Holiday Party at Newseum

Let me preface this by saying I’ve been to other BYT events. I even attended their 2011 NYE event on U street. But this was without exception the worst NYE event I’ve ever been to much less none of the worst parties I’ve ever been to. Let’s take a look at what happened:
Nothing says, «I don’t give a fuck if people have fun or not so long as we have their money» more than refusing to invest enough money into your own event. Security was nearly non-​existent, the «open bar» was a joke, and the decorations/​signage were half-​assed. This was an event that was put on to take advantage of a big open space and charge people a lot of money to wait in lines.
One by one let’s look at the problems. Normally hiring a private security company can be somewhat pricey but considering that your overhead is minimal because you skimped on the number of open bars and used mostly volunteers this is unacceptable. Most of your security was located in the front «straight chillen» with each other. Fine, but given that people were in an uproar about waiting nearly an hour to get a drink, it became painfully aware that you could be in some real trouble if the wrong guy decided to get pushy. Which happened to me but I quelled the situation on my own. Don’t even get me started on the line cutters.
How dare you throw an event of this size and claim it to be an «open bar» but only elect to have seven total bartenders for the entire place, much less seven unprofessional bartenders that were incapable of getting drinks out at any rate of speed. Are you kidding?! You should clearly have placed beer and liquor separately and made the arrangements for a faster grab and go type hand-​out. Keep your clientele happy. The locations of the two open bars were a terrible mess and once you got your drink it because a larger battle getting out of the long rows of people where you could enjoy your drink with room to breathe and move. My first drink took thirty minutes of wait time and my second was just under an hour. I’ve seen high school parties with a more reasonable set up.
The bathroom set up was laughable. I know there’s not much that can be done about this given the venue, but understand that the 3 stalls per floor is fucking joke. Also toilet paper and paper towels were pretty much an after thought as a few rolls lay on the counter soaked. Here’s an idea, don’t hold it at this kind of fucking venue?! There are far too many people for this type of thing for it to have ever panned out. What were you thinking?!
My group of twelve had a miserable time as everyone seemed to be in a bad mood based on the poor planning and seemingly haphazardly way this event was thrown together. Obviously the organizers saw this as a cash cow and wanted to pack as many «suckers» in the building space that the fire code would permit and charge them a rate that might have them expecting a decent evening.
After it seemed like most people walking around were frustrated and in a poor mood my group agreed to leave around 10:30. We walked across the street to Mackeys Public House. I will never go to a BYT NYE event again. And given that I’d spent the $ 75 for a ticket on quintessentially for two drinks and shitty time, I’d appreciate a refund.
I can promise, if this group continues to host events like this they will drive their brand into the ground. And people will hold its name synonymous with a scamming people under the guise of a DC’s night life company. The only new years resolution I made at midnight was to be sure to let as many people as I can know about the piss poor job these clowns do at keeping the people that attend their events happy.

One star.
This one was a big fat fail Brightest Young Things.