A guest at your table who has read the brief
First nights, industry dinners, awards tables, a client who needs entertaining after eight hours of meetings: the common thread is a room with other people's opinions in it. What you are booking is somebody composed, briefed, and genuinely good at a table of strangers, for four hours at £900 or longer where the evening runs to it. Events are written further ahead than nights, because the diary block is larger and the arrangements around it start earlier.
This quarter is built for the first kind. A press night on Bow Street, a party afterwards in a room off Strand and Aldwych, an awards dinner in one of the big rooms over towards Holborn: all of it sits twenty minutes from a hotel door. The figures are the ordinary ones on the rail, with nothing added for the fact that an evening happens to have other people in it.
Who suits this call
A shortlist rather than the whole company. If none of these is free on your night, the desk will name three more who carry the same evening just as well.
Briefing her, and how much to give
More than you would think, and it takes four lines. Who you are meeting and roughly why, what you would rather not discuss, and what she is to you for the evening if anybody asks: a friend, a colleague, a guest, whichever sits easily in your mouth. Names and job titles help. One sentence about the room, black tie or not, seated or standing, is worth more than a paragraph about the company. She repeats none of it afterwards and the desk keeps none of it either.
Reading the dress code for the room
Tell her the venue and she gets it right, because the range in WC2 is wide: a first night at the Opera House is a different proposition from a launch in a warehouse room near Seven Dials. Where you are unsure, err formal. A woman slightly over dressed at an industry party reads as considered, while the reverse is the only version anybody remembers afterwards. If a photographer is working the room, put that in the brief along with everything else.
Photographs, and the answer about them
She does not stand for press photographs, and will step out of a frame politely and without any fuss at all. This is not squeamishness, it is the single rule that keeps a professional arrangement professional for both of you. Events with a branded wall at the entrance are attended on the understanding that you walk past it alone. Inside the room phones come out constantly and that is a different matter, but nobody here is photographed to order.
Discretion at a table of colleagues
Nobody at that table learns anything from her. She does not volunteer how the two of you met, does not drink beyond a glass or two unless you have agreed the evening is that kind, and is very good at the ordinary business of asking somebody about themselves for twenty minutes. If a colleague asks a direct question, the answer is the one you wrote in the brief, which is exactly why it is worth settling that beforehand rather than in the lift on the way up.
Names for a table of twelve
Samanta is precise without being cold and handles a formal room better than almost anyone here. Milena is 175 cm and does not audition for a room, which is the quality a long table rewards most. Violetta is the tallest on the sheet and wholly unbothered by it. Karolina holds a great deal back until she has decided otherwise, and Michelle opens a conversation in the lobby and keeps it running all evening. All five are statuesque.
Hours, notice and an evening that overruns
Four hours covers a dinner or a performance with drinks either side. Awards evenings run longer and are usually written as a ten hour night, since the party afterwards tends to be the point of them. The figure is agreed in writing well before the night, and it is settled with her privately at the start rather than in front of anybody. Extensions on the night are a message to the desk at the ordinary rate, and the booking page carries the wording.
This evening, answered
Whatever the two of you decided in the brief, and the plainer the better. A friend, or a guest, covers nearly every room. Elaborate stories are the thing people remember: a short answer and a change of subject is the thing they forget by the second course.
Yes, with one condition. She is not photographed for publication and will step out of any frame heading that way. Events with a photo wall at the door are attended on the basis that you walk it on your own, which nobody has ever found awkward.
A week is comfortable and a fortnight is better. The diary block is long, and dresses and travel are often arranged in advance, so an early message gives you the widest choice of company.
Usually, and settling it takes a two minute message to the desk. Extra hours are charged at the same rate printed on the rail and depend entirely on what sits behind you in her night. Where the answer is no, the evening finishes at the hour you booked.
Written for this evening
Other evenings
Call the stage door
One message names the evening you want and the desk answers inside a quarter of an hour, at any point on the clock. Tell us the day, the hour, how long you would like and where she should come, and the rest is written down for you.
Running order
- Half hour
- Beginners
- YouCurtain up
- Interval
- Final bow