Newbie about to shoot for a friend. Any tips?

My best friend is having a birthday party and I've been asked to take pictures. There isn't any pressure to produce great photos as he knows I'm new. But this is something that I want to do more in the future.

My issue is that it's going to be a fairly dark dance party. I have a canon rebel xs with a 50mm f/1.8 lens as well as the stock 18-55mm lens. He wants me to take b/w.

Any tips before hand that I should know going in? Or am I doomed to shoot underexposed photos all night?

Do you know where you are going to be shooting at exactly? If the ceiling is low enough, try to get a flash and bounce it. Your pics should come out ok. If not flash, don't be afraid to bump your ISO; since you will be doing B&W, the noise will be more palatable (for me anyways).

You'll probably use the nifty fifty the most because of its speed. Shoot in raw and covert to b/w in post. Play with iso and aperture in order to give you useable shutter speeds.

Mix high ISO shots with some flash shots. B+W party shots look really cool with flash.

I haven't yet done any "club" shots, only a few bar shots. There's money to be made, women to be had. In a club, everyone loves a camera guy

Thanks for all the help guys.
It's gonna be a basic college house party, my only flash is the standard one that comes on the rebel.

I'll post the pictures sometime Sunday. So please, come back and let me know what more I have to learn.

Any other tips?

MatthewK, you're from Fairfax? I used to live in Annandale. Small world.

I'd say: use flash with high iso (for subtle flash & not-too-long shutter speeds) and the right shutter speed (read: long enough to decently lit the background/surrounding​s). Maybe you should practice in advance on using your flash.

Visit the arena in advance with a friend and experiment.

Just relax and have some fun. Let your instinct take over, and you should be fine.

I'll echo what was said above, though. Shoot in RAW and convert to black and white later; or, if you're not comfortable with RAW capture yet, shoot in color jpeg and convert it later. For all intents and purposes, once you capture in b&w, there is no way to go back.