A few days ago, while on vacation I attended the best munch I've been to. This isn't to dismiss the amazing munches I've had before, but I learned quite a few lessons that I thought might help future munch organizers (possibly even me).

The venue was the ideal setting for a munch. The bar had two floors, a main floor and a basement, and while the kinksters did not have exclusive use of the basement, the non--kinksters were in the vast minority and generally didn't interact during the event. They didn't make anyone feel uncomfortable, nor did they feel uncomfortable.

Secondly, the event had lots of room with standing room and tables. This meant people could mingle from table to table, feeling free to join conversations and leave as they felt comfortable.

Thirdly, tables had board games next to them, and there were chairs set around video game consoles with chair around them for people to play.

This has a dramatic effect on the event. People weren't forced to socialize - if they wanted they could group together for an group activity such as a boardgame and play together (something to note is that the games people wanted to play were cooperative), and if they didn't want to do that, they could play a video game, either alone or with others.

For someone like me, this drastically changed the energy of the event. Socialization felt less forced, as people were free to take breaks from interaction, or engage in a shared activity.

This lead to an overall better time by me, and clearly by others.

Unfortunately the venue for this event is very special, and unusual, but I think what we can take from this is the value of shared activities in our munches and the ability to break off intense social contact when necessary. Doing this makes the event overall more relaxed and more fun.