How to fill your Christmas party bookings, starting in October

To fill your Christmas party bookings, get priced packages and available dates online by mid-October, take a modest deposit and a pre-order for every group, and talk to office organisers and friend groups in different ways. Add shared-table party nights for smaller groups, answer every enquiry within a day, and from late November post the exact dates and tables you've still got left.

#Is mid-October too late to start?

No. But the good dates go first, and you're up against every other venue on the high street for them.

Christmas Day 2026 is a Friday and the Boxing Day bank holiday moves to Monday 28 December in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, according to gov.uk. That leaves three Fridays in December (the 4th, 11th and 18th) and three Saturdays (the 5th, 12th and 19th) before Christmas week. Friday 18 December is the last Friday before Christmas. I'd expect those six nights to go before anything else, so if you've already got enquiries for them, confirm and take the deposit now.

The quieter slots are where October planning pays off. Weekday lunches, Monday to Wednesday evenings and the first week of December are easier to sell when you've given people a reason (a cheaper menu, a party night, a free room hire) and a few weeks' notice.

#What should a Christmas party package include?

Organisers book faster when the package answers their questions before they've had to ask them.

Every package needs a price per head, the menu, the dates and times it's available, the minimum group size, and what's included beyond the food. Put it on one page of your website (a PDF is fine as well, because organisers forward it to colleagues) and link to it from every post.

Three tiers is plenty for most venues. As an illustration, a pub called The Hollybush Inn might offer:

• Festive lunch, two courses, £27 a head, Monday to Friday, 12 to 3pm
• Christmas party menu, three courses with a glass of fizz on arrival, £42 a head, evenings
• Christmas party night ticket, three courses and a DJ until late, £39.50 a head, selected Fridays and Saturdays

Drinks are where groups get stuck, so make it easy. Offer pre-ordered bottles of house wine at a set price per table, or a bar tab the organiser can cap. Crackers, a private area and a set arrival time are worth listing too, because they're the things organisers get asked about by everyone else in the group.

If there's a booking fee nobody can avoid, the CMA's price transparency guidance says the total price should normally include it, and hiding unavoidable charges until later (drip pricing) is illegal. Show £42, not £40 plus a £2 fee.

#Deposits, pre-orders and the small print

Take a deposit at booking, set a pre-order deadline, and write both down where the organiser can't miss them.

Deposits are the thing that turns an enquiry into a booking. I'd take a modest per-head amount when the date is confirmed (for example £5 a head on a £40 to £45 menu) and the balance either before the night or on the night. Keep the non-refundable part small. The Competition and Markets Authority's unfair contract terms guidance (paragraph 6.62) says a genuine deposit can be kept in full if it works as a binding reservation and you make clear, at the earliest opportunity, the precise circumstances in which it wouldn't be refunded. It also says such a deposit won't normally be more than a small percentage of the price, and that a larger prepayment is more likely to be unfair. If you take full payment in advance, keep only what a late cancellation really costs you: the food you've ordered, the staff you've rota'd.

Pre-orders save your kitchen on a Friday in December. Ask for every guest's choices about two weeks before the party, on a simple form with names. Put allergen information on it as well. The Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance says you must provide allergen information for every item containing any of the 14 regulated allergens, and the pre-order is the obvious place to ask each guest about allergies before the night.

If you add a service charge to large groups, all of it goes to your team. The statutory code of practice on tips covers service charges, including ones added automatically, and says employers must pass them on to workers without deductions and keep a written tipping policy.

This is general information, not legal advice. If your terms are unusual, get them checked.

#Office parties and friend groups want different things

Office organisers mostly want the booking to be easy, while friend groups care about the atmosphere and whether it's fair on everyone's wallet. You can sell both of them the same menu with a different pitch.

The office organiser is usually doing this on top of their actual job. They need a one-page summary with prices, an invoice or receipt with your VAT number, a pre-order sheet they can send round, and one person at your end who answers emails. Weekday lunches and early December evenings suit them. Reach them by emailing people who booked a work do with you last year (check the rules on emailing past customers first), by dropping a printed sheet into offices within walking distance, and by posting the package on Facebook and LinkedIn where they'll see it during the working day.

Friend groups book Saturdays and late Fridays, and they care about the cost per head and the atmosphere. Show them the room full and decorated, the food on the table, and the price. If your booking system lets each guest pay their own deposit, say so loudly, because chasing ten mates for a tenner each is the worst part of organising anything. Instagram and Facebook do most of the work here, plus a Christmas email to your list.

#How do Christmas party nights work?

A Christmas party night is a fixed date where you sell tickets per person and seat smaller groups at shared or combined tables, with a set menu and some entertainment.

A team of four, a couple, or a few friends who'd like a proper Christmas do can't fill a private area, and most of them won't book a party menu table by themselves. Selling seats instead of tables lets them join in, and it lets you fill the room on a night you'd otherwise be selling table by table.

A few things make them work:

• Pick two to four nights and announce them all at once, so people can choose a date
• Sell tickets per person with a deposit or full payment, and cap each table so groups know who they'll sit with
• Put a time on everything: arrival, food, music, last orders
• Keep the menu tight (three choices per course at most) so service holds up with a full room
• Post the remaining tickets per night, because "12 seats left for Friday 4th" is far easier to act on than "limited availability"

#A week-by-week plan from mid-October to Christmas

This is how I'd lay out the ten weeks to Christmas 2026 if I were starting on Monday 12 October.

The first fortnight is about getting the basics live: the packages page, the booking route, a first announcement post and an email to last year's bookers. Late October and early November are for showing what the night looks like (a tasting with photos, the decorated room once it's up) and getting in front of offices. From mid-November you're chasing deposits, closing pre-orders and posting what's left. December is mostly availability posts and filling gaps left by cancellations.

If you need help with the posting rhythm itself, the guide to the best time to post on Instagram for pubs and restaurants covers when to publish.

#Following up enquiries without being a pest

Reply to every enquiry the same day if you can, and the next day at the latest. A slow reply is how bookings drift to the place down the road.

Hold a date for a set time (three or four days is reasonable) and tell the organiser when the hold ends. Follow up once when the hold is about to expire, with the details they need to say yes: the date, the price, the deposit amount and a link to pay. If they go quiet after that, send one last message saying you'll release the date. That's three messages in total, and every one of them gives the organiser something to act on.

Keep a simple list of every enquiry with the date asked for, group size and status. In a busy December that list stops two groups being promised the same Friday.

#Last-minute availability posts that fill the gaps

From the last week of November, post exactly what you've still got: the date, the time, the table size and the price. People book specifics, so I'd bet on a post saying "We still have a table for 10 on Thursday 17 December, 7pm, £42 a head" over one that says "Christmas bookings still available" every time.

Post these early in the week for the weekend ahead, then again when a cancellation frees something up. Put the same line in your Instagram Stories, on your Facebook page and on a board by the bar, because your regulars are your easiest late bookings. If writing captions isn't your favourite job, the guide to Instagram captions for pubs and restaurants has formats that work for availability posts.

If you'd rather not write all of these by hand, Venuesmith can turn a sentence like "Christmas party nights every Friday in December, £39.50 a head" into a plan of posts that you check and approve before anything goes out.

New Year's Eve bookings run alongside all of this, and the New Year's Eve guide covers tickets, deposits and licensing hours. For the year after, the 2027 hospitality marketing calendar shows when to launch your Christmas 2027 packages.