How to Put On a Fun Hawaiian Luau Party

In 1819 King Kamehameha II reigned over Hawaii. He wanted to celebrate the ending of the religious taboos that kept men separated from women, so he ordered a feast. This is what we call Luaus.

Luaus are held nowadays for many special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and usually have lots of music with ukuleles, steel drums, hula dancers and plenty of Hawaiian traditional food and drinks.

Luau Décor

Start with table decorations: grass table skirts are inexpensive and give your table the right look for a luau. Find plastic or paper tableware for easy clean-up in tropical patterns. Cocktails are quite important at a luau so make sure you serve them in Tiki mugs or coconut mugs, decorate drinks with umbrellas and tropical straws. Finish off your table decoration with luau confetti and Tiki torches.

For more ambiance get a Tiki bubble blower: kids will love it! If you’re holding a luau party during the night you can also add some tropical lanterns and a large palm tree with lights on it.

Remember to have flower leis to greet guests with as they arrive. Let everyone wear a lei and a grass skirt to begin the celebration in the right mood!

Luau Activities

Now that you have your table set up and your guests dressed what about the party activities to keep everyone entertained all party long? There are numerous activities that you can plan to make a luau more festive, such as the following:

- Get a karaoke machine, ukuleles and bongos so your guests can create a Luau band. While the men are playing in the band, have the women do hula dances in their grass skirts.

- Plan a hula hoop contest and see who gets the most hulas for the longest time.

- A party game that can’t miss at a luau is dancing limbo. You can buy a limbo set at the stores or use a broom stick. Have people dance and bend backwards to go below the stick! Lower the stick more and more to increase the difficulty of the game.

- Coconut bowling: Use coconuts as balls and pineapples as pins.

- Lei tosses: Let guests toss their lei around a post. Move tossing line farther away each time.