Excellent tips, I've naturally followed most of these, it's crazy to see them reflected here explicitly, they felt "such a natural thing" to do. Given the quality of most of them, I'll try to follow better the couple I don't yet.

> 2) Advertise your start time as a quarter-to the hour. If you start an event at 2:00, people won't arrive till 2:30; if you make it 1:45, people will arrive at 2:00.

Needless to say this is highly culture-dependent. I recently threw a dinner at my place in Tokyo, and I had to add the warning:

- Official dinner time was 7pm.

- Told my Southern European friends at 7pm, expecting them to arrive at 8pm.

- Told my Japanese and American friends at 7:30-8, expecting them to arrive at 8pm.

It went much better than expected, everyone arrived within 8pm~8:10pm (okay, except that one friend who is chronically late, but that's a lost cause).

The first party I attended in Denmark started at 6pm. I knew arriving promply was important, then I found about half the guests chatting in the park opposite the host's house at 5.55pm ready for an on-the-dot arrival.

I recently arrived at an Indian birthday party at 11 am (the scheduled time) and the host immediately responded, oops I forgot to tell you the real time... everyone else will arrive after noon.