‘You’ve got to fight for your right to party’ – balancing accessibility and momentum building in a time of social isolation

Recently, I travelled a few hundred miles to one of the three cities I consider to be a ‘home town’, in order to host a party marking a new chapter in my life. The tricky decision making process about how many people to invite, what venue to hire, what food to provide, what time of day to gather, and anything I could do to make showing up easier and more enjoyable got me thinking about how we get people together and make things happen in this peculiar moment in history. I’m starting from an assumption that it’s harder than it used to be to bring people together in person, whether in a social setting, on a group programme or for a community event. It's important to explore and challenge this assumption, though the struggle to assemble in the 2020s is a fairly established concept.

Reflecting on my own experiences of being a host, facilitator or participant, I’ve been wondering about how we can strike a balance between creating spaces that respect and accommodate people’s complex lives, depleted energy levels and access needs, and eliciting commitment and participation at a time when it seems like we need strong community more than ever. Of course, this may be a more crucial question when applied to building movements than in relation to party planning. But community and connection take many forms, and we are living in a particularly fractured time, with lasting impacts from Covid lockdowns, healthcare and economic crises, and safety concerns for many as we descend into scary political territory. So perhaps it’s worth considering how we get people together for whatever reason in this difficult context.

Let me offer a caveat. I don’t want to use this as a platform to complain about being inconvenienced or upset by people not showing up for things, nor as a way to question whether progress towards more accessible spaces and communities has ‘gone too far’ – in most situations, accessibility has not gone nearly far enough. I’m interested in our changing social contracts, the impacts of technologies on how we plan, communicate and socialise, what it might mean if we’re all too exhausted to get together, and how we address these challenges in a way that honours people’s autonomy, need for downtime, and variable or limited capacity to consistently take part in community life.

And so, to the challenges of planning parties, meetings, training sessions, workshops, community events and so on. The rule in 2025, I’m told, is that we should expect around 50-75% of an invite list to say yes, and around 50% of that group to show up on the day. This seems to be surprisingly accurate a lot of the time, though it’s not something we can rely on in the planning process - who wants to risk being the host who only provided for half of the people who RSVP’d ‘yes’, only to find that everyone actually shows up? In my experiences of both facilitating and attending events in the last few years, there is a marked difference from expectations pre-pandemic in terms of attrition rates. Last minute apologies often come in a flurry, especially if someone starts the process of responding publicly on a chat thread or group invite. It can seem as if a handful of people sharing their (entirely reasonable) stories of exhausting days, heavy workloads or babysitting issues gives anyone on the fence about attending an event the green light to cancel. I’d hate to live in a world where people felt pressured to attend a meeting, party or group session, no matter the emotional, physical or financial cost. And I also wonder how our ability to show up has been shaped by a world that’s hyper-individualised, and full of endless choice about what to buy, where to go and what to engage with (all filtered through algorithmic curation by billionaire owned tech platforms).

How might we be influenced by a culture offering so many options that we find ourselves exhausted and in decision paralysis? I remember considering this in my first few years of living in London, during and after Covid lockdowns. The experience of being newly resident in one of the world’s mega-cities was surreal at a time when I could only explore my immediate surroundings for an hour a day. Later, it was equally surreal and overwhelming to find that there were countless events, groups, places and experiences available to me at any given time. I eventually found activities and groups that I was able to integrate into my weekly routine, but otherwise dipped in and out of communities, political organising, and recurring activities fairly inconsistently. I suspect this may be a feature of life in a big city at a time when communication technology and good public transport links make it possible to find just about anything we’re interested in, and to unconsciously assume that all of these opportunities will still be there next time if we miss out today. It seems that being in large group spaces also became more energetically costly during recent years - our post-pandemic relationships to the risks and compromises of sharing physical space form part of the changing social landscape. There have been many times in the last few years when I’ve been faced with a choice between stretching myself to face a sweaty, crowded London commute to gather with people for something that would bring me a sense of purpose, connection, energy, catharsis or joy, and staying in my comfort zone at home, with the option of quietly recharging my batteries or doing something requiring minimal social effort. I’ve almost always felt better for choosing to stretch myself if I’m able to, and happy with my decision to have a recharge day if I genuinely need one. But there have been other times when I convinced myself to avoid something I’d been looking forward to because I was apprehensive about meeting new people, or didn’t want to travel, only to find myself later wishing I had. One example of this is an embodiment group that I’d hoped to be involved in developing with some peers. Life took me in an unexpected direction, and I stepped back for a while. When I found myself more available, I struggled to build a routine of attending consistently, but hugely valued the sessions. I was disappointed when the group inevitably ended due to a lack of participation, but had to acknowledge my part in that.

Conversely, I’ve found that I respond well to activities with built-in accountability when it comes to building routine and making commitments. I appreciate the clear expectations, and also the discretion and flexibility of attendance and cancellation policies offered by some groups I’m part of - they’re not designed to prevent people with inconsistent health or life challenges from being able to meaningfully participate, but they lay the groundwork for enough consistent participation to allow progress towards a goal, or a critical mass of participants. It can feel like an uncomfortable wielding of power or boundaries to implement something like this, especially at a time when we’re more conscious of each other’s needs and challenges. But if we’re able to self-advocate, negotiate and offer flexibility within these boundaries, perhaps it’s less necessary to avoid setting them. I wonder whether living in curated bubbles that cater to individual needs and desires via an array of goods, services and personalised settings has made our comfort zones so enveloping and enticing that we have diminishing levels of incentive to step outside of them into a world that may involve risk, inconvenience, over-stimulation, and also growth, connection, challenge and learning. At the risk of falling into a ’back in my day’ cliché, I can’t help thinking about the contrast between making and carrying out plans in a pre-smartphone era and doing so today. I’m not the first to notice the impact of being able to fire off a quick message half an hour before an event to offer an apology without having to look the recipient in the eye, and with the assumption that the message will be received in time because we expect each other to be tethered to our devices by default. I’m grateful for the obsolescence of the communication fails I occasionally experienced as a teenager (e.g., a friend and I waiting for each other at different branches of the same city centre coffee chain, resulting in some comedic pay-phone relay calls to each other’s parents). And, while I appreciate living in a more convenient world, I must admit to a pang of nostalgia for the expectation that a plan would go ahead because there was no easy way to change last minute without knowingly affecting whoever was waiting for us. Maybe this nostalgia signals a new phase of life for me, as a member of the last generation to spend our childhoods without 24/7 online connection and then enthusiastically adopt it in early adulthood. Regardless, I find it interesting to reflect on the ways in which technological and social changes are inextricably linked, and shape our social contracts.

When I’ve had friendships or professional helping relationships with people whose health makes it difficult for them to reliably show up, there has been a clear and direct message from many of them – ‘please keep inviting me’. One resident at a housing project where I offered wellbeing support said ‘I really appreciate you inviting me to sessions, even when I don’t respond. Please don’t give up on me’. That was a powerful reminder of the tenacity required to keep trying to build a shared space in the face of barriers and challenges. And yet, there are finite resources (including energy and tenacity), as well as minimum levels of participation required in order for most projects to work. I’ve been disappointed when courses I’ve enrolled in have been cancelled because there weren’t enough participants. But it happens - sometimes the timing is wrong, and sometimes, the challenges with getting bums on seats tell us something about the economic or political climate that it’s worth paying attention to. This is the main reason that I’m refocusing a significant proportion of my work from private client contracts to funded programmes that are more accessible to those who need them most. Some programmes I offered saw a disparity between interest and participation because people who needed the input weren’t able to make the investment at that time. It felt important to respond by considering how to meet people where they are.

This doesn’t neatly answer the question of how we might meet people where they are, if where they are is a place we can’t find a way to reach. And of course, there isn’t one right answer. Something I’m working on is not taking others’ non-participation personally. It’s true that a last minute drop in numbers for an event or programme might have an impact on resources, plans and dynamics, but the challenge is to keep perspective. It’s easier to learn about what has worked and what could be done differently next time from a place of curiosity than from feelings of rejection. Sometimes, meeting people where they are involves continuing to invite them to let them know that they are valued, even if they never show up. Often, clearly addressing access needs, preferences and anxieties experienced by people who are new to a space or group can improve participation. And in some contexts, agreements about accountability and commitment levels are necessary to ensure that enough people consistently show up to keep an activity or movement alive. I find myself returning to the same question in many of my posts - where is the balance of individual and collective responsibility here? There are many things that a collective, or those with responsibility for hosting events can do to meet as many participants’ needs as possible. And there are things we can do as individuals in order to contribute to a world where communities grow and thrive, and where in-person, embodied gatherings remain viable and accessible. I’m enormously grateful for the way that meeting virtually has opened up opportunities and connections to people regardless of location, health or mobility. I’m also someone who often needs time to recharge my social battery, an experience I share with many of my friends. So, I understand that we won’t solve society’s problems and improve our own wellbeing just by pushing ourselves to spend more time in groups. And yet, in this particular moment, where billionaires stand to benefit hugely from our isolation and exhaustion, it feels like an act of resistance and social change to find ways to step out of our curated comfort zones and into community.