Parties

Players can attend a maximum of 2 parties per day, and start 1 party per week. Guests have a 10-energy bar that is shared among sims per party. Hosts consume their regular energy bar.

When guests perform actions, parties level up, going up to level 10. This is shown by a light purple progress bar at the top center of the screen. At the end of the party, participants will be given rewards, with bigger rewards being given if the party reached a higher level.

Parties can be a good way to have your sims make friends and get stickers from other players. If a particular sim at a party looks interesting to you, have your sim socialize with them, and then you will see them around town more often in the future.

Choosing parties
Look for parties that offer hobby and career actions for your Sims. You'll see this listed as "Ideal Attendees" when you find parties. Doing hobby and career actions will help you gain stars faster, and will also slightly advance your hobby and career progress.

Your sim can only do a specific hobby or career action every few hours. Thus, it's best to choose parties based on whether different sims can do them. For example, if you have sims named Alice and Bob, if you choose both parties based on Alice's hobby and career, she will only be able to do each action once, and it would be better to choose one party based on Alice's options and one based on Bob's options.

Multiple sims can take turns attending the same party. For example, if a party has actions for both Alice and Bob, then Alice could attend the party first, spend some of the party energy, then let Bob attend and spend the rest of the party energy.

Life of the Party
Get 3 stars to earn the Life of the Party award, which will grant you a party cake and some Simoleons. You need to average 50 XP per action. Thus, if you only do low-XP actions (such as actions giving you 40 XP), you may not be able to earn the Life of the Party award.

Do hobby and career actions to get more XP, as well as actions related to the type of party, such as birthday cake actions at a birthday party or toasting at a wedding party. Socializing with other sims usually gives you 50 XP, so if all you do is talk to other sims at the party 10 times, you will get the life of the party award.

Coming and going
You can attend 2 parties per day. This includes days when you are hosting a party. You can temporarily leave your party to attend someone else's party.

Once you have spent all 10 of your party energy, you can leave the party. Other people who see the party will still see your sim there (even if your sim is doing something at home) and have the opportunity to befriend your sim and give you stickers. Your sim will be seen doing idle actions, such as talking to a random person.

Choosing a time
It's best to host a party on days where you have a lot of free time, so you can monitor your party and perform lots of actions to make it a success.

Start the party early in the morning, so that you will be around for the full 12 hours that the party lasts.

Hobby and Career items
Hobby and career items are important to the success of your parties. More guests will attend if they notice that many of their sims have career and hobby options available.

Place one 3-star main object along with side objects. Many Party actions require more than one object around (for example, a writing desk and Ye Olde Tomes for a writing hobby action).

If you are hosting a party when you are still new to the game, and don't have many hobby and career items yet, you may not have very many guests. This is normal for new users. As you gain more items over time, your parties will attract more guests.

Party items
Placing party items will also provide more high-XP activities. For example, depending on the type of party, you may be offered items like cakes, balloons, and dance floors to place in your home. Try to find space for all the items to offer the best array of activities.

Unique items
Items from special events, such as the hot tub or bubble bar, also offer special interactions that yield more party XP. Make these items available if you have them.

Doing actions
Your sims can perform lots of actions at your party to make it level up faster. While your guests are limited to 10 energy unless they use party cake, your sims have 30 energy that recharges over time.

You can perform special party actions, with purple bars, for energy. You can also perform normal party actions, with green bars, such as interacting with decorations or completing career and hobby actions. Actions give less XP when you are the host, but they are still often worth it.

To really level up your party, look for social actions that cost 0 energy. Your sims can talk among each other doing normal friendly, romantic, or rival actions. While these only yield 25 XP each, if you're willing to be patient, you can take your party to level 10 all by yourself.

Try to level up your party past level 5, so that you get a good reputation for hosting quality parties.

Avoiding lost progress
A bug in the game can cause lost progress (such as sending a level 10 party back to level 4).

The event will have the name of the sim who started the party. For example, if Alice started a birthday party, it will be called "Alice's Birthday Party." If Alice does another event (such as a career or hobby event) while her party is still running, the party may lose progress when she completes the event. However, if other sims do different events while the party is running, no problems are likely to occur. Thus, Bob might take a break from Alice's party to do an event, but Alice should avoid completing other events until the party is over.