You can book a Christmas party venue in London with no minimum spend. Rooms hired by the hour start at about £25 and you bring your own food and drink. You are not choosing between a minimum spend and nothing, you are choosing between two good ways of paying for a party.

Most Christmas party listings quote a minimum spend because most of them are bars and restaurants, and food and drink is how they make their money. Halls, churches, sports clubs, studios and community venues work the other way round. They charge for the room and the rest is up to you.

How does minimum spend actually work?

The venue gives you the room for free and you agree to spend a set amount on food and drink during your event. Spend more than the minimum and you just pay your bill. Spend less and you pay the difference anyway.

Minimum spend on the London Christmas page run from £100 to £1,500 depending on the room and the date. If you want the whole thing handled, this is a good deal. It buys you the food, the drink, the staff, the glassware and the clearing up, and on a December Friday with forty people coming that is worth a lot. What it does not do is let you set the number yourself. Check out our small work Christmas party venues blog for some great minimum spend venues.

Hourly hire flips it. You pay for the room, you choose everything else, and the total is yours to decide. If your team has someone who likes organising a party, this is the one that rewards them.

What is included, and how to check

Venues price in different ways, and the listing tells you which one you are looking at. Some quote a flat hourly rate that covers everything. Some price parties separately from straightforward daytime hire, because a party with catering and a late finish is a different job from a Tuesday meeting. Some set a minimum charge per booking so a short hire still covers the cost of opening up.

All of the pricing information is on the venue listing page. The habit worth building is simple: read the pricing section fully, and if you want further details, then message the venue with your questions. Venues are used to questions and most come back quickly. You get a firm number for your finance team, they get an enquiry they can quote against properly, and nobody is guessing.

What does hourly hire cost?

On the London Christmas page, rooms priced by the hour run from around £25 to £367 an hour. The range is wide because it covers everything from a small church room to a 450-capacity restaurant, and the rooms in the middle are where most office parties land.

For a party of sixty in a hall at around £66 an hour, a five hour booking including your set-up and clear-down is roughly £330. That is the whole cost of the room. What you spend on food and drink after that is a decision rather than a condition, and it is the reason a hall party can be as generous or as modest as you want it to be.

What is in your hands with hourly hire?

Five things you get to decide.

Food. Your call entirely. A caterer, a buffet you put together, or drinks and something to pick at. Get quotes from two or three local caterers rather than working off a rule of thumb, because London prices vary more by area than by menu, and a good one will work around whatever kitchen the venue gives you.

Drink. You buy it, and this is where most of the saving is, because supermarket prices against bar prices is not a close contest. If you are giving drinks away there is no paperwork at all. If you are selling them, you need a Temporary Event Notice from the council, which costs £21 and needs ten clear working days' notice.

Set-up and clear-down. At most venues these sit inside the hours you have booked, so a four hour party is a six hour booking. Some give you more. Deptford Junction allows an hour either side. The listing tells you which, so you can plan the party properly.

Tables, chairs and glassware. Most halls include tables and chairs and give you the count on the listing, which makes seating plans easy. Glasses, plates and cutlery vary more, so check before you plan around them.

Who is onsite. Some venues hand you the keys and leave you to it, which is ideal if you want the place to yourselves. Others keep someone there throughout to help. Meghna Grill and St Peter de Beauvoir both do, and on a busy night that is worth having.

If someone on your team enjoys organising things, hourly hire can give you a bigger and better room for the money, and a party that looks like you rather than like a package. If nobody wants the job, a minimum spend venue does the lot for you and is worth every penny.

Match the venue to the party you want

Alcohol is the line worth reading first, because it sorts a long list quickly and it is where venues differ most. There is no right answer here, only the one that suits your night.

Some venues hold the licence and run the bar themselves, so drinks are handled for you and there is nothing to carry. The Space in Canary Wharf, a 19th-century church converted into an arts centre, works this way at £73 an hour.

Some allow you to bring your own. St Botolph Without Bishopsgate welcomes your own alcohol and your own sound system, which gives you the run of the room and a drinks budget you control to the penny.

Some ask to approve what you are bringing, which is usually one message and a yes or no answer. And some do not serve alcohol at all. Harlesden Methodist Church, Wind Rush Hall is one of those, which makes it a lovely room for a family Christmas party, a children's event or a team that would rather the night was not about the bar.

Two minutes on the listing tells you which you are looking at.

Eight Christmas party rooms with no minimum spend

All rates were taken from the venue's own page on 17 September 2026. Weekend rates are higher at several of these, so check your date.

Small rooms, under 60 people

The Private Hall at Meghna Grill in St John'sWood, 60 people, £37 an hour Monday to Friday and £61 at weekends. A fully equipped kitchen comes with the room, down to the glasses, the cutlery and the tea urn, and a member of staff stays on site throughout. If you are catering it yourself, this is about as easy as it gets.

The Cocktail Lounge Bar at The Balham House in SW12, 30 people, £51 an hour and the same rate every day of the week, weekends included. You reach it through the food market and up the stairs, there are mixologists and chefs in the building if you want them, and a flat rate on a December Saturday is a rare thing.

Medium, 60 to 150 people

The Pub at The Hare in Bethnal Green, 100 people, £25.50 an hour and the best value room of its size in this post by a distance. It is a proper saloon bar and it runs daytime, Monday to Thursday until 4pm and Friday until 2pm, so it is made for a long Christmas lunch.

The Loft at Raw Material in Brixton, 65 people, £51 an hour, and you can bring your own food, your own drink or an outside caterer with no restrictions at all. Step-free access, a lift, a kitchenette and AV. Weekdays finish at 6pm and weekends run to midnight but has an additional booking fee on the weekend.

Deptford Junction in SE8, 140 people, £61 an hour on weekdays and £92 at weekends. Friday runs to midnight and Saturday to 2am, and you get an hour either side of your booking for set-up and clear-down, which is more generous than most. The room is yours for the night. This venue does not allow alcohol so that is a consideration.

The Cafe and Terrace at St Peter de Beauvoir Town in N1, 70 standing or 40 seated, £89 an hour, with a kitchen and an outdoor terrace. A booker who used it last December said: “This space was absolutely perfect, we had a wonderful Christmas meal for 30 people. The venue staff were super helpful and on hand for any questions we had.”

The Main Hall at Clarence Hall in NW1, 120 people, £66 an hour with a kitchenette and an AV system a recent booker called easy to use. Opening hours vary by day at this one, so look at the calendar early and you will have your pick.

Large, 200 and over

The Main Hall at St Botolph Without Bishopsgate in EC2M, 250 people, £66 an hour Monday to Friday and £95 on a Saturday. A flexible hall with a kitchen and an adjoining outside space, your own alcohol and your own sound system both welcome, free cancellation, and it is a couple of minutes from Liverpool Street. For a City office party this is the room to beat.

The rooms are better than you are picturing

If “hall” makes you think of a serving hatch and a strip light, look again. The buildings hiring by the hour on Sharesy are converted churches, arts centres, sports clubs, galleries and studios, with wooden floors, high ceilings, proper lighting and stages. Several have virtual tours. Most have photographs that do the arguing for them.

There is a second thing worth saying, because your team will like it. When you hire a community venue, the money goes back into the building and usually into something local with it. A church hall's hire income keeps thero of on and the toddler group running. That is a better line in the all-staff email than a per-head package at a chain.

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Ready to look?

Browse Christmas party venues in London, you can sort and filter by Price (low to high). The hourly-rate rooms cluster at the cheap end. If you want somewhere cheaper again, start with halls for hire in London, but remember to check the venue hosts parties and allows alcohol, if you want it.