Create an Unconventional Meet and Its Itinerary

As great as it is to just hang out with your comm friends, see an interesting exhibition, do some crafting or have a nice meal, it’s good to shake things up a bit sometimes. The key here is in coming up with a meet that’s out of the ordinary, but not so much that it starts to feel forced or like you’re trying to do too much at once (leave that for when you’re planning a Lolita con). Some of the ideas that I’ve had before involved makeup and/or nail art meets (not that I’m an expert at either) or jewellery making. But even those, however uncommon, are just another take at a crafts meet. But this one I really would like to organise one day, if possible.

Mixing a bit of Lolita lifestyle with things that Lolitas in general might enjoy, I’d love to put on a perfume making workshop. Due to the costs involved, it would probably have to be an ILD meet, potentially a Winter ILD, since it’d be an indoor event and we wouldn’t have to waste nice weather should it appear for the Summer ILD.

My plan would be to host the event at a venue that combines looks with practicalities – I’m sure that hotels would have suitable enough conference rooms to hold such a workshop – and afterwards move on to a meal of some sort (because I like eating and if someone’s coming for a whole day for ILD, the least they deserve is to not have to buy McDonald’s afterwards). As I have no knowledge in the perfume making field, the workshop must be led by an external person. Now, whilst I know someone who regularly holds such workshops, they are based in Poland, so I would either have to find someone in the UK to keep the costs down or up the ticket price, or host a larger group to make sure that I can cover all the costs (transport, materials and host fee for the workshop AND the price of the food, venue hire and raffle prizes). This certainly wouldn’t be a cheap meet unless I could find ways to cut corners or get a favour somewhere, e.g. get the venue for free.

An afternoon tea afterwards might not satiate people’s appetites, so I see either a pre-booked meal or a buffet-style afternoon tea so that people could fill their stomachs up sufficiently. This is where usual activities would come in: a time to socialise, take photos, eat, have a raffle, maybe exchange presents if this really was a Winter ILD meet and we had no further Christmas ones planned. All of this, based on what I have glimpsed on the internet so far, would probably be a 6-8 hour event, at least 2 hours for the workshop and the rest for chilling, eating and socialising.

The big question is whether this is realistic to pull off. I’m optimistic and reckon that yes, it could be done, although I need to put in a lot more research into costs and venues to work out the minimum cost and how to spread that across tickets. I don’t know when would I be able to host this, as I’m planning to move, nonetheless, I’d love to host a perfume making workshop ILD meet one day. This could be an excellent way to celebrate and connect with Lolita fashion lifestyle – and potentially make a perfume that’s perfect for us or perfect for a coordinate!

Have you ever hosted a meet? If so, was it large or small in terms of attendance? Would you like to try breaking the meet mold somehow, either by organising or attending an out-of-the-ordinary meet one day? Or maybe you have already been to one? Don’t forget to check out what the other bloggers have written, there is plenty of inspiration there!

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