Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Hosting an Oscar’s party? Here’s how to add some terrific tech touches

oscar party ideas 51900495 l
Bernard Bodo/123RF
The Academy Awards start at 8:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, and that means there’s still time for you to put together a viewing party, if you’re so inclined. Stock up on champagne, get your evening wear pressed, do some quick housecleaning, prep some snacks, and — OK, it’s actually quite a bit of work. Are you sure you want to do this? If so, here are some techy ideas to add some glitz to your event.

Make it a party

Text and Facebook both work for invites, but you can also use Paperless Post or Punchbowl for something a bit more formal. And what’s more formal than the Oscars?

Related Videos

Set to stream

The Oscars are airing on ABC, but if you don’t even get the basic networks on TV, you can stream them on ABC’s website or by using the network’s official mobile app and a login address from a cable provider. If you haven’t seen many of the nominated films, there are quite a few available to watch on Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes, including Hell or High Water, Moonlight, and Arrival.

Ask Alexa

Amazon Echo Alexa
Greg Mombert/Digital Trends

In terms of of predictions, Amazon’s Alexa can give you her views on who will win Best Actress, Best Director, and so on. She had to flip a coin to choose between Denzel Washington and Casey Affleck, however, just in case you’re curious. The virtual assistant can also run through the nominees for several categories, and if you enable the Ultimate Hollywood Trivia Skill, Alexa will ask five questions in a row.

Get competitive

There’s also the official Oscar’s challenge you can sign up for, or you can scour Pinterest for bingo cards. Vanity Fair has a printable ballot, as well. If you need a little help, there’s supposedly an AI-backed pick you can turn to when it comes to Best Picture.

Give a swag bag

The company that gives out unaffiliated Oscar swag bags is notorious for the six-figure price tags on its loot. This year’s haul has a few tech items, from vaporizers to smart-home systems. If you can’t afford to give luxury vacations to your guests, just stick to candy, popcorn, and a ballot.

Famous food

Francis Ford Coppola recently paired with Sun Basket, and the meal-kit delivery company hosts some of the iconic director’s recipes on its site, including Pizza Sofia, named in honor of his daughter and maker of our favorite champagne in a can.

Although it’s totally un-tech related, you can also go punny, and make food inspired by the nominees: Emma Stone Fruit Salad, Dev Pateled eggs, Zootopizza, Raviola Davis, and Hell or High Watermelon bites. For drinks, you could serve dark and stormies with Ryan Gosling’s ginger beer.

Keep it on ice

If you’re going to pour champagne instead of cocktails, a dedicated wine cooler that keeps it at perfect serving temperature is a nice way to go. It works better than a bucket, at least.

Editors' Recommendations

Sparkel infuses bubbles and ingredients into sparkling water without cartridges
make your own sparkling water without co2 with sparkel image 1

Everyone needs to drink more water. According to some reports, Americans are almost chronically dehydrated. While some people may find plain water just plain boring, "healthier" alternatives are often anything but. Others enjoy their water flavored and carbonated and favor devices like the SodaStream, which uses carbon dioxide (CO2) canisters. Now there's another alternative: Sparkel is a new beverage system that makes it possible to create fizzy, delicious drinks without the use of CO2 canisters.

Sparkel instead uses a "Sparkel sachet" that naturally generates CO2 gas in the drink. The Sparkel Carbonator is a combination of citric acid and sodium bicarbonate that generates CO2 gas through natural processes when placed inside a sealed container. The flavor molecules of the ingredients inside the Sparkel bind to the CO2 gas, and this gas is then cycled through the drink bottle to create your drink of choice.

Read more
How to make cold brew coffee at home
Craving cold brew? Here's how to skip the coffee shop and make it at home
how to make cold brew coffee iced

Sweet, sweet coffee -- some of us depend on it to survive through the work day, and others even consider ourselves connoisseurs. Whether you're a casual drinker or a coffee addict, you can likely tell the difference between a good cup and a bad one.

Although you only need water and coffee beans to make decent cup of joe, it's pretty easy to make crappy coffee. What makes coffee taste gross? How about when you make it too strong, too weak, use a bad blend, or when you leave the pot sitting on the burner too long. That's why office coffee is often the worst kind -- the pot sits for hours, the coffee develops a burnt taste, and you're left with something that's about as palatable as mud.

Read more
How long does it take for eggnog to go bad? It’s all about the booze
Puerto Rican Christmas Dinner Eggnog

Nothing divides a holiday party quite like the serving of eggnog. Some love it, others hate it. Let’s say you make a batch for Christmas, but you inadvertently find yourself in a group of nog loathers. How long can you keep the dairy-laden brew around? It depends on how much booze you added, essentially.

In 2009, we heard a story on Science Friday about Rockefeller University microbiologists Vince Fischetti and Raymond Schuch testing the salmonella levels in eggnog from Dr. Rebecca Lancefield’s recipe, which had been chilling in the fridge since before Thanksgiving. They’d added a bunch of salmonella and tested it at one, two, and three weeks. The longer the eggnog sat, the fewer bacteria there were, until it was completely sterile by week three.

Read more