Booking a party venue

[Wheresmrpenguin]

I'm trying to plan for a post destination wedding uk party. For up to 100 people. I'm astonished by the prices (even not mentioning its a wedding)

Nothing fancy, just a DJ, dance floor, buffet food, only sign it's a wedding is that i'll be in my wedding dress, so could be a standard birthday party for all the venues know.

I'm looking at £1000-2000. I've been to birthday parties in rooms and theres no way people are spending this amount surely. What am I missing or doing wrong.

I work at a place that hires rooms.
We used to charge basically around £200 for an evening hire of our main hall which can take 100.

But our experience is that these sort of events tend to end up a lot of hassle, and often with expenses from damage. It can be very difficult to get money out of people afterwards, and some of the damage is far above what anyone would charge for a deposit.
Silly things like people turning up 8+ hours early wanting to decorate the room. Or the teen party where we ended up having to confiscate alcohol. Or when they decided jamming the fire door open and broke it (do you know how much fire doors are to repair!). Or when they say "only 50 people" and 200 turn up. When you're still trying to get rid of them 90 minutes after the end of their hire period, it's half past 11 at night, and you need to clean the room which is covered in food...

So we've decided we won't be doing them except from someone we know and can trust. It isn't worth the small profit we might get offset against the huge hassle it causes.

So it may well be that only the more expensive venues are hiring out currently to large groups. Nothing against weddings, we wouldn't do birthday parties either. And that's true even if you phone up six times asking in different ways-caller ID showed us that, thanks.

Now that certainly isn't saying YOU would do that. However because of the minority that do, we had to make that decision.

@MargaretThursday

I work at a place that hires rooms. We used to charge basically around £200 for an evening hire of our main hall which can take 100.

But our experience is that these sort of events tend to end up a lot of hassle, and often with expenses from damage. It can be very difficult to get money out of people afterwards, and some of the damage is far above what anyone would charge for a deposit.
Silly things like people turning up 8+ hours early wanting to decorate the room. Or the teen party where we ended up having to confiscate alcohol. Or when they decided jamming the fire door open and broke it (do you know how much fire doors are to repair!). Or when they say "only 50 people" and 200 turn up. When you're still trying to get rid of them 90 minutes after the end of their hire period, it's half past 11 at night, and you need to clean the room which is covered in food...

So we've decided we won't be doing them except from someone we know and can trust. It isn't worth the small profit we might get offset against the huge hassle it causes.

So it may well be that only the more expensive venues are hiring out currently to large groups. Nothing against weddings, we wouldn't do birthday parties either. And that's true even if you phone up six times asking in different ways-caller ID showed us that, thanks.

Now that certainly isn't saying YOU would do that. However because of the minority that do, we had to make that decision.

That's such a shame that many ruin it for so many others. £200 sounds like a very good deal though!

What are you trying to book and where? I'm in the NW and it's still not expensive to book a cricket club or golf club. Or a church hall. Or a room above a pub. If you want a hotel that could be expensive. Assuming you don't want to hire a restaurant as that gets expensive paying for food. Catering can range from £8 per head up but that's pretty cheap and nasty.

Are you telling them it's a wedding event? I'd try not mentioning it and saying it's a party and I bet the price comes down

I don't envy you. I'm trying to book group private dining for 14 people and I'm struggling with that!

What ZenNudist said.
I am in the Midlands, and there are hundreds of venues if you are looking for a hall - social clubs, sports clubs, Church / Parish / Village halls, British Legions or Ex Servicemens Clubs, all the old Companies' sports and social clubs etc etc.
Are you trying to book 'the package' ?
Might it be easier to book the hall, and the music and the food as separate things ?

I'm looking around the yorkshire areas, quite flexible as i've got people coming from all over. So we do need hotels within walking distance.
I've been looking at most things, but i'm struggling to find village halls ect that don't advertise.

Maybe I need to send off more enquiries.

And £8 a head seems expensive still, thats still £800 on just food!

Is it cheaper to do it ourselves maybe? Or is that too much effort?

@MintyGreenDream

Are you telling them it's a wedding event? I'd try not mentioning it and saying it's a party and I bet the price comes down

Not made any enquiries yet, just looking online. But i've been looking at the private party options. The wedding packages come with all sorts i dont need.

@Kite22

What ZenNudist said. I am in the Midlands, and there are hundreds of venues if you are looking for a hall - social clubs, sports clubs, Church / Parish / Village halls, British Legions or Ex Servicemens Clubs, all the old Companies' sports and social clubs etc etc. Are you trying to book 'the package' ? Might it be easier to book the hall, and the music and the food as separate things ?

I have been looking at packages but mostly its the inhouse catering options that are boosting my prices for a few finger sandwiches and sausage rolls. These things make me gip at parties and never get eaten.

I was looking for a room to hire for a kid’s party and quite a lot of the places I tried still weren’t available for hire due to covid - these were church halls and community centres. So could be a supply and demand thing pushing up prices?

@RobinPenguins

I was looking for a room to hire for a kid’s party and quite a lot of the places I tried still weren’t available for hire due to covid - these were church halls and community centres. So could be a supply and demand thing pushing up prices?

That's possible. I'm looking for early 2023 so not looking to book yet so dont want to make enquiries. I might be best leaving it for a while but want to get a general idea of the cost. At this rate I may have to not have one!

How is £8 a head for food excessive???

@Wheresmrpenguin

I'm looking around the yorkshire areas, quite flexible as i've got people coming from all over. So we do need hotels within walking distance. I've been looking at most things, but i'm struggling to find village halls ect that don't advertise.

Maybe I need to send off more enquiries.

And £8 a head seems expensive still, thats still £800 on just food!

Is it cheaper to do it ourselves maybe? Or is that too much effort?

My suggestion would be ask around if people have found a place. 100 people is quite big, but not huge. Schools do hire of rooms too.

Cheapest is to do a buffet. You can pick up platters of party food and you need less space than a sit down meal. Get some banqueting roll and cover the tables, then you can just chuck it away at the end. paper plates as well saves clearing.
Have a group of people ready to help clear at the end.

It won't be that hugely fancy event, but it will be your event and the people you want there. That's what matters.

@Anoisagusaris

How is £8 a head for food excessive???

Because like i said, thats £800 just on food. nevermind venue hire, dj, anything to spend im looking at £1000-2000.

@MargaretThursday Thats the thing, i'm not looking for fancy! Although if my funds stretched further i would haha. 100% dont want sit down meal. It's just a party, a few bits to nibble, drink, dancefloor.

Dancefloor needs a bit more space, but still doable. Have you got local siblings/friends that will help collect and arrange food and clear up at the end?

It's something you can do on your own with some support.

£8 a head for food seems really reasonable to me.
Maybe hire somewhere out and just put nibbles on.

100 people is a huge number of guests if you are trying to cut costs. Any sort of gathering for that many people is going to be costly.

Hallshire.com is a good site for finding places like function rooms. Places like pubs are probably your best bet for a bar and buffet. However a village hall type thing would work too. You could stock up on booze or get people to bring a contribution. Last time we hired a hall, we got it for Sunday morning too so had clean up time.

£800 on food is perfectly reasonable if you're looking at caterers. In fact it's positively stingy.

You can of course just order platters from M&S and bulk up with bowls of crisps etc.

But then you've got to buy it, store it in a fridge the day before if you haven't got someone to buy it and put it out for you on the same day. If it's summer and hot you won't want curling dried out sandwiches or anything meat based sitting out for too long ( if an evening buffet) so you'll need a fridge at the venue.

Ditto keeping drinks cold you'll need a few big plastic tubs of ice delivered

You can forgo a DJ and just make a Spotify playlist. Unless your friends are a bunch of musos people won't care. ( Source: my husband is a DJ.)

Decorations: balloons/bunting. Cost negligible from Poundland if necessary.

That should leave you £1K of a £2K budget for hire of a hall, which is surely doable?

My only caveat would be if you've just had a destination wedding for God's sake don't scrimp on the bits of the party that make it look like you care about your friends i.e food and drink. It would feel a bit tone deaf if I knew you'd spent shitloads on getting married abroad and this was the "party" where people presumably bring gifts etc and it was very obviously done on a shoestring.

Or you could just tell people to meet you in a nice ( big) pub and stick some money behind the bar- the atmosphere would be nice and expectations lower as people wouldn't expect to be fed. No reason why you couldn't still wear your wedding dress.

Village hall. £8ph.

£8 a head is fine for food, it’s just a high price because you have £100 people!

I’m in W Yorks. Our village hall, Working men’s club etc all have FB pages. Cheap and easy internet presence for them to maintain, I’d have an FB search on venues “xxxx village hall” etc. 100 is quite a lot of people though, I can only think of one venue locally that would hold that many.

@DedalusBloom

£800 on food is perfectly reasonable if you're looking at caterers. In fact it's positively stingy.

You can of course just order platters from M&S and bulk up with bowls of crisps etc.

But then you've got to buy it, store it in a fridge the day before if you haven't got someone to buy it and put it out for you on the same day. If it's summer and hot you won't want curling dried out sandwiches or anything meat based sitting out for too long ( if an evening buffet) so you'll need a fridge at the venue.

Ditto keeping drinks cold you'll need a few big plastic tubs of ice delivered

You can forgo a DJ and just make a Spotify playlist. Unless your friends are a bunch of musos people won't care. ( Source: my husband is a DJ.)

Decorations: balloons/bunting. Cost negligible from Poundland if necessary.

That should leave you £1K of a £2K budget for hire of a hall, which is surely doable?

My only caveat would be if you've just had a destination wedding for God's sake don't scrimp on the bits of the party that make it look like you care about your friends i.e food and drink. It would feel a bit tone deaf if I knew you'd spent shitloads on getting married abroad and this was the "party" where people presumably bring gifts etc and it was very obviously done on a shoestring.

Or you could just tell people to meet you in a nice ( big) pub and stick some money behind the bar- the atmosphere would be nice and expectations lower as people wouldn't expect to be fed. No reason why you couldn't still wear your wedding dress.

I know £8 isnt much but I'm on a really tight budget, especially when all that gets is sweaty sandwiches and sausage rolls. Just to approach some of the comments my abroad wedding is costing £4k and has 10 guests and I've cut down a lot of stuff to keep costs down, and likely not going to have a honeymoon to cut down on more costs. If having a UK wedding we'd be inviting about 60 for the day due to the size of my very large family taking up most of it. I've been engaged before this and planning for a UK wedding before was coming up to £18k cos of the guest list which is why I've decided to do it this way.

Unfortunately my financial situation is a lot different with me being out of work so trying to cut down costs as much as possible for now so trying to plan as though we're in the same situation as no idea if/when it will improve.

Forgot a out decorations so will factor that into the cost and I'd like a DJ tbh.
Do people still bring gifts for this? I wouldn't be expecting any.

I'm not in Yorkshire but often book local cheaper venues for events for various organisations. Most of the cheaper ones here don't have a website or facebook- I suspect because here a lot of the church halls are managed by older volunteers who don't want to do that. I'd suggest asking around for ideas of halls etc and then phoning them (most here have a number that can be found on the internet, but no other details). For context, in my area the standard hire cost seems to be around £15-£30 per hour. There is usually a small kitchen you can use if you want to do some of your own catering but the cost does not include any catering/decorations. You'd also be expected to clear everything away afterwards.

You might struggle to find a village hall/church hall etc that can hold 100 people comfortably and have space for a dance floor, so you might also want to consider trimming the guest list slightly.

As far as catering is concerned, do you have a group of friends/family who would be happy to help?

Okay, if you are unemployed, then that means you are cash poor but time rich.
So catering yourself could bring that £8ph down quite a bit. Don't be fooled though, it is hard work to cater for that many people. However, you aren't getting married on that day, so it is just an evening party and, if you have good support from friends or family, it is certainly 'do-able' (Indeed I went to a lovely party very recently where the family had done the catering).
or
Ask around locally - your dh's colleague, or your neighbours or local friends and family, or, indeed local facebook groups - for recommendations. I often see this request on our local FB groups and often see menus for between £4 and £6 a head (I am in Midlands)
or
Decide that the food is something you do want to spend more on, but then cut down on your guest list.
or
Another popular option around here is to get the local curry houses to bring food in - again, you can get a lovely meal for everyone for less than £8ph

I wouldn't faff about decorating the hall either. People walk in and look for a) you b) others the know c) where the bar is d) a table to sit at. Nobody is bothered by you spending ££ on 'decorations'.

The last party we arranged, we didn't have a DJ - borrowed some large speakers from a friend and used Spotify. Had downloaded some playlists to get us going and people then were queuing up to pick their songs. So another saving there.