Planning a party can be tough. One of your big concerns is choosing the right number of soft drinks.
You don’t want there to be too few that people get thirsty, while you shouldn’t have so much that you have a ton of soda that you need to dispose of.
Ideally, each person will consume 3 x 8 fl. oz of soda every 2 hours. There are 9 servings in a 2-liter bottle. So, each 2-liter bottle should be enough for 3 people for 2 hours.
Armed with this information, it should be easy to calculate how many soft drinks you need for your party.
How Do You Calculate Soft Drinks For a Party?
It can be tough to calculate how many soft drinks you need for a party. You will need to take into account the following:
- The number of people attending your party.
- How long your party is going to be.
You may also want to consider what the tastes of the people in attendance are.
This way, you have a good selection of soft drinks. However, that is in your hands.
Each person should consume around 24 fl. oz of soft drink for every 2 hours of your party.
This means 12 fl. oz of soft drink every 1 hour. So, use the following calculation:
- Multiply 12 fl. oz by the number of people attending the party (24 x guest count)
- Multiply this number by the number of hours you anticipate the party going on.
So, let’s say that you have 25 guests, and the party is around 8 hours.
This means that you would need 2,400 fl. oz of soft drink, minimum.
But how much is this in liters?
A single 2-liter bottle has 33 fl. oz in it. In this case, we would need 70 liters of soft drink or around 35 x 2-liter bottles.
However, we suggest that you buy a couple of extra bottles ‘just in case’.
How Many 2 Liters Do You Need For a Party?
It depends on the number of guests attending the party.
You can expect a single 2 liter bottle to be enough to cover 3 guests for 2 hours.
Once you have that information, it should be dreadfully simple to work out how many 2-liter bottles your party will need.
Let’s give you an example:
- 30 guests
- Every 2 hours, these guests would consume 30 x 2-liter bottles.
- If the party lasts eight hours, then you would need 120 2-liter bottles.
You should only use this information as a guideline, though.
Sometimes it may be worth purchasing a couple of extra bottles to be on the safe side.
How Much Soda Do You Need For 100 Guests?
This will be dependent on how long the party goes on.
You can expect 100 guests to consume roughly 12 fl. oz of soft drink an hour.
So, each hour, you will be getting through 1,200 liters of soft drink. This would be 35 liters per hour.
This means that for each hour your party is going on, you will need around 17 x 2-liter bottles of soft drink.
We suggest that you use these 17 bottles as a guideline, though.
We suggest that you have a ‘bonus’ two bottles of soft drink for every hour.
This will help to cover you, just in case some guests are drinking much more than others.
So, per hour of the party, 100 guests would need access to 19 bottles of 2 liters of soft drink.
Try to mix the types of soft drinks up a bit. This way, your guests will have a selection of drinks to choose from.
How Much Water Do You Need For 100 Guests?
Working under the assumption that most people will be drinking soft drinks (or something a bit harder), you don’t have to put as much thought into how much water you need to serve per 100 guests.
Ideally, you should try and budget for a single 8-ounce glass of water per person.
Since most people are going to be consuming soft drinks, barely anybody will be hitting their ‘limit’, which means that there should be enough water for those that are planning on only consuming water.
Since you will need 800 fl. oz of water, you should purchase 24 liters of water for a party of 100 guests, although do bear in mind that a good amount of this may not even be consumed.
It is better to be safe than sorry.
Final Thoughts
Calculating soft drinks for a party isn’t too hard.
Once you know that 3 guests will get through a 2-liter bottle every 2 hours, you should be able to work it out easily.
Remember, it is always better to slightly overestimate than underestimate the amount of drink that you need.
