The Great Evening Banquet (2025)

Overview

In The Great Evening Banquet, you're in charge of seating guests at the state house at tables with VIPs, ideally not foisting anyone on the VIPs they'd prefer not to see, while simultaneously creating harmonious tables, both for the meal itself and the commemorative photos afterward.

To set up, each player has a set of six VIP tables, each of which seats four guests; guests come in five colors and four types, with five of each token — one of them raising a glass in a toast.

At the start of each round, fill the available carriages with 2-4 tokens, then each player chooses a carriage in turn and places all the guests at one or more tables. When a table is full, score it based on type (all of one or one of each is best), color (ideally not three), and raised glasses (the more, the better). Finally, did you meet the VIP's conditions at that table, such as no guests of a certain type or at least two of a color? If so, you score the full value for that table; otherwise, your points are halved.

When you reach 10 points, you must swap a guest from the Grand Salon with one at your tables, whether that table has been scored or not.

After all tables have been filled, take the commemorative photos, scoring points based on how well you've seated guests in the rows and columns of tables.

The Great Evening Banquet includes expert rules in which the tables are close together and a guest can be seated at two simultaneously. Solo rules are included as well, with the number of carriages falling and rising each round.