If you’re organising a Christmas parties in Newcastle, you’re in a better position than you know. The transport connections are good and most of your group should have a straightforward journey. The range of venues covers everything from a forty-person private dining room to a venue that can handle three hundred.
The Quayside is the best place to start and for good reason. There are several venues within easy walking distance and the views to Gateshead are impressive. The views alone will make your party attendees think you’re a Christmas party planning pro. The Quayside does however get very busy in December, and venues there know it. You will need to book well in advance to get the location you want for the first three weeks of December. If you’re looking for a Friday or Saturday, the end of October is your booking deadline.
Although it is more convenient to stay near the river, there are better and cheaper options away from it. The Grainger Town area is home to a collection of mid-sized venues including former warehouses and a range of more informal options that are ideal for larger, corporate events (50 to 120). Many of the Quayside venues have rooms that are either too small or rigidly divided and not very accommodating for events that are, let’s face it, probably the largest office parties many of your colleagues will have ever attended.
It is relatively simple to get there from the northeast. Newcastle Central is one of the more connected stations in the North and the Metro reaches most of the city without you having to think about it. If you work in Sunderland, Durham, Gateshead or the northeast Coast, Newcastle is relatively central for all of you. Parking in December is always frustrating because space is at a premium and only available if you arrive very early. A short note about the Metro in your invitations would help.
Every smaller team has the same question about a joint party: where should we go? Newcastle has a reasonable number of venues running combined party nights through December. For a group less than 25 who want to go to a proper party rather than a restaurant table with a cracker, they are worth checking out.
The honest version is that a shared party night is the sum of all of the other bookings at the same event and that’s something you have no control over. For a simple night out with the team, it usually works. For something more, like client entertainment or recognition where you want to be in control of the atmosphere, an exclusive hire is more reliable. In Newcastle, you don’t have to pay London prices for an exclusive hire.
The thing that most people tend to leave to the last minute in Newcastle, as in every city, is deciding when to make the booking. The good venues for December book in October, not as a figure of speech. The specific dates that people want, the rooms that work for the headcount, the caterers that are still taking bookings. November is when people really start to feel the pressure as the venues available to book start to shrink. You really have to tell people to book the venue, confirm the date and tell the team. Everything else can be arranged afterwards.
