A good masquerade party needs four things: a dress code everyone can meet (evening wear and a mask), candlelight, small food you can eat with a mask on, and one planned moment when everybody unmasks together. Give the night a game that builds to that unmasking and the rest takes care of itself. Here is each part, with the Venetian traditions behind it.
Start with the dress code
Put it on the invitation in one line: "Evening wear and a mask. Gloves if you have them. Masks stay on until midnight." That last sentence is the important one. If people take their masks off as soon as they get hot, the party becomes an ordinary party with props.
Make it easy to comply. A basket of plain masks by the door costs little and saves the guest who forgot. A mirror near the door helps people tie ribbons.
Masks, and what they meant in Venice
Masked balls come from the Carnival of Venice, which ends on Shrove Tuesday, the night before Lent. Guests like knowing what their mask is, so put a card by the spare basket:
| Mask | What it looks like | The story |
|---|---|---|
| Bauta | Full face, a square jaw that juts out | Lets the wearer eat and drink without lifting it. Worn with a black cloak and tricorn hat. |
| Colombina | Half mask over the eyes, gold, silver or feathered | Named after a maid in Italian comedy. The easiest one to wear all night. |
| Medico della peste | White, with a long curved beak | The plague doctor. Now one of the best-known Carnival masks. |
| Moretta | Small black velvet oval | Held on by biting a button inside, so the wearer could not speak. |
| Volto | Plain white full face | The everyday citizen's mask. Anonymous on purpose. |
| Arlecchino | Black half mask, often with a red and black diamond costume | Harlequin, the trickster of Italian comedy. |
Tell guests any mask is fine. The table is for conversation, not a rule.
Decorations: candles and very little else
A masquerade looks right in low light. You need less than you think:
- Candles, as many as you dare. LED ones on the floor and near curtains.
- Gold, black and deep red. A gold runner and a few black feathers in a vase do most of the work.
- Mirrors. Lean one against a wall. Masked guests check themselves all night.
- Signs on two doors, such as "CLOAKROOM" and "SERVANTS' STAIR". Small touches like these make the room feel like a palazzo.
- Somewhere for photos: a plain dark wall, a candelabra and a chair.
Food and drink you can manage in a mask
Choose food that goes in one bite. Nobody wants to lift a mask to tackle a plate of pasta.
- Cicchetti, the bar snacks of Venice: crostini with whipped salt cod (baccalà mantecato), sweet-and-sour sardines (sarde in saor), or simple ricotta and honey.
- A board of cheese, cured meat, olives and breadsticks.
- Carnival sweets: frittelle, small fried dough balls with raisins or cream, and galani, thin fried pastry ribbons dusted with sugar. Both are eaten in Venice during Carnival.
- Drinks: prosecco, a spritz, or Bellinis (peach purée and prosecco), which were first poured at Harry's Bar in Venice. Make one big batch so you are not mixing drinks all night.
More on timing food around a game: murder mystery party food ideas.
Music
Start with Venetian and Italian classical music, then move to waltzes. A starting list: Vivaldi's "Winter" from The Four Seasons, Offenbach's Barcarolle, Verdi's "Libiamo" from La traviata, the prelude to Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball opera), Strauss's Blue Danube and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers. Switch to whatever your guests dance to after the unmasking.
Give the night a game
Masks make people bolder. A game uses that. Ideas that suit a masquerade:
- Who is behind the mask? Everyone writes guesses on a card as they arrive. Score them at the unmasking.
- Best mask award. Vote on phones or with paper slips. Add "Best Waltz" and "Most Mysterious".
- A mask-making table for the first half hour, with plain masks, glue, sequins and feathers.
- A murder mystery that ends in the unmasking. Everyone plays a masked suspect at a Carnival ball. Nobody unmasks until the killer is named, then the room takes off its masks together before the reveal.
The last one gives the night a beginning, a middle and an end. Here is how a three-hour evening runs with it:
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 7:30 | Guests arrive masked. Drinks, cicchetti, photos. |
| 8:00 | Round 1. Everyone introduces their character, still masked. Two clues. |
| 8:30 | Round 2. Secrets start to come out. Two more clues. |
| 9:05 | Round 3. The last two clues. Accusations. |
| 9:35 | The vote. |
| 9:40 | Everyone unmasks together. Then the reveal. |
| 9:50 | Dancing, dessert, awards. |
On New Year's Eve, shift it so the vote opens at 11:45 and the room unmasks at midnight. Our New Year's Eve party games guide has the full night.
With Sleuth Night
We wrote Murder at the Masquerade for exactly this party. It is the last night of Carnival in Venice, 1888. Count Alvise Corvino is found stabbed with a glass dagger two minutes before he was to announce his daughter's engagement, and nobody may leave or unmask until the killer is named. It plays 6 to 14 guests, about two hours: three rounds of 20 to 30 minutes, then the vote and the reveal. Each guest gets a private link with their character, their secrets and a costume suggestion for their mask, and the clues show on your TV. The host plays too. Setting up is free and you pay $29 when you press Start Round 1. See the masquerade murder mystery party page for how the masks work in the plot, or the hosting guide if this is your first.