize University catering or other approved
catering places for food.
* We can have alcohol. We would need to work with a bartending
service, specifically Pourmasters (the only one asu catering usually
works with). We are able to provide our own alcohol, but per
university rules, we cannot have a cash bar. It must be an open bar.
* There is some sort of rule about no under-21's in the serving area.
I'm not sure exactly what that means, but obviously that is something
we need to figure out. If that means we can't have people under 21
near the alcohol, or we all need to be cordoned off, that's not going
to work so well. I have (yet another) call put in to figure this out.
We would also need to get a liquor permit from the University, which
from what I understand is a very easy process.
* Checking into the Pourmasters website, we can hire a bartender for
$25/hr (5 hour minimum), and we would have to rent at least one bar
($75). Alternately, there is a package for $3.25/person (for 100
people, probably drops slightly with another 50 people) that includes:
Bartender, Bar, bottled water, Sodas, mixers (juice / tonic /
margarita / etc), Ice, Cups, napkins, etc. From what I can see the
latter option is a reasonable deal, otherwise we have to figure out
all of those items on our own and provide them anyhow. The whole
service would run ~$630, for 150 people (including overestimated sales
tax and what I assume will be a 20% gratuity added on). (I have a call
into Pourmasters to verify this stuff.)
Assuming that the "no under 21's" means that we just need to keep our
underage pals within some distance from the bar (ie: this is a viable
plan), we have a few options. Let's assume fixed cost of $630 for
bartending, and $620 for 4 hours in Sparky's Den (6-10, or 7-11), for
a total of $1250. With the current budget of $4k, that would leave us
with $2750, or $18/person. 18 bucks a person would buy a reasonable
buffet dinner, including rolls, tea, and something including
vegetarian options; $10/person would buy a plentiful variety of
appetizers.
#1) Head over fairly early in the evening, have a catered buffet-style
dinner while we play and whatnot. Let those who want to drink alcohol
throw in $10 and we (I + a helper or two) can do a beer run at some
point on Saturday.
#2) Head over after dinnertime-ish, let people fend for themselves for
dinner, and provide appetizers and stay from maybe 7 or 8 - 11pm.
Provide drinks and alcohol for everyone.
Or some combination of the above. We could go early, eat, skip the
alcohol and stay till 9pm - and adjourn and let the drinkers move onto
bar-land on Mill Avenue, etc.
For the record, I've looked into "how much alcohol do we need" and
came up with the following for 100 drinkers (I know we'll have some
underagers from ASU, plus our own underagers, plus kids.) Recommended
was - 16 bottles of spirits, 240 beers (40 6-packs), and 24 bottles of
wine, assuming we are 20% wine drinkers, 40% liquor drinkers, and 40%
beer drinkers. If we buy 16 bottles of liquor at ~$25/apiece, 40
6-packs at $8 = $360, and 24 bottles of wine at ~$10 (yes, I realize
this is not a lot for a bottle of wine, but I think we could do well
sale-hunting) - that total would clock in around $760. If we had 80
people chip in $10, that would get us all of the above, and they'd
likely get a lot more bang for the buck than they would at a regular
bar. Also, if we overshoot, we can take leftovers back for a refund,
or send them home with someone who is of drinking age and lives in
Arizona (ha ha ha). :) We'd have to provide a list of what quantities
of alcohol we were using beforehand, and count on the goodness of
people's hearts to pony up once they're in town.
I think this seems like a reasonable option, provided we can
accommodate underage attendees. Also, we know people will show up on
time to go to FUDPub, and they'll then know the way to Memorial Union
on Monday morning. :)
It would be good to see what something would run at Dave and Buster's
or Gameworks. I suspect the cost to (a) rent buses to go to Dave and
Busters / Gameworks or (b) rent out sparky's den will be very similar,
and we'll have all "fun" taken care of at Sparky's for that price.
However, I think the food at ASU might be slightly more pricey, but
I'm not entirely sure.
Will update with more tl;dr once I hear back on the underage
situation, and the bartender can provide a more solid quote for what
150 people would run us.
-Robyn