The Tour de France sure knows how to throw a party. Featuring over 160 colorful and decorated vehicles, representing over 33 different brands, the press caravan is a 20 kilometer, 45-minute long procession that gets the party started for the Tour de France.

At an investment of € 200,000 to € 500,000 (that’s $252,557.76 to $631,360.86 in U.S. Dollars) for each advertiser just to be a part of the caravan (not including the cost of hiring the party team, decorating the cars, and the loads of swag to give away), you can bet that this party is well planned and brings a return on investment for each advertiser.

But you don’t have to spend loads of money to throw your own rockin’ party!

Here are my Top 7 Tips to Get Your Party Started, Tour de France Style.

1. Loud American Pop, preferably Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce.
No party is “right” without the right kind of music.

The Tour de France caravan had speakers blasting out music, all in sync across each of the 4-6 cars in their caravan. You knew the caravan was coming, and by the sounds of the music, you KNEW without seeing it that a spectacular party was headed your way.

The right kind of music will get a party started just at the whispers of great tunes.
The wrong kind of music will bore people, irritate people, or just leave your party with zero energy and “you won’t even know why”.

(Personally, I love American pop, so to hear it on foreign soil made me feel right at home.)

What constitutes good party music?
Know your crowd. Know that the tunes that get played over and over and over again on the radio have paved the way of familiarity for you – just ride that wave! Let music companies spend their millions to breed familiarity. You may not know anyone else at the party, but hey, you’ll know the music, and that could be enough to give people a safe bridge from the familiar music to other unfamiliar party-goers.

2. Pretty Girls
There is just something hypnotic about beautiful people.
And creating a hypnotically addictive environment is critical in a hoppin’ party.

The Tour de France party caravan gets this, and each sponsored float has a number of pretty girls and cute boys dancing on top of the floats, huge smiles on their faces and full of excitement.

This excitement coupled with looks is contagious.

To ensure a great party, be sure to invite or hire a bevy of beautiful people to get the crowds going and make you look like a rock star for daring to be surrounded by beauty.

Now, “pleasing to the eye” is certainly one way to bring in the beauty, at least on a superficial level.

However, to keep and hold your party goers’ attention, “pretty” is also defined by intelligence. Take a cue from the highest paid Venetian courtesans of the 16th century: they were not only beautiful, they were also most educated and creatively talented women of the time.

3. Brace Yourself – Literally and Figuratively
Expect a wild, raucous, mind-blowing party, and brace for it. This will allow you to be your most wild and expressive self.

The crew at the Tour de France knows this, and each of their party-goers wears a body harness to keep them strapped into the car should things get a little out of hand. Does the party stop too abruptly? Does the party want to take off like a bat out of hell? Don’t let little things like potential accidents and getting thrown from moving vehicles stop you from partying all-out. A little bit of risk management and you can keep your party velocity at max.

A business example: does the fear of losing all your money and ending up homeless or the fear of people making fun of you as a result of daring to step out of the normal mold of a job and start a business keep you from playing full out?

Sometimes all it can take is the examination of what could really happen when you look at a worst case scenario to put you at ease, to begin to see through the fog of fears and assumptions and put just a few small “harnesses” in place so you can go full out.

Get ready to get crazy.

4. Free Swag = Friends!
For a rockin’ party, turn to good old fashioned bribery.
Sometimes that’s all you need to start the party, to encourage people to even consider coming to your, well, party.

The more useful the swag, the better the draw – value, as perceived in the moment.

For example, a free spray of water in chilly Brussels had moderate value. But on a 100-degree day, you bet that there will be throngs of people, arms uplifted in adoration of the water-spraying girl.

Or, take the Haribo caravan as example. Delicious gummy candy is like gold when you’re stranded in the middle of a hot, shade-free corn field and simultaneously melting and starving.

On the flip side, some of the swag that had people wondering, “Why the caravan was littering so publicly?” included keychains and random postcards.

5. Plant at Least a Few “Party Starters”
The Party caravan floats are armed with dancing happy people who engage the crowds, bringing the loud music with them (see #1 above). They may look like they’re zooming by on a car, but the best ones make eye contact and engage you personally. Nothing is more exciting than feeling acknowledged.

Plant a few interesting people who emanate happiness into your next party to get the party going. Happiness and positive people are highly contagious. And by happy and positive, I don’t mean artificially happy and positive – I mean “I love my self and my life” happy people, people who are truly joyful about their lives from their bones.

Emanation, not passive-aggressiveness, is the key.

6. Dress The Part
The most effective sponsors in the Tour caravan really do it up, go all out, and look awesome.

Consider these two scenarios:
One, with fun, festive floats, pretty girls (#2), loud music (#1), wild dancing (#3), and of course, free swag (#4).
The other, just a plain ol’ car. Yes, it’s dressed up a bit, but what a difference!

Knowing you look good and are wearing clothing or jewelry that fits your body and your essence is essential for getting into the party mood. As a party thrower, the more you emanate good fun, the more engaged your party-goers will be (see #5).

7. Awesomeness Is All Relative
Let’s take another look at the above example, #6 “Dress the Part”.

The “plain ol’ car” would definitely stand out in normal, everyday circumstances. But next to cars shaped like giant rubber animals, filled with dancing beautiful people, and sporting oversized speakers, they simply get lost.

When planning or attending a party, the key to your personal awesomeness is to stand out, relatively. You don’t want to attend a bike race wearing a ball gown when nice jeans and a clean shirt will suffice. Similarly, nice jeans and a clean shirt will get you kicked out of a gala event, even if you’re wearing the most amazing heels.