Surviving a company holiday party

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My company is having a holiday party this year at a sports bar/club. However, unlike most holiday parties where you can invite friends/significant others and so forth and actually have fun if the environment is conducive enough to it, I've since found out that this is entirely internal -- and ENGINEERS ONLY. The managers have even said that it's basically a "team building"/"networking" gathering among the engineers disguised as a party (i.e. "find people who can help with C++"), most of whom are pretty antisocial anyway. The whole company seems to be going through a big team-building fad right now.

How do you recommend that I survive this? It's almost "expected" that people will go. They're expecting about 400 people. It's catered and it's probably going to be 10-15 people I don't know (or feel comfortable with) sitting at a table and trying to talk.

My preliminary idea is: show up a little late, take breaks from time to time, and if possible try to manage a seat at a table with a bunch of cute girls . The club is open to the public after the event, so I'm also trying to arrange it so a friend of mine just "happens" to be there a club patron when the dinner ends and the party starts. Nice buffer

Thanks in advance,

ACG

Everyone takes those situations differently.
I think I could survive with my present work mates but one time I had a disasterous time when I worked at a retail-hardware store. They had a staff party and were opening presents. Everyone was standing around talking and joking around and I took an overload spell. I got all wierded out and had to go outside.

I wouldn't sweat it. If it's an engineer-only gathering, it's a safe bet that many people there will be in the same boat as you. In all likelihood, socializing will pretty much be limited to small groups of people who already know each other and work together every day.