The Christmas party is dead. Long live the Christmas party

The Christmas party as we know it is dead.

So why would we talk down our Christmas party business? Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas after all.

For a starter, it’s true.

Prior to 2020, most firms did them and it felt a bit Scrooge-like to pass on them. There was an expectation that simply needed to be met.

We don’t need to dwell too much on what happened in 2020 and 2021.

However 2022 had everything going for it we thought. This looked like the year that was going to be the big bounce back. We certainly had some parties running, but we were down 60% on 2019.

Why was this? Our core offsite business was now well up on 2019. Firms were investing in their people and another poor Christmas seemed strange on the surface.

So we powered on and waited to see what 2023 brought… and the answer was very little.

And everyone in the industry is whispering the same thing to us this year- that smaller teams are going out for dinner, but the bigger budget, firm wide bash isn’t happening like it used to.

So why is this? We’ve certainly got a whole list of theories. Covid created a gap change but whilst it’s no longer a problem- variants of work from home have remained all over.

Up to 2019, people all spilled out of the office and headed over. Now lots of people have to come into London specially. And not all firms are willing to pay the expenses, and that’s before understanding the general interest in attending, after years of lost momentum.

Younger team members aren’t drinking like previous generations did and couple that with a health appreciation everywhere- the big party which would typically have plentiful alcohol available isn’t as attractive as it used to be.

And then there’s the big party bomb that dropped this October with the Worker Protection Act. With HR teams very aware of new sexual harassment law in the workplace, being responsible for employee safety in the workplace and at Christmas parties- is going to quite rightly create even more conversations.

So is Christmas over?

Not even close. This year and last we ran some incredible offsites in November and December that ended in a Christmas party.

Getting everyone out of the office to be together, do some great work, get fired up for the new year ahead with great team building is a different kettle of fish. In the world that we painted above, this market is booming. We think it’s a structural growth market and we bring so much more to the party in this arena.

Christmas offsites is what we’re branding it as and offsites that previously may have happened in September or Q1 we think are going to be increasingly scheduled from November to mid-December. And we’re also hearing from a lot of firms that now want 2 big meet ups a year, so year end seems perfect.

We’ve got our big offsites capability and got very good at Christmas parties too. So putting the two together is a no-brainer for us. We love it.

The Christmas party is dead. Long live the Christmas party 🎉