A Temporary Alternative World for Those Who Enter It

With Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering

The aphorism "You can't throw the same party twice" is a wry acknowledgment of the wisdom Priya Parker distills and dispenses in her new book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters.

Gatherings—which she defines as the conscious bringing together of people for a reason—are an essential human activity. Sadly, they often fail to achieve their purpose, much less delight those who participate in them.

Parker, the founder of Thrive Labs, has helped hundreds of people, from community activists to CEOs and heads of state, create gatherings that are both memorable and transformative. Her simple rules, wide-ranging examples, and enthusiastic presentation are eye-opening and inspiring. Anyone who’s ever had to quell pre-event jitters or wished for a magic wand to wave over a business meeting, dinner party, class reunion, or conference will welcome this engaging and eminently practical book.


Parker recently took time out from a busy launch schedule to answer some of the questions the we posed to her by email.


You’ve said that a gathering starts long before the event, and that preparing human beings, not logistics, is key. One of your signatures is the dinner held the night before the primary event. How does time and the temporal figure into the art of gathering?

I believe every gathering contains the opportunity to create a temporary alternative world for those who enter it. And one of the ways to do that is to think like a game designer and create temporary rules.

One of the most interesting and thoughtful gatherers I met in writing this book was a game designer named Albert Kong. Kong hosts monthly game design nights in San Francisco at which guests get to present new games they’ve created to a live group of people, and then watch the group play it for the first time. Kong’s purpose is to help everyone in that room realize and practice the skill of rule formation. “If the society we live in is a game, then changing the world is making the rules we want to play,” he told me.

There is a concept in game design called “the magic circle.” Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman popularized and explained this idea in their fantastic book, Rules of Play. The basic idea is that the power of games is that you get to create rules that everyone agrees upon. And when the game “starts,” every player steps into this proverbial magic circle where the rules are different, and your behavior changes based on them. I believe gatherings work in much the same way. Each gathering — whether a birthday party, a family reunion, a conference, or a hackathon — creates an opportunity for the thoughtful host to temporarily create a specific world for a group that they open, spend time in, and then close.


What are the two most important elements for fueling the alchemy of a memorable gathering?

Public intimacy — when people are vulnerable in front of each other and share of themselves — and heat, by which I mean facing the things we typically avoid, such as conflict, taboo, and controversy.


Do you have a favorite gathering, or favorite type of gathering?

I love gatherings that have a specific purpose, with a specific audience, and a thoughtful format that reflects that purpose. Some of the gatherings I admire include Lennon Flowers’ The Dinner Party, Michael Hebb’s Death Over Dinner, and Jenifer McCrea and Jeffrey Walker’s Jeffersonian Dinners. And of course, our very own House of Beautiful Business 15 Toasts.

And then there are certain people who you just know that if they’re designing or hosting something, you should do everything you can to be there. People like Anthony Rocco, Ida Benedetto, Jerri Chou, Danya Shults, Jon Morris of the Windmill Factory, and Mari Sierra all come immediately to mind.


Are there any kinds of gatherings you tend to avoid?

Networking events.


Is there any particular memory from your young life that you now believe influenced your call to write about the power of a well-conceived gathering?

My mother has been a huge influence on me. She’s a sociologist/cultural anthropologist and is an incredible gatherer. Throughout my childhood she created various well-conceived gatherings, though I didn’t think of them as such at the time. When I was eleven, she threw me a “period party” where she, along with half-a-dozen of her female friends, welcomed me into womanhood. When I was in high school, she hosted weekly gatherings in our basement for a dozen of my friends to learn “life skills,” as she put it. She understands the power of ritual, and I am all the better for it.


You’ve described a kind of physical breakdown you experienced when you were a hard-driving twenty-something that set you on a different path, one that led you to found Thrive Labs. When you’ve talked about that time you’ve said that one of the things that helped your recovery was dance. How?

When I had my breakdown, I simplified my life in many ways, and cut most “extra” things out of my days. I had a teacher at the time who told me to practice becoming aware of what I wanted to do in each minute and to close the gap between thinking about that thing and actually just doing it.

It is an exercise meant to help people get clear on their actual desires, as opposed to their “shoulds,” and it is based on the idea of nurturing your creative spirit. I found that I wanted to dance. And so I started regularly attending West African dance and hip hop classes in my neighborhood. It was a radically simple act. Rather than thinking about going to dance class, I just went. Those classes helped me physically rebuild my strength.
But regular attendance also became a simple act where my beliefs about myself and my interests began to match the way I actually spent my time.


Do you have a spiritual practice?

Prayer.


What is the most romantic aspect of your work?

Creating environments where people decide to show more of themselves than they may be used to, and watching relationships transform because of it.


What do you always make sure to do when you’re drawing an event to a close? What makes for a beautiful ending?

So many of our gatherings simply just stop — a group reaches the end of the agenda and the meeting dissipates, the last session of the conference finishes and people head to the coat check, a dinner party is winding down and everyone gets up to leave. Think about simple ways to create a closing so that your gathering doesn't just stop, it ends. This can be through giving a toast, finding a creative fun way to remind people of the times of the evening, or, having some way for people to give final thoughts.

Renaissance Weekend, a gathering I write about in the book, ends their conference with a session called "if These Were My Last Remarks." they invite 20 participants to each share with the larger group what they would say if this were the end of their life.
“It’s motivating, it’s touching, it’s tragic, and it kind of seals the bond,” Alison Gelles, its Executive Director, told me.

Also, as I talk about in the book, never end on logistics. do them second-to-last.


If you could convene only one gathering in the next three years, what would its purpose be, and who would you invite?

It would have to do with stitching our national fabric back together again, or perhaps weaving in anew.


Is there a gathering that you would hope never to miss?

Family dinner.

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