In this guide
Three things every stag-do listicle still gets wrong about London. Capital Karts Barking, the karting answer for a decade, is no longer listed on its operator’s own website — only Star City in Birmingham is. Bodean’s BBQ has closed, and its site is now a single notice saying so. And Cirque le Soir’s published door policy says groups must be mixed and that all-male groups may be turned away.
What actually decides a stag weekend is group-size rules and what the evening costs once the bar is counted — and the pages that rank for this sell packages. So here is the same weekend priced from the operators’ own booking systems.
Every price, group limit and door policy below was read off the operator’s own website on 3 September 2026.
💡 The Short Version: Swift refuses stag parties at all three of its bars and asks you to leave the replica kit at home. Fairgame is 18-plus at every hour it opens and wants physical ID, not a photo of one. F1 Arcade’s Sprint Social is £25 a head for three hours of tournament racing with food. A private Thames Rockets speedboat for twelve works out at £57.92 each, under the £59.95 public ticket. And Flight Club will not take a booking of fewer than six after 4pm from Wednesday to Saturday.
What it costs, at a glance
Prices are per person for a group of twelve, from each operator’s own booking page.
| Activity | Price pp | Duration | Group size | Book ahead by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowling, Bloomsbury Lanes | £7.50 (lane of 6, off-peak) | 60 mins | 6 a lane | 2 weeks |
| Axe throwing, Rocket Room, Leicester Sq | £8 off-peak, £12 peak | 60 mins | Hire to 120 | 2 weeks |
| Mini golf, Puttshack Bank | £9.50 off-peak, £14 peak | 30 mins | Max 12 online | 3 weeks |
| Bowling, Tenpin Acton | £9.95 a game | 60 mins for 6 | 6 a lane | 1 week |
| Darts, Flight Club | £10 | 90 mins | Min 6 after 4pm Wed–Sat | 4 weeks |
| Fairground games, Fairgame Canary Wharf | £15 off-peak, £19 prime | 75 mins | 1 to 15 online | 3 weeks |
| F1 simulators, F1 Arcade St Paul’s | £25 (Sprint Social) | 3 hours | 3 to 5 priced as a group | 3 weeks |
| Escape room, Mission: Breakout, Camden | From £28 | 60 mins | 3–6 a room, 18 max | 4 weeks |
| Treasure hunt, Race Across The World | £35 | 3 hours | Teams of 2–8 | 3 weeks |
| Bottomless brunch, Electric Shuffle | £38 | 2 hours | 2 to 32 | 3 weeks |
| Prohibition bar, Moonshine Saloon | £38 + £3.04 fee | 105 mins | No max, 30+ via events | 3 weeks |
| Karaoke package, BAM Victoria | £45 (£62.50 with food) | 2 hours | 4 to 40 | 4 weeks |
| THE CUBE, Canary Wharf | £48.65–£57.69 | 90–120 mins | Played in fours | 4 weeks |
| Speedboat charter, Thames Rockets | £57.92 for 12 | 60 mins | 8 to 12 | 4 weeks |
| Immersive dinner, Murdér Express | £60 (carriage of 6) | 2 hours | Min 2 | 6 weeks |
Daytime, by type
Anything with an engine
Capital Karts Barking is gone from its operator’s site. The company was bought by K1 Speed in May 2024, head office moved to Birmingham, and Star City is the only track listed. What is left in London and publishes a price is F1 Arcade at 1 New Change, EC4M 9AF, two minutes from St Paul’s. The bookable group deal is the Sprint Social at £25 a head — 6pm to 9pm on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, ninety minutes of hosted tournament racing then free play, a welcome drink and unlimited flatbreads. That is the best-value three hours in this guide. Party packages run from £29 and £49 a head.
Gravity MAX in Wandsworth is the answer when twelve people cannot agree. Karting is £15.25 a head, bowling £10.99, AR darts £11.25, urban street golf £12.25 — but the MAX3 pass at £28.50 buys three activities, which beats paying singly. Open to 11pm Friday and Saturday.
Throwing things
Rocket Room on the second floor of Market Place, Leicester Square, publishes an actual price list, which almost nothing in this category manages. Axe throwing is £12 a person an hour, £8 off-peak. Interactive darts is £10 and £8, shuffleboard £20 an hour for the board (£18 off-peak) and beer pong a flat £30 an hour whenever you play.
Two rules will stop you at the door: closed-toe shoes are compulsory for axes, and tracksuits, gym wear and sandals are refused outright. Axe throwing is 18-plus at every hour, everywhere in London. Nothing is refunded inside seven days.
Darts, shuffleboard and the rest of the format
Flight Club invented social darts and carries the rule that ruins plans: a minimum of six people to book after 4pm from Wednesday to Saturday — four on Monday and Tuesday, six every day through December. Play starts at £10 a head, sessions are fixed at 90 minutes and cannot be extended, and groups over 12 get two oches. It is 18-plus after 5pm Sunday to Friday and all day Saturday.
Electric Shuffle takes two people or thirty-two, which is why it works on a Friday when Flight Club does not: £10 a head Sunday to Tuesday, £13 Wednesday to Saturday, plus a £38 weekend bottomless brunch. Bounce at Battersea is £6 a head, the cheapest game in London, with group packages including food and drink from £20 a head for a minimum of six.
Fairgame is the one to know about in advance. Nine games in 75 minutes at Canary Wharf for £15 off-peak or £19 prime; twelve games in 90 minutes at the City site for £22 and £25. There is no minimum group size at all — but it is 18-plus at every hour it opens and insists on physical photo ID rather than a picture of one, and groups of sixteen or more must book through the events team and pre-purchase food and drink. The competitive socialising guide compares the whole category, including three venues that have closed.
Bowling, cheaply
Bloomsbury Lanes charges by the lane, not the head: £45 an hour off-peak Sunday to Tuesday, £55 after 5pm on those days, £65 Wednesday to Saturday. A lane takes six, so twelve people on two off-peak lanes is £7.50 each — under a third of what a Flight Club oche works out at once its minimums are met. The darts oche is £30 an hour on a real board.
Rowans in Finsbury Park is £8.60 a game in the daytime and £10.80 on a Friday or Saturday evening, plus admission of £1 that becomes £5 after 7pm at weekends, and it stays open to 2.30am. Read the age rule first: after 7pm on Friday and Saturday it is over-21s only, on photo ID. Tenpin is £9.95 a game online, with 50% off on Tuesdays.
Games you play rather than watch
Mission: Breakout in Camden is from £28 a player, and the room is a real disused Underground station — South Kentish Town, shut since 1924 — not a set. Three to six players a game, three games running at once, so eighteen people is the ceiling.
THE CUBE at Canary Wharf is £48.65 to £57.69 a head, the priciest game here, and it is played in fours in a 2v2 format — so twelve splits into three pods and you are pooled with strangers if the numbers do not divide.
Race Across The World: The Experience is £35 an adult with no booking fee, teams of two to eight playing privately across the Square Mile over WhatsApp — three checkpoints, a virtual budget, no public transport allowed, five kilometres on foot. It works on a hangover.
On the water
A private Thames Rockets charter for twelve is £695 — £57.92 a head, less than the £59.95 each you would pay on a public sailing. Sixty minutes out of London Eye Pier, Boarding Gate One, SE1 7PB, two minutes from Waterloo. On a public departure a group of twelve will not always travel together unless it is pre-arranged, so the charter is not an upgrade, it is the thing you wanted. Minimum eight passengers, lifejackets compulsory, and the named lead passenger carries responsibility for the party.
⚠️ The joint speedboat-and-axe-throwing package is gone. Thames Rockets lists its Axetravaganza as no longer available, and Whistle Punks — the axe partner and for years the best-known name in London axe throwing — no longer has a working website at either of its domains. Book the two separately, or use Rocket Room.
The evening
The doors that will not open
Swift refuses stag parties in writing at all three London bars — Soho, Borough and Shoreditch. The line is identical on every page: “Sorry, but we are unable to accommodate any stag or hen parties.” Alongside it: “Swift operates a 21 and over policy at all our venues” and “Please leave your Arsenal replica kit at home.” Swift Soho will not take a booking greater than six.
Cirque le Soir on Ganton Street states that groups must be mixed and that all-male groups may be turned away. It is 19-plus on Monday and Wednesday and 20-plus at weekends, publishes no entry price or minimum spend, and takes tables only by phone or WhatsApp.
Nightjar in Shoreditch takes groups of up to 20 — Sunday to Thursday only, with a pre-order and a minimum spend. No weekend group booking exists there at all.
Ministry of Sound asks you to “arrive dressed for a good night out” and refuses tracksuits, sportswear, caps, football shirts and face coverings; smart shorts and sports trainers are fine. Tape in Mayfair is stricter — no designer tracksuits, sliders or everyday trainers, guest list through its own members app, and “all guests are required to show physical ID, photographs of your ID will not be accepted”.
That is the pattern, and it is worth stating plainly: almost nowhere in central London bans fancy dress by name, because the sportswear rules do the job instead. Twelve men in matching football shirts will be refused at more doors than twelve men in shirts.
Where a group of twelve is genuinely welcome
BAM Karaoke Box at 74 Victoria Street publishes a stag package, which is rare enough to matter. Liquid Courage is £45 a head for two hours in a private room with prosecco or beer on arrival and two house drinks; Final Mic Drop is £62.50 with three drinks and food. Sold for groups of four or more, and the groom goes free in a group of ten. Twenty-two rooms take four to forty; no confetti; 12.5% service on food and drink.
Moonshine Saloon at Aldgate is £38 plus a £3.04 fee for a Prohibition saloon where the barkeeps mix in front of you and actors work the room. It has no minimum or maximum table size, and the trick is that you bring your own spirit — a sealed 35cl bottle between two or 70cl between four — while the venue supplies every mixer and garnish for three to four rounds. Strictly 18-plus, and there is more of this in the immersive experiences guide.
The Murdér Express in Bethnal Green is where the group discount is real: general admission is £88 plus a £4.90 fee, but the Group Carriage is £66.25 a head for four and £60 for six, wine included and seats together. Arriving as a six costs a third less each than arriving as a pair.
Bunga 90 in Covent Garden — a 1990s world entered through a Blockbuster-style video shop, with arcade cabinets and private karaoke rooms — welcomes walk-ins daily except Saturdays before 4pm, which almost nothing else does, though groups of 21 or more have to ring rather than book online.
Free entry, no membership, open 24 hours: the Hippodrome Casino on Cranbourn Street, over-18s only on Challenge 25 — rules in the casino guide. For a cheap first hour, Angel Comedy is free seven nights a week; the comedy club guide explains how early to queue.
Eating as twelve
Bodean’s has closed — its site is a closure notice and nothing else, so ignore every listicle still sending you there. A food hall works better anyway, because twelve people ordering twelve different things is the actual problem. Mercato Metropolitano runs three London sites: Elephant & Castle at 17,000 square feet, Mayfair inside the Grade I-listed St Mark’s Church, and Wood Wharf. Brasserie Zédel at 20 Sherwood Street, a minute from Piccadilly Circus, has a group dining menu and is the cheapest grand room in the West End.
For a bar that will take the booking rather than refuse it, the cocktail bar guide sets out which rooms take reservations at all — the east London independents are far more forgiving than the Mayfair hotel bars.
Where to stay for 10 to 20
One building, not twelve hotel rooms. Read the group terms before the rate, because they are where the money goes.
Budget, about £45–£70 a head. Hostels that will sell you a whole room. Safestay Elephant & Castle, 144–152 Walworth Road, SE17 1JL, is seven minutes from the Northern and Bakerloo lines and does private-use rooms from eight to fifteen beds, with a group team covering ten to a hundred-plus guests. Wombat’s on Dock Street, E1 8LL, sits between Shadwell DLR and Aldgate East, is 18-plus and takes group bookings from fifteen. Clink takes groups from ten, with a 20% non-refundable deposit on anything over £1,000, 100% lost inside 30 days, and no outside alcohol.
Read Astor’s terms before you book anywhere cheap: bookings cap at fifteen people including several bookings for the same group, eleven or more must go through the groups department, and the hostel “may ask for a damage deposit from groups of guests when it deems this reasonable including football games, races, stag and hen parties”, alongside an unqualified right to refuse or evict with no refund. That is the standard shape of hostel terms, written down more honestly than most.
Mid, about £90–£140 a head. Aparthotels suit twelve men better than a corridor of twins: kitchen, living room, no reception desk watching you come in. Locke runs eleven London properties, including Leman Locke and Buckle Street Studios in Aldgate and Bermonds Locke by Tower Bridge. Point A has seven central sites, from King’s Cross and Liverpool Street to Waterloo and Shoreditch.
Premium, £180 a head and up. Cheval Collection has eight residences and one maison across more than 800 apartments at Three Quays by the Tower, Calico House by St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Hyde Park.
⚠️ A whole house on a short let is harder than it looks. Greater London caps short-term letting at 90 nights a calendar year under the Deregulation Act 2015, and Airbnb automatically limits entire-home London listings to 90 nights without planning permission. Airbnb also bans parties and “disruptive gatherings, regardless of size”, and blocks reservations it judges higher risk. A booking for twelve men declined without explanation is usually that, not bad luck.
Where to base up. Shoreditch and Old Street for Flight Club, late bars and walking home. King’s Cross for Electric Shuffle, Bloomsbury Lanes and the trains north. Canary Wharf if Fairgame and THE CUBE are the plan. Elephant & Castle for the cheapest beds within reach of Zone 1.
Three weekends, costed
Twelve people, the prices above, and an £8.90 Zones 1–2 travel cap on each day.
The £94 day and night, no bed. Off-peak axes at Rocket Room (£8), two off-peak lanes at Bloomsbury Lanes (£7.50), Race Across The World (£35), free comedy, £8.90 of travel and about £35 on food and drinks. Total £94.40, with three genuinely good activities inside it.
The £214 Saturday with a bed. F1 Arcade Sprint Social (£25), Fairgame Canary Wharf off-peak (£15), food-hall dinner (£25), BAM’s Liquid Courage karaoke (£45, groom free), £8.90 of travel, £30 of drinks, £65 for a private hostel room. Total £213.90.
The £414 two-night weekend. A private Thames Rockets charter (£57.92), THE CUBE on a Friday (£48.65), the Murdér Express group carriage (£60), £50 of drinks, £17.80 of travel and £180 a head for two nights in an apartment. Total £414.37 — and the bed is the biggest single line, not the activities.
On splitting it. Nothing here takes a group payment as standard, so the organiser fronts the money unless they collect first. Collect at the point of booking and treat every deposit as spent: Clink’s 20% is non-refundable, Rocket Room refunds nothing inside seven days, and Boom Battle Bar charges £10 a head if you cancel inside 24 hours or arrive more than fifteen minutes late — which, with twelve people, happens.
Package company or do it yourself
StagWeb sells London weekends from £189 a head. The Legend is £189 for two nights with a casino night, axe throwing and a cocktail experience. The Boss is £209 with a stadium tour, a football session and nightclub entry. The GOAT is £285 with go karting, a comedy club and a Bavarian feast. The deposit is £10 a head, the group pays individually.
Price the components and the picture is clear. The Legend includes a casino night — the Hippodrome charges nothing at the door. Off-peak axes at Rocket Room are £8. A cocktail experience is £40. That is well under £50 of activity, so most of the £189 is two nights’ accommodation, and roughly what two nights in a private hostel room costs.
The package is not a mark-up on the games, then; it is a bundle of a bed, a booking service and an individual payment system. What you give up is the off-peak pricing that does most of the saving here — Rocket Room at £8 rather than £12, Fairgame at £15 rather than £19 — and the choice of venue. Book A Party, which is what Fizzbox has become, states plainly that it charges “no booking fees, the same price as going direct”. Use an agency if the organiser’s time is worth more than the flexibility; book direct if you can shift anything to a Thursday, a Sunday or an afternoon.
The rules that actually decide the weekend
- Everyone taps their own card. Twelve people cannot share one, and using a phone on one journey and a card on the next splits the capping. Zones 1–2 cap at £8.90 a day, buses and trams are £1.75 with a £5.25 cap, and the Hopper fare buys unlimited buses within 60 minutes for a single fare. Never buy a paper day Travelcard: the surcharge is £16.60 to £23.60. See the transport costs guide and the Oyster card guide.
- Plan the last leg before the first drink. Six lines run all night on Friday and Saturday at off-peak fares — Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria and Windrush — and everything else stops around 00:30, so where you sleep decides which of them you need.
- The cab home costs more than the cab out. Black cab Tariff 3 runs 10pm to 5am at £5.29 a mile beyond six miles, against £4.13 on a weekday daytime — about 28% more for the same road. Minimum fare £4.40.
- Check the ceiling as well as the floor. Online booking stops at 12 at Puttshack and Boom Battle Bar, 20 at Nightjar, 24 at Swingers, 32 at Electric Shuffle, 36 at Flight Club and 40 at BAM.
- Age limits change by the hour, venue by venue. Fairgame is 18-plus all day, Flight Club from 5pm, Swingers from 6pm, Bat & Ball and Boom Battle Bar from 7pm. Rowans is over-21s only after 7pm at weekends and Swift is 21-plus always.
- Dump the bags first. Stasher is from £1.49 a bag a day with cover to £10,000 — 17 points at Euston, 28 around King’s Cross St Pancras, 27 at Paddington and 26 at Liverpool Street, more than 70 of them open around the clock.
- A stadium tour is not a group deal. Wembley’s own booking page offers group rates only for parties of 25 or more, so a stag of twelve pays the walk-up price like everyone else.
Continue planning your London trip
- 🎯 Competitive Socialising in London
- 🎲 Casinos in London: Which Are Still Open
- ✨ The Best Immersive Experiences in London
- 🎤 The Best Comedy Clubs in London
- 🍸 The Best Cocktail Bars in London
- 🥂 Bottomless Brunch in London — where the drinks are genuinely unlimited and where they are not
- 🚇 Getting Around London: The Transport Guide
This guide is independent and contains no paid placements. Every price, group limit and door policy was checked against the operator’s own website on 3 September 2026. Where a price is described here as not published, that means the venue itself does not state it — and since almost everything in this category is cheaper before 5pm, confirm the band for your day before you collect anyone’s money.
Common questions
How much does a stag do in London cost per person?
Costed from operators' own prices, £94 a head covers a day and an evening with no bed, £214 adds one night in a private hostel room, and £414 buys a two-night weekend with a private speedboat charter and a proper dinner. The games are cheap — £6 at Bounce, £8 for off-peak axe throwing, £10 for darts. Beds and bars are what cost money.
Which London venues turn away stag groups?
Cirque le Soir's door policy states that groups must be mixed and that all-male groups may be turned away. Swift refuses stag parties in writing at Soho, Borough and Shoreditch, runs a 21-and-over door and will not seat a booking of more than six in Soho. Nightjar takes groups of up to 20 but only from Sunday to Thursday.
Can you still go karting in London for a stag do?
Not at Capital Karts Barking, which was the default answer for a decade — the operator's own site now lists only Star City in Birmingham. The London alternatives that publish prices are F1 Arcade at St Paul's, where the Sprint Social is £25 a head for three hours, and Gravity MAX in Wandsworth at £15.25 a head for karting or £28.50 for its three-activity pass.
What will get a stag group refused at the door?
Sportswear, mostly. Ministry of Sound refuses tracksuits, sportswear, caps, football shirts and face coverings. Tape refuses designer tracksuits, sliders and everyday trainers. Bat & Ball bans tracksuit bottoms, gym wear, hats and work boots after 7pm. Fairgame and Tape both demand physical photo ID and will not accept a picture of one.
How far ahead do you need to book a stag do in London?
Two to four weeks covers almost everything for a Saturday. The exceptions are Swingers, which releases tickets two months ahead and sells out its evening slots, and any restaurant table for twelve, which wants three to four weeks. Flight Club needs booking early because it will not take fewer than six after 4pm from Wednesday to Saturday.
What works if half the group is not drinking?
Most of the best options in London are games with a bar attached rather than the reverse, so nobody has to opt out of anything. Fairgame, Race Across The World, Mission: Breakout, THE CUBE, Puttshack and the Thames Rockets speedboat are identical experiences sober. The Hippodrome Casino costs nothing to walk into and never closes.
