The Same Height Party: Where Everyone Meets at Eye Level
Imagine a party where every single guest is exactly the same height — not because they happened to be born that way, but because the host built them shoes. That is the "same height party": a simple, slightly crazy idea that everyone in the room, no matter their actual height, meets at eye level. CNN brought the concept to a wide audience in May 2026 after an Oakland host turned it into a wearable social experiment with about fifteen guests — and the results were as much about psychology as about engineering.
An Idea Born in a 1997 Art Installation¶
The concept traces back to the late German artist Hans Hemmert. His participatory work "Level" (1997) used custom platform footwear to equalise the height of everyone taking part, turning a physical difference into something you can literally step in and out of. The most famous image from the piece — a group of people standing at exactly the same height — has circulated on the internet for years, often photographed at an exhibition in the Netherlands.
A Wearable Social Experiment in Oakland¶
Decades later, Lucian Novosel decided to bring the idea out of the gallery and into real life. Novosel, known among his friends for projects that sound crazy until you see them — a human-size gerbil feeder, a life-size origami horse — hosted his own same-height party in a warehouse-style artist space in Oakland. His goal was specific: get his shortest friend, around 4 feet 11 inches (150 cm), standing eye to eye with the tallest, about 6 feet 5 inches (195.5 cm). He used his tallest friend Spencer as the anchor height: "I know the tallest guy coming, and now everyone else will have to have shoes made for them."
Preparation started about three months ahead. The guest list had to be locked down early — a shifting guest list means rebuilding shoes from scratch — and every guest was asked for three measurements: barefoot height, shoe size, and the lift of their everyday shoes. Then the real work began.
The Engineering Behind 18-Inch Shoes¶
Building the shoes took nearly four weeks of cutting, stacking and reinforcing. Novosel used sheets of rigid 1-inch foam insulation — he recommends the "Pink Panther" brand — built up into platforms that widen progressively toward the ground. The pyramid shape was chosen for balance, not looks: "Imagine an elephant walking on a very small area," he said. "It's not going to work." Custom 3D-printed brackets and zip ties held the assembly together, and the pattern was adaptable enough to cover a wide range of shoe sizes. The tallest pair measured a staggering 18 inches (45.7 cm).
Even with the height solved, balance remained the challenge: the higher the lift, the more the centre of gravity shifts. Guests got walking sticks — a low-cost version is two 2.5-metre planks with painter's tape wrapped around the grip, or plain hiking sticks — and the venue was chosen for stability: flat, no stairs, with trip hazards marked with hazard tape.
What Actually Happened at the Party¶
For some guests it was the first time they met, and the format itself seemed to break the ice. The group played games that tested what their bodies could do at their new height: squatting down to grab a paper bag or box with their teeth and standing back up again, a balancing challenge in which the box got shorter each round while the others hovered nearby to catch anyone who wobbled. They played pool, relearning their stance from a new vantage point. And at one point they lined up from shortest to tallest — with their new footwear, the differences were visible in a way their normal heights never made apparent.
The Psychology of a Shared Eye Line¶
The party had a psychological edge as well as a technical one. One guest described the sudden eight-inch lift as a "power trip": people start bumping into things and take up space differently. Novosel himself is curious how attraction and confidence shift when everyone is forced, for a few hours, into a shared eye line. For Spencer, the tallest guest, the evening reversed a lifetime of standing out — he grew from 5 feet 8 to 6 feet 5 in about a year in high school and remembered being "really tall and lanky and uncomfortable standing out so much." For one night, he was just one of the crowd.
The same height party turns a source of difference into a shared experience — and a reminder that perspective, quite literally, shapes how we see the world. If you want to host one yourself: flat venue, hazard tape, walking sticks, and a spreadsheet of everyone's measurements. And start building your shoes well in advance.