Fraternities have an absolute blast on Bourbon Street balconies for their formals. There’s something about being up above the street, looking down on seven blocks of packed pedestrian promenade, that a hotel ballroom or a rented-out bar just can’t touch. I’ve hosted enough of these nights to know exactly what makes one work and what turns it into a headache — for the chapter and for me.

Stop Shopping by Price. Start Shopping by Value.

The biggest mistake I watch fraternity chapters make, over and over, is chasing the cheapest quote instead of comparing what they’re actually getting for the money.

Here’s the math I wish more social chairs would do before they book: the difference between a two-hour open bar and a three-hour open bar is often around ten dollars a person. You cannot buy a single drink for ten dollars anywhere on Bourbon Street. So why would you cut your night short to save it? Spend the ten dollars. Buy the extra hour. That’s an hour where your whole chapter is still together, still having a blast, instead of standing outside wondering where to go next.

There are planners out there who will pitch you a two-hour party specifically because the lower price is easier to sell to a fraternity. It’s not what’s best for your chapter — it’s what’s easiest to close. Look past the number on the quote and ask what you’re actually getting for it. Not all venues operate the same way. Ask around. Talk to other fraternities who’ve used a venue before. If a place has tons of repeat business, that’s not luck—that’s fraternities coming back because they had a great time the year before.

Pick Your Venue Based on Your Chapter’s Size — Not the Address

I get asked all the time which venue is “the best” — Cornet, Prohibition, Krazy Korner, or Bandstand. The honest answer is that the best venue depends entirely on how big your group is. A smaller chapter loses energy in a venue that’s too big for them. A bigger chapter feels cramped and frustrated in one that’s too small. Matching the room to the group is the actual decision that matters.

What doesn’t matter nearly as much as people think is which block you’re on. Bourbon Street runs seven short blocks through the entertainment district, from the 200 block to the 700 block, and every single one of them is packed with people walking up and down all night. Whichever end you’re on, your guests will be in the middle of it.

Book a DJ. Don’t Trust a Bluetooth Speaker With Your Dance Floor

Some planners skip entertainment entirely and let a chapter run their own playlist off a phone. I’ve watched enough of these nights to tell you exactly what happens when a group opts for Bluetooth instead of a DJ: the dance floor is the least active part of the party.

A DJ earns his keep. He takes requests, keeps familiar songs coming, and reads the room in a way a playlist never will. The guys always want their own version of the vibe, but the ladies are the ones who show up dressed up and ready to dance — and a good DJ makes sure the crowd stays moving all night instead of standing around the bar. If you want your dance floor full instead of empty, that’s not a place to cut corners.

Book Early — the Good Dates Go Fast

The fraternities that have the best experience are usually the ones already walking out the door talking about next year. When planning your event, keep these timeline and headcount rules in mind:

• Lock in your dates early: We have chapters that secure their date for the following January as early as May, June, or July. Some of our January 2027 dates are already sold out.
• Underestimate your headcount: If your chapter has 100 members and you think you’ll pull 200 guests, plan for closer to 180.
• You can always adjust up, never down: We can always increase a guest count, but we can’t decrease one. Go too low, and you risk your numbers doubling on you, but the safer mistake is planning conservatively and adjusting up.

Know Who’s Actually Allowed In

The formals that go sideways are almost always the same story: a bigger chapter invites alumni or gets friendly with a local Tulane chapter and starts letting outside guests in on what wasn’t supposed to be an open invite. This is an open bar party priced per person. Every guest who walks in costs money, and when a social chair lets people in, assuming a few no-shows will balance it out, they end up with more guests than they planned for — and a bill to match.

That decision needs to sit with the social chair, and it needs to be made with a firm hand, not left open to whoever shows up at the door. I’ve had groups try passing wristbands around to sneak extra people past our count. It doesn’t work — we issue our own wristbands specifically so the guest count stays accurate. We’ve been doing this for over twenty years. There’s no trick we haven’t already seen.

The Best Social Chairs Don’t Try to Reinvent the Wheel

The formals that come off without a hitch have one thing in common: the social chair didn’t try to make a name for themselves by changing what already works. They take advice from the brothers who ran it the year before, and they go back to the venues that delivered a great night in the past. The chapters chasing something new every year are usually the ones running into problems nobody saw coming. The ones repeating a winning formula are the ones having the best time.

The Service Doesn’t Stop When the Party Starts

We don’t just book a party and walk away. I’m personally at the majority of our fraternity formals, hosting most of them myself at Cornet, and we’re always a phone call away if something needs attention.

There’s a distinction I hold my staff to: the door doesn’t control the party; management does. Staff is there to serve the party, not control it. Guests are there to have a great time, and our job is to make sure that happens smoothly.

Every event still has its version of a problem guest. On a balcony, it’s almost always the same thing — someone thinks it’s funny to pour a drink off the balcony onto people below. It’s disrespectful, it’s the kind of thing that starts a fight, and it’s the number one reason we ever ask someone to leave. The other is guests who fall asleep, since that’s not legal to allow in a bar. When we do ask someone to leave, we never send them out alone — we find the group leader and have them round up that guest’s actual friends, not just a date, to walk them back to the hotel safely.

One Piece of Advice Before You Start Planning

Don’t base your decision on price alone. Look at what a venue actually offers for that price, because not every venue treats its guests the same way. We’re generous with our pours, we’re on-site for the whole night, and we treat every group — fraternities, weddings, corporate events — with the same level of service. We have clients who’ve been with us since 2006, back when this was a different company before it became Bourbon Street Balcony Rentals. They come back because the experience was worth it, and that’s the whole point of a formal — everyone leaving already talking about next year.

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Ready to start planning your fraternity’s best formal yet? Contact Bourbon Street Balcony Rentals today to secure your venue and date before they sell out!