Beat the rush: why it pays to book your Christmas party early

Every year, we get clients coming to us wanting the same dates, the same venues, and the same food and drink suppliers for their Christmas parties. Of course, for the most part our suppliers can only do 1 event in each day, so competition can get pretty stiff for the most popular dates. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that booking early can help solve the problem, but we wanted to go a little bit further and equip you with the info you really need to get ahead of the game, win over your finance department by saving a few pennies, and be the party-organising hero your team deserve. 

Here’s our guide to delivering a truly epic Christmas party before all the best suppliers get snapped up.

Know your hot dates

Year in, year out, we see that there are 4 key dates for Christmas parties: the Thursday and Friday of the first and second week of December. Just over 50% of all Christmas enquiries are for those 4 days - and with over 5 million private businesses in the UK and over 1 million of those in London, you’re competing with half of them for those same 4 dates. It’s well worth getting in there early to secure you and your team the destination of dreams. 

When to move?

In 2023, 85% of companies had enquired about their Christmas party by November and 90% of those were competing with at least one other request for the same day. By the end of November, there was roughly a 3% chance of finding what you want on the date you wanted it. September is when we see demand start to rapidly increase - so the easy answer is to get in there well before that.

It’s cheaper to book even earlier 

Booking early is not only less stressful all round - it can also save you a considerable chunk of that precious Christmas budget. We’ve written some guidance on how much companies can expect to save by booking earlier in the year.