As you prepare to organise your Christmas party in Birmingham, be prepared to be amazed at the options you will find. On one hand, this is a testament to how city is intune with the needs of its clientele. On the other hand, one should know that booking the good venues is a race against time, and by the time you realize you should have booked in November, you are looking at the best of what’s left.
The Venue Landscape is More Useful Than People Give it Credit For
In party circles, Christmas parties Birmingham gets the short end of the stick, and for good reason too. The Jewellery Quarter has some fantastic small and intimate venues that are perfect for groups of twenty to sixty or so. The Mailbox has some nice and more formal venues that can really help with some of the corporate event aspects and allow the surroundings to really help with the event. If you are looking to house more than two hundred people, Symphony Hall and the ICC have great event spaces that most don’t think to ask about.
Birmingham really shines in the mid-range. You will find lots of great venues that really have their shit together, have great catering, and again, won’t completely drain your cash account like London would. If you have a group of fifty to eighty people, the pricing is really good in Birmingham compared to a lot of other places.
Birmingham makes it easy to get around and dismantles the myth about its reputation. With New Street and the tram network linking most of the Midlands, getting around is as simple as strolling around the Jewellery Quarter, or to the Centenary Square. For teams spread around the region of the West Midlands, Birmingham is the best convenient location for most employees.
In December, the NCP car parks start to fill up by 5 p.m., from the end of November, so staff must be notified so they don’t get surprised and stuck parking in multi-story car parks. The encouragement of the use of public transport is appreciated, and should be included, not as an order, but a suggestion.
You picked the right date for the company meeting.
Friday and Saturday nights are reserved for company party bookings in Birmingham between the 1st and 21st of December. We were lucky to get Thursday booked, which is surprisingly less busy. There are less competing bookings, which means staff would be more likely to leave on time, and the venue staff is usually more hospitable and available.
If your team is large enough for a hire-out instead of a shared space, some venues may offer a negotiation for a Monday or Tuesday during the first two weeks of December. Lower pricing and better service are incentives. Considering most attendees will be able to push their weekly start a day to attend an event, a Tuesday will likely not cause as much of an issue.
The Shared Party Question
Shared Christmas party nights, which are booked by multiple companies for the same event, are a great way to save money on a party if your team doesn’t reach a viable number to book an event on your own. Several venues in Birmingham are offering shared Christmas party nights through December with prices ranging from £45 to £90 per head. They are a great way to have an event without the high price of an exclusive booking if your team has less than 20 people.
Keep in mind you will have to share your space with other companies, which you cannot control. Most nights will be fine, although there will be nights that will not be, and there is nothing you can do about that. A shared party night would be fine for a team social, although for any event where you need to event to go a certain way, such as a client night out, an exclusive hire would be a better option.
What to Sort Out First
The first thing to book is the venue. Everything else falls into place after that. You can book the catering, the entertainment, and the transport after you book the venue. You can book a caterer who can prepare a meal at the venue. You can book musicians who can perform at the venue. It’s much harder to book a venue that fits the entertainment you have already booked. So, book the venue, the date, and the room, tell your team, and then you can work backwards from that.
December events in Birmingham can be rather simple. There is plenty of transport. The prices should be reasonable. It mainly comes down to booking early enough, which is also the case with a lot of Christmas parties.
