the koktail party

[colette]

Whose idea was a koktail party in the hotel? I don't think it was Esme Squalor's idea because when she was going to the hotel on the boat she just planed to burn the hotel immeadiately. And I think Esme isn't clever enough for such interesting plan. I think it is Kit Snicket's idea. She was a very clever woman. And she was also Count Olaf previous bride, so I suspect she wanted to help him. Freaks could also help her. They are rather smart, too, especially Hugo.
It could be Esme's idea, too, but I don't think so.
What do you think?

[Dante]

It could well have been the idea of the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard; in TGG, Olaf says that they're already at the hotel cooking up a scheme of their own. And it's quite possible that Olaf changed his own plan to burn the hotel immediately after meeting up with the sinister duo at the hotel, who would have told him about the upcoming trial; the cocktail party ruse was one of many to lure people to the hotel so the villains could destroy them and steal their valuables.