HeadBox, Hire Space and AOK Events have seen a record-breaking demand for 2022 Christmas parties.
The event tech scale-up, HeadBox, has received four times more Christmas party enquires than 2021, and has seen twice as much demand this year, than in 2019.
HeadBox has said this is partly due to the World Cup, which will see games take place throughout November and December. Therefore, event organisers are mindful that games may clash with scheduled Christmas parties.
According to HeadBox, the most popular Christmas party dates are 8 December and 15 December.
Short lead times, bigger budgets, culture choice
Similarly, venue finding platform Hire Space has seen a similar demand for Christmas parties. However, it has also seen a trend of delayed timelines.
“A lot of event organisers are booking events on shorter time scales than in previous years. We are expecting to hit peak demand for Christmas parties throughout September and October,” reveals Kim Meier, head of growth at Hire Space.
Eliot Sargeant, business development manager at Hire Space, added: “In many of my recent conversations with clients, they know they still have to do the Christmas party, but haven’t managed to get around to it due to their workload surrounding other events.”
Hire Space has also seen a significant increase in the average size and cost per head for Christmas parties in 2022. “Overall budgets are up by around 50%,” reveals Meier.
For event management company, AOK Events, 2022 continues to be one of the biggest years on record. “Corporates are taking the opportunity to engage both internally and externally through live events. As far as Christmas is concerned, everyone seems to be doing something slightly different,” adds Alex Hewitt, CEO of AOK Events.
AOK Events is seeing Christmas parties booked from the last week in November, all the way through to Q1 next year. “Some clients are not ready for a live event and have asked us to help fulfil either virtual events or company-wide gifts or rewards that get sent out to employees to the same value as what a party would have cost.”
“Clients are taking the opportunity to say thank you, but they are doing what is right for their culture and we are delivering accordingly,” he adds.
