Office Christmas parties.
They’re more than just an elaborate trap set by the HR department.
In fact, when done right, they can actually be amazingly fun for all involved. Even accounting! With that in mind, here are the best places in our fair & festive capital to hold your office Christmas do in 2023:
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Monopoly Lifesized | Tottenham Court Road
Gleefully collect rent from your coworkers in a giant version of the iconic board game that’s famous for encouraging bonding and goodwill between players. Monopoly Lifesized has the benefit of having you compete in teams (aiming to complete themed ‘challenge rooms’ in order to buy properties), and is mercifully limited to 80 minutes.
Numbers: 24 per ‘board’, but you can go for full venue hire too.
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 4/10
More info here
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Queens: Skate Dine Bowl | Queensway
Wondering how the ice-skaters, bowlers and athletically inept members of your team will ever get along? Well at Queens there’s genuinely something for everyone: you can book ice skating, curling, private bowling lanes with your own waiters, karaoke booths, a retro games arcade and a rink-side bar with classic diner food from MEATliquor.
Numbers: You could hire just one lane for a small group, or the whole 12,000 sq. ft ice rink.
Potential Embarrassment Factor: Through the roof.
More info here
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London Shuffle Club | Shoreditch
Hot cocktails from a vintage airstream? Tick. Pizzas fresh from a wood-fired oven? Tick. DJs? Tick. Apparently very simple, but in reality devilishly unforgiving competitive team game based on Henry VIIIth’s favourite sport? Tick. The London Shuffle Club have thought of everything… including your own personal s’more roasting firepits under the covered outdoor terrace.
Numbers: About 8 per lane, or 20-480 for bigger hires
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 3/10
More info here
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Immersive Gamebox | Southwark
Immersive Gamebox is like stepping inside a ’90s games console, where you and your colleagues will have to dash around a room mapped with 270º projections as you compete in physical versions of Pong, Snake and more. You’ll also look ridiculous while doing so, thanks to the motion trackers that look like ping pong balls stuck to your head. Games last 60 minutes, so it’s best tacked on to another activity as a way to get the Christmas party started – but its location by Southwark tube means you’re not far from some of London Bridge’s best bars and restaurants, or indeed Humbug…
Numbers: 6 per room, or full venue hire available
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 7/10
More info here
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Bounce London | Farringdon, Old Street, Battersea
Set over 12,000 square feet of low-lit, neon-painted space in Farringdon (and Old Street, and Battersea Power Station), Bounce features an impressive 17 ping-pong tables, a 40 foot bar serving seasonally-inspired drinks, a DJ booth and a raised restaurant for overlooking the action. In short, if table tennis was fun before the addition of bottomless cocktails, music and all of your drunken colleagues – which it was – then Bounce has done the nearly impossible, and actually made it better.
Numbers: 6-550
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 5/10
More info here
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Piano Works | Farringdon, West End
Kick off with a glass of fizz and a three-course festive feast before dancing the house down alongside a live, six-piece band taking non-stop requests. Just like the IT department, right?!??
Numbers: Book an area, or up to 400 for full venue hire
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 3/10
More info here
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The Candlelight Club | Secret Location
A decadent, 1920’s-styled soirée, in a secret candle-lit ballroom with live music, tarot readers and gramophone DJs. They can also provide, for your convenience: magicians, acrobats, cabaret performers, vintage hair & make-up stylists, photobooths, and, hilariously, a retractable screen for slide presentations if the party starts getting really wild.
Numbers: Book tickets for one of their public events, or hire privately for groups of 70-500
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 6/10
More info here
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Karaoke | Across London
Karaoke is a legitimate sport. It requires skill, determination, perseverance and finally, alcohol. But it also requires karaoke bars, where you pay per person for private rooms filled with dress up boxes, disco balls and controllable lighting, into which you can take all manner of drinks prepared by the on-site cocktail bar. Which is why we’ve compiled this list of karaoke bars in London that offer precisely that.
Numbers: 4-30 per room, or up to 200 for full venue hire
Potential Embarrassment Factor: Literally guaranteed
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Experimental Perfume Club | Covent Garden
Let’s imagine – just for the sake of argument – that you want to organise a work do that doesn’t centre around alcohol. Or at least, the kind you can drink. In this case, you could do worse than booking a private workshop at the Experimental Perfume Club, where you’ll all be guided through the basics of creating your own bespoke concoction before running wild with their scents library and making a small bottle to take home.
Numbers: Any number, really
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 1/10
More info here
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Heist Bank | Paddington
Ordinarily, Heist Bank is your standard, run-of-the-mill pizza parlour-meets-flower shop. But for parties (Christmas or otherwise) you can head down to the games room, which has space for 60 people to mingle with a karaoke machine, vintage Nintendos, a foosball table, self-serve fridges full of booze, and a private bar.
Numbers: 20-50, or 140 seated/300 standing across the whole venue
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 6/10
More info here
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Wreath Making Workshops | Exmouth Market
If the only thing you took home from last year’s Christmas party was a three-day headache, consider an altogether more wholesome office do and book the team into a wreath-making workshop at Botanique. You’ll get to craft your own design (with mulled wine & mince pies on hand for creative stimulation), and the studio’s location on Exmouth Market happens to be ideally placed for a slap-up lunch at Moro first…
Numbers: Up to 12
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 1/10
More info here
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Cocktail Workshops at TT Liquor | Shoreditch
This handsome 19th-Century police station is putting you behind bars. Your own miniature bar, that is, which will be fully kitted out with everything necessary to shake up four different drinks, before entering into an anything-goes cocktail competition for the grand finale. Plus, there’s a beautiful heated roof terrace where you can toast your victory afterwards.
Numbers: 2 – 220
Potential Embarrassment Factor: Depends how you handle your booze…
More info here
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Moonshine Saloon | The City
Don cowboy hats, gamble with the saloon regulars and sneak booze in past the head honcho. So just a regular Tuesday, then.
Numbers: Up to 50, or full venue hire
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 9/10 (if you go for the accent)
More info here
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The Great Christmas Feast | Earl’s Court
Step into Charles Dickens’ study, fully recreated with stacks of books, candles, and Victorian ephemera for an evening that’ll soon have you feeling goodwill to all departments. You’ll settle in to your table for an atmospheric retelling of his classic tale, A Christmas Carol, interspersed with live music, a festive three-course banquet from a former Smokestak chef, and potent Dickensian cocktails.
Numbers: Ticketed, so best to enquire directly
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 1/10
More info here
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Swingers | The City & Oxford Street
Swingers brings you 18 holes of joyously creative mini golf in a verdant, plant-filled, and beautifully detailed indoor space that’s probably bigger than some actual golf courses (their City spot is 16,000 sq ft). It’s got three restaurants, five (yes, five) bars, festive golf visors, and two courses for you and your teammates to drunkenly stumble over.
Numbers: Up to 600
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 7/10
More info here
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The Crystal Maze | Piccadilly Circus
Duhduhduh duuuuh, duh duh – DUH! DUH! DUH DUH DUHDUHDUH! The Crystal Maze offers your office Christmas party 75 minutes of high-octane, thrilling challenges; hideous orange boilersuits; and the indelible memory of your coworkers spinning around helplessly on papier maché planets.
Numbers: 10-27, or 32+ for private hire
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 10/10
More info here
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HiddenCity Hunts | Across London
All year long, you’ve been working together to decipher clients’ emails, racing to meet deadlines, and looking at your phone when you should be working. So in many ways, you’re already the perfect team to take on one of HiddenCity’s text-based scavenger trails around London’s back streets. Their most festive is the Enchanted Mirror, which’ll see you solving cryptic riddles, slipping passwords to strangers, and, crucially, stopping off for liquid refreshment regularly en route.
Numbers? Unlimited
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 4/10
More info here
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Skittles at the Freemason’s Arms | Hampstead
Pub skittles is a truly ancient game that’s been a mainstay of the office Christmas party since the 14th Century. And there’s only ONE place in London you can still play it. It’s the Freemason’s Arms, and 20 of you can head in, get dinner, an expert coaching session, and a few pints.
Numbers: Up to 20
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 4/10
More info here
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Flight Club | Shoreditch, Bloomsbury, Victoria, Islington
In an ideal world, every office Christmas party would involve taking a bunch of coworkers with their standard simmering resentments and unresolved tensions, then giving them a ton of small pointed weapons and alcohol. In other words, pub darts. And Flight Club goes one better, by giving you virtual guides, animated scoreboards, and excellent cocktails.
Numbers: Up to 350
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 6/10
More info here
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Baranis | Chancery Lane
A basement cocktail bar with a simple menu of traditional French snacks and a sizeable array of the region’s prime anise-flavoured apéritif, pastis. They also have a gravelled indoor pétanque court, where the goal is to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball. Simple. Until you’ve tried pastis.
Numbers: Up to 50, or 125 for full venue hire
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 5/10
More info here
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Whistle Punks | Oxford Circus
Looking for something competitive and quirky? Bullseye. Whistle Punks’ central London axe-throwing bar allows you and your colleagues to let your hair down by hurling axes at a wooden target, and – somehow – drinking while you’re at it. Plus, there’s boundless potential for comedy photos at the end.
Numbers: 10-200
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 7/10
More info here
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Victorian Bath House | Bishopsgate
This subterranean drinking and dining den is set inside a stunning Victorian Bath House, which is – no exaggeration – one of the most beautiful venues in this city. It’s surprisingly roomy, too. They have house-infusion cocktails, three course festive dinners and they can throw in a DJ, too.
Numbers: 30-150
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 2/10
More info here
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Christabel’s | Anywhere
It’s weird. It’s quirky. It’s got golden pineapples. Christabel’s is the cocktail crack team you book when the boss asks you to organise the office Christmas party, and casually throws in the line “Something a little different, maybe?”. Your lively host will put together a Christmas Rocktail Party that you’re unlikely to forget. Unless you have too many rocktails.
Numbers: Anything goes
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 7/10
More info here
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Electric Shuffle | Canary Wharf & London Bridge
It’s shuffleboard, but given the Flight Club treatment. These electronic fun palaces each house a dozen tabletop lanes kitted out with tech-enhanced games, finger food… and a colossal cocktail bar.
Numbers: Up to 350
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 2/10
More info here
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The Curling Club | Southbank
The office sweepstakes have never been so high. Challenge the team to a four-hour tournament of winter’s greatest sport, curling, with all-inclusive drinks packages, Alpine treats and dirty raclette fries.
Numbers: 8 per lane, or full venue hire available
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 5/10
More info here
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Bierschenke | Tower Hill
Nothing says ‘December party’ like Oktoberfest. Luckily, Bavaria is pretty Christmassy all year round, so it’s no surprise that their (unofficial) embassy in London does a killer end-of-year bash. Every team member will get (at the very least) a pair of beer steins, a round of winter schnapps, a pretzel tree for the table and ‘Bavarian Olympics’. And every Saturday, you can expect DJs and live oompah bands, too.
Numbers: 30+
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 8/10
More info here
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All Star Lanes | Shoreditch, Holborn, Westfield White City, Stratford
Bowling’s great. Especially when it’s unlimited, and it takes place in your own private room with an authentic American diner menu and karaoke. And most importantly, free-flowing wine. So you can skip the middle man, and end up in the gutter right at the start of the evening.
Numbers: Up to 130
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 6/10
More info here
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Clays | Moorgate & Canary Wharf
If the last few centuries of landed gentry are anything to go by, nothing bonds people like hunting. And you can do that the ethical way at this virtual clay pigeon bar, where you’ll find a couple of shooting lanes alongside excellent cocktails and snacks from a former Ritz chef.
Numbers? Up to 20 per booth
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 4/10
More info here
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Ciné Real | Hackney
If you’re a team of 15 or fewer, and would quite like an excuse not to talk to each other for 120 minutes, you could do much worse than booking out this tiny BYOB cinema to watch a festive classic projected from an original 16mm film reel.
Numbers? Up to 15
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 1/10
More info here
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Between The Bridges | Southbank
Luke Dyson
Between The Bridges promises to take care of every facet of your work Christmas do – from the drinks (mulled wine & boozy hot chocolates) to the street food (burgers, pizzas, tacos, etc) and entertainment. And considering they have big name DJs, drag brunches, Karaoke Hole, singalong screenings and musical bingo on a regular weekend, they’ll probably deliver on that front too.
Numbers? Private areas for 20-2000
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 5/10
More info here
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Escape Rooms | Across London
After a long day being stuck in a room with your colleagues working out solutions to exasperating problems, celebrate the festive season by getting stuck in a room with your colleagues working out solutions to exasperating problems. That said, booking an escape room for your office Christmas party has the measurable, and instantly gratifying KPI of getting out first and beating the other departments to the pub.
Numbers? Best for small teams
Potential Embarrassment Factor: 5/10
Kicking off with a festive meal? Book one of London’s best private dining rooms.