How to Organize a Cup Sleeve Event [K-Pop Edition]
Want to celebrate your favorite K-pop idol s birthday, debut, or group anniversary? Whether you re ARMY, BLINK, or a non-exclusive multi, you don t have to book a trip to South Korea or wait around for a local meetup. Instead, you can absolutely host an awesome K-pop cup sleeve event yourself!
It may seem like a daunting project, but there really are just a few steps to organizing a successful cup sleeve event and you re free to make the festivities as simple or elaborate as you want. Start with the tips below, ask your fellow stans for additional tricks, and have fun celebrating your idol.
What Do You Need for a Cup Sleeve Event?
For any cup sleeve event, you only need two things: a venue and cup sleeves. (Well, you also need an all-out passion for K-pop and some fellow fans to invite...but if you re reading this article, then we re sure you ve got those covered!)
All the other stuff like decorations, games, and everything else we ll detail below is certainly nice to have and will make your cup sleeve event more memorable and fun. But the absolute bare minimum is a functional venue and some creatively designed cup sleeves.
How Do You Organize a K-Pop Cup Sleeve Event?
To make sure your cup sleeve party is smooth and minimally stressful to plan, we recommend following the steps in the order presented below. The best K-pop cup sleeve events do take a fair amount of time and energy, so consider asking another fan to help if you can!
1. Choose and Reserve the Venue
For most cup sleeve events, finding the right venue is the most challenging part of the entire process.
You ll likely need to contact 5 10 venues in order to find a suitable one. The most popular venues for K-pop cup sleeve parties include coffee shops, bubble tea shops, and board game cafes.
When asking around, be sure to ask questions like these:
- How many people can your space accommodate?
- What is your policy for decorating? Can we put things on the walls, chairs, doors, etc.?
- What is your policy for playing music?
- What is the price? Does this include everything, or is there an additional minimum order per attendee?
- Do you offer any deals for example, the space itself is free with $XX of drink purchases or $XX spent per attendee?
- Are there any activities, games, or items that are prohibited in your venue?
- What is your cancellation policy?
- Is parking available?
Of course, not all of these questions will be essential; it just depends on what you need. For most K-pop cup sleeve events, the most critical venue questions revolve around capacity, pricing, and DIY decorations. (After all, you can t have a great cup sleeve party without decorations of your idol or group!)
2. Design and Print Your Cup Sleeves
After the venue, the next most important thing to do is get the cup sleeves.
You ll want to build in enough time during your planning schedule for design, printing, and shipping of the cup sleeves. Some fans make their own cup sleeves at home (printing, cutting, and assembling them themselves), but many fans work with an artist and/or printing company, which is a lot easier and less time-consuming.
If you don t already have a plan for sourcing your cup sleeves, check out MyCreativeShop s online cup sleeve templates! Starting with a blank canvas, you can make your own K-pop cup sleeves online, and we ll print and ship them anywhere in the United States. A single print run can include as few as 25 cup sleeves, so we re a great resource for smaller cup sleeve events, too.
You can learn more about designing your own cup sleeves in these resources:
- How to Make a K-Pop Cup Sleeve in MyCreativeShop s Online Editor
- How to Make a K-Pop Cup Sleeve in Photoshop (and Print with Us)
3. Decide on the Cup Sleeve Event Details
There are tons of different ways that you can handle your cup sleeve event, and there s no right or wrong answer. You ll just need to decide how you want to run the event so that it s clear to attendees.
For example, you ll want to consider details such as:
- Will the event be private or open to the public?
- Will it be free or paid entry?
- Will the cup sleeves be completely free (first come, first serve), or will they be included for free with a drink purchase?
- If the event is free, are you accepting donations? By which methods (e.g. cash, PayPal, Venmo, Revolut, etc.)?
- If the event is open to the public, how will you get the word out?
Private events are usually recommended if your venue has a small capacity or if you re picking up the tab yourself and can t spend a fortune. Otherwise, opening up your cup sleeve event to all nearby K-pop fans is a fantastic way to make friends in the community.
4. Send Out Invitations/Registration
Based on the type of cup sleeve event you re wanting to host, you can either send out an open invite on social media and within your fandom communities, or you can create a private registration sign-up. Many cup sleeve hosts use free tools like Google forms to keep track of attendance.
5. Get Matching Decorations
In addition to the cup sleeves themselves, you ll need decorations to set the right vibe! The best K-pop cup sleeve parties go all out but that doesn t necessarily mean spending a ton of money. You can always rely on affordable party decorations like:
- Crepe paper streamers
- Tablecloths
- Gold or silver foil letter balloons
- Regular balloons
- Banners (handmade or printed)
- Large photos of the idol/group
- Bulletin board photo montages
- Stickers
- Table tents
A lot of cup sleeve hosts also design and print custom business cards to use as easy idol photo cards. You can display these on tables and allow guests to take one home as an extra souvenir.
Need more inspiration? Search #cupsleeve on Instagram, and you'll see tons of ideas from K-pop parties worldwide.
6. Plan Games and Activities
You can plan your K-pop cup sleeve event s activities at any point in the process, but you may need to adjust your plan based on how many people will attend. A good rule of thumb, regardless of the number of attendees, is that it s always better to have too many activities planned than too few.
Here are some popular party games you might play:
- Idol or group trivia: Find out who knows the most obscure facts and is officially the biggest superfan in your town.
- Complete the lyrics: Set a timer and see who can fill in the blanks with the greatest number of correct lyrics. (Bonus if the lyrics are in Korean!)
- Mad Libs-style lyric game: Make your own version of Mad Libs using song lyrics, having participants fill in the blanks without knowing the context. Then read the results out loud and enjoy the hilarity.
- Guess the song: Play only the first few seconds of a song and see who can name the correct song and singer first.
Another fun go-to activity is a raffle. Have attendees drop their names in a bucket and end the cup sleeve event by awarding mini prizes to the raffle winners. Awesome prizes may include fanart, album art, posters, idol plushies, and more.
7. Share the Event Afterwards
One of the best things you can do to help your K-pop fandom is share your event! Post your experience in your fandom communities and share with the wider world on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or whatever social media channel you use.
Beyond photos and videos, consider sharing tips and tricks for what worked well and what didn t. By sharing your own planning experience, you ll inspire others to host their own K-pop cup sleeve parties. And who knows? You might even find an enthusiastic co-host for your next event!
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Ready to Design Your K-Pop Cup Sleeves?
If you d like to create your own idol cup sleeves, you can head over to our online cup sleeve templates now. Feel free to play around with the MyCreativeShop editor to see exactly how it works (it s easy to use and free to try, no design skills needed). You can also view pricing and shipping details before you order.
Whether you print your K-pop cup sleeves with us or not, we wish you happy celebrating!