A plus one for the industry dinner, briefed and composed
Soho works for a living, and its working evenings have a particular texture. Production companies on Wardour Street, agencies off Golden Square, post houses and record labels and the restaurants that feed all of them at half past eight. A plus one at one of those tables is not decoration. She needs to hold a conversation with a stranger for an hour, remember who is who, and be entirely forgettable afterwards.
Four hours at £900 covers most of these evenings, drinks and a dinner and the part where people stand up and move around. Longer runs to the ordinary card. Event bookings are held with the half deposit rather than the quarter, because they are usually written well ahead and the date cannot move.
Suited to Business events
Ladies the host suggests most often for this kind of evening. Any name on the list can be asked for.
The Soho working evening
A screening at six that turns into a dinner at eight. A wrap that fills a private room above a pub. An awards table where you are seated with clients you have emailed for two years and never met. These evenings reward somebody who is warm on arrival, good at names and content to let you do the talking when the talking matters. They punish anybody who arrives underdressed, overdressed or visibly bored, which is why the briefing below is worth five minutes of your time.
How to brief her properly
Send the host four things and they reach her before she leaves. What the event is and who is hosting it. How you would like to be introduced, and the house's default is simply as a friend unless you say otherwise. Anything genuinely sensitive, a merger nobody has announced, a colleague who should not be discussed. And the dress code as the invitation actually words it. That is the whole briefing. She will not ask questions at the table about anything you did not mention beforehand.
Dress codes, from screening room to awards table
A Soho screening is jeans and a good jacket and always has been. A client dinner over towards Oxford Circus is a notch above that. An awards evening at a Park Lane hotel is black tie and she will dress for it properly. The honest difficulty is the invitation that says smart casual and means something else entirely, so tell the host where it is being held and she will read the room from the address. When in doubt she errs quiet rather than loud, which is almost always the right call.
Discretion in a room full of colleagues
She is a guest at a dinner, which is the beginning and the end of it. No mention of the arrangement, no phone out at the table, no photographs. If somebody she has met at another event happens to be in the room she will not acknowledge the connection. Where an employer requires it, the host can confirm in writing beforehand that nothing about the evening is discussed afterwards. The about page sets out how the house handles discretion generally, and none of it is different because the room is full of people you work with.
Names who handle a table of twelve
Violetta is 178 cm, thirty, and has the most poise on the list for a formal room. Karolina is 174 cm and quick with names and faces. Sonya is thirty two, hazel eyed and unflappable when a table turns into a negotiation. Liana is composed and genuinely good at drawing out a difficult guest. Angelika is athletic, twenty four and reliably charming across an evening. Several of them sit under statuesque or thirties.
Hours, deposit and settling up
Write with the date as early as you have it, because event dates do not flex and the best names go first. Half the fee by bank transfer holds the booking, the balance is settled in cash or by a second transfer, and the descriptor on the statement is neutral. If the dinner overruns, which these always do, the extra hours are agreed at the card rate in the chat. The booking page sets out the whole sequence, and the host answers inside 10 to 15 minutes at any hour.
Business events, asked at the door
Short, plain answers. Anything else, the host takes by message at any hour.
However you would like, and the house default is simply as a friend. Tell the host beforehand which version you want so that both of you give the same answer to the same question.
Ask first. Several companions are comfortable at a public event and several are not, and the host will tell you plainly which names to consider rather than sending somebody who will spend the evening avoiding a lens.
Because it is written for a fixed date that cannot be moved or resold. Half by bank transfer holds it, with the travel element non refundable, and the balance settles on the night.
Message the host from the table and the extra time is agreed at the ordinary rate if her evening allows. Event bookings overrun more often than any other kind, so it is worth booking the longer option from the start.
More occasions
- 01 · Hotel outcall companionshipRoom visitsThis is the plainest line the house writes and the one written most often. You give the hotel, the hour and how long you would like her to stay. The host gives you a name and a figure. She walks...Step inside
- 02 · Dinner date companionshipDinner datesA dinner booking is four hours and £900, and in this postcode those four hours have a particular shape. Soho eats early for the theatres and then eats again at half past ten when the casts and the...Step inside
- 03 · Overnight companionshipOvernightsAn overnight is ten hours and £1,800. It usually begins somewhere between ten and midnight, which in Soho is not late at all, and runs through to the morning. It is the one booking the house asks...Step inside
- 04 · Girlfriend experience companionshipGirlfriend experienceThe phrase gets used loosely across this industry, so here is what it means at this door and nothing more. It is an evening with the formality taken out of it. She arrives as somebody pleased to...Step inside
- 05 · Travel companionshipTravel companionTwo different bookings share this page. The first is an airport run, a companion with you for the journey out to Heathrow or Gatwick or for the hours after you land, which carries a three hour...Step inside
- 06 · Duo companionshipDuo bookingsA duo is two names on the same booking, arriving together at the same address at the same hour. It is asked for most often for a long night out, where a pair carries an evening more easily than...Step inside
- 07 · Companionship for couplesCouplesCouples book this house for an evening together with a third person in it, most often a dinner and a bar afterwards, sometimes a show, occasionally a quiet evening at their own address. It is a...Step inside
- 08 · Night out companionshipNights outThis is the occasion Soho was built for. Three hours at £700 is the usual shape, four at £900 if dinner is inside it, and the whole night if you would rather not decide in advance. She meets you...Step inside
- 09 · Extended booking companionshipExtended bookingsSome guests are in London for a week rather than an evening, and would rather write one arrangement than send eight separate messages. An extended booking is exactly that. Several nights, or a run...Step inside
Book Business events
Share the date, the venue and the pace you have in mind. The host replies with names that fit.