If dressing up or trick or treating is a little too standard for you, we’ve got a bunch of alternative things you can do with a group to creep it real
Get immersed at a mystery dinner party
When? Wednesday 31 October, 7pm – 3am
How much? From £95pp
Who said Halloween couldn’t be glamorous eh? Ditch the blood, gore and vampires jumping out of casks in return for an evening of sophisticated dining, dancing, music and theatrical entertainment with your group at
Berners Tavern at The London Edition.
Tickets include a cocktail on arrival, a specially curated four-course sit-down dinner, followed by a party with dancing, music and entertainment. Alternatively, if you’re just interested in the partying bit (we don’t judge), you can purchase after-party only tickets from £25pp.
We love the Halloween touches to the menu, especially on the pudding side: choose between a pumpkin pie with a tombstone or a ‘Skull Alaska’.
It wouldn’t be Halloween without dressing up though, would it? You are therefore encouraged to follow the dress code, which is ‘1835-2018, Surrealist Ghoulish Glamour’ – why not have a competition of best dressed in your group?
Watch a scary movie in a Grade I-listed church
Where? LSO St Luke’s, Old Street
When? Friday 26 October, 6.30pm
How much? 15pp
You know when you were too old to go trick or treating, but too young to go to Halloween parties, so you and your friends ended up watching a scary film together?
Well why not throw it back this Halloween and take your group to LSO St Luke’s, a converted 18th century church for the screening of a chilling German silent film from 1920?
The black-and-white horror classic The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is creepy enough on its own, but with the sinister surroundings of a gothic church as your back-drop, the fear-factor is guaranteed to be high. As it’s a silent film, The Cabinet of Living Cinema will provide some blood-curdling music to go with it (LSO St Luke’s is the home of the London Symphony Orchestra after all).
Go ghost-hunting at a haunted royal palace
When? Halloween week, from 5.30pm
How much? £2,000 for 30 guests
Notorious wife-decapitator King Henry VIII resided at
Hampton Court Palace, and although he left the torturing and actual beheading to
The Tower of London, the royal palace still has its unfinished business.
Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was kept prisoner at
Hampton Court Palace before she was transported to her execution at the
Tower. Upon her arrest, she broke free from the guards, running to the doors of the Chapel Royal (where she thought the King was praying), screaming for mercy.
Legend has it she still roams the halls outside the chapel, known as the ‘Haunted Gallery’ – some visitors even claim they could feel a ‘chill’ or ‘strange sensation’ when passing along the corridor.
The ghost of Catherine, and other paranormal activity at the palace, will be explored on these very popular ghost tours. Spooky! Private hire is available for up to 30 guests.
Go Mexican for Day of the Dead
When? Friday 2 November, 5pm – 1am
How much? Free!
If you’re Mexican, Day of the Dead is a rather significant holiday to remember friends and family who have died. If you’re not Mexican, Día de Muertos is an excuse to get your face painted like a colourful skull and drink margaritas – and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Your group can do the latter at
The National Theatre this year, where West London’s Weird Beard Brew Co takes over the taps at The Understudy (the
NT’s bar). On top of beer, there will be
muertoritas (the bar’s classic twist on a classic margarita) up for grabs.
Don’t worry about looking the part before you get there (the skull details are difficult to get right), as there will be professional face-painters on site to do it for you. When you’ve got your face on, as it were, dance among festooned strings of colourful papel picado to a soundtrack of traditional Mexican music and Latin American-inspired hard rock.
If you’re still not convinced, there’s a chance to win a drinkable prize, too. And if you’re still not convinced, it’s free to attend!
READ MORE: Discover the National Theatre’s newest venue space,
The Deck.
Do Halloween Harry Potter style
When? Friday 26, Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 October, 7pm until the witching hour (that’s midnight, you muggles)
How much? £240pp
You don’t have to fight a giant troll like Harry and Ron did in on Hallow’s Eve in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but what you can do is celebrate Halloween where they filmed it.
Hogwarts’ Great Hall opens its grand doors for an evening of cocktails, canapés and dining and it will be decorated with floating pumpkins and cauldrons of lollipops. The evening begins with smoking dry ice cocktails and nibbles before you sit down for a two-course meal surrounded by the original props and costumes from the film.
Dessert will be served in the newly opened Forbidden Forest – there's nothing like giant spiders to go with your pudding. The evil Death Eaters will of course be making an appearance, too.
Guest will be seated at round tables of 10 or 12 and entire tables can be booked –
get started here.
Get your gore fix at House of Horror
When? Every day from 5pm
How much? £35pp/£300 for a group of 10
If Halloween is synonymous with blood and guts for you and your crew, we’d recommend heading up to
House of Horror. A new 4D immersive experience that aims to recreate some of the scariest moments in horror film history, you can expect exorcisms, severed limbs and plenty of blood.
Make your way through 12 rooms of sheer torture – each featuring its own physical or psychological challenge. If you’re brave enough, you can choose to have a crack at the mysterious and intense Room 13, which requires you to sign a waiver before entering.
A group ticket for 10 is £300 and includes food and drink packages – that is if you can actually eat/hold down your food while visiting.
Go golfing – naturally
Where? Swingers City and Swingers West End
When? Wednesday 31 October – Saturday 3 November
How much? From £10pp
Swap crazy golf with spooky golf at Swingers, which will transform its two venues into Halloween havens. You’ll be swinging your clubs not just at golf balls, but to knock cobweb out of your way. And that’s when you’re not dodging the possessed caddies dressed as zombies, witches and demons.
There’s a prize waiting if you manage to get a hole in one, but if you don’t, you can always make it better my having the bespoke PumpGin Martini cocktail. The Swingers photo podium will also be equipped with sinister surprises and scary props.
Open for corporate bookings and private hire, this could be the ideal way to (trick or) treat your team. Groups between nine and 500 can get booked in.
Get in touch with the team here.
‘Boos’ it up in paradise
When? Friday 26 October – Saturday 3 November
How much? From £10pp
Ultimate party place
Tropicana Beach Club, normally an exotic paradise, will be putting on a series of parties over the Halloween weekend.
From 80s and 90s music-themed evenings featuring Halloween cocktails, fire-twirlers and face painters, to dress-up competitions, supernatural nightmare figures and Day of the Dead flower crowns,
Tropicana has something for everyone.
Our favourite? The ‘Glow in the Dark Bonfire Night After-Party’, which claims to provide the perfect place to warm up after watching the fireworks. Dance the night away surrounded by illuminations of all kinds – UV face painters, glow bands and glow-in-the-dark live performances.
Discover your inner darkness through a gong bath
Where? The Mandrake Hotel, Fitzrovia
When? Wednesday 31 October, 7pm
How much? £40pp
Step into the weird and mysterious Mandrake Hotel for a sound experience that will explore your hidden, buried darkness through a masked tantric gong. This can be a great teambuilding experience to release the stress and tension that’s been building up in the office.
If Halloween means fancy-dress to you, don’t be disheartened, as you’re encouraged to wear a mask that represents one of your deepest fears. Symbolically, you will remove it if you feel the sound experience is helping you tackle, and eventually release that fear.
The bath is guided by an orchestra of planetary gongs, Himalayan bowls, tuning forks and shamanic percussions. The aim is for the rhythm and vibration to take you to an altered state of consciousness, release energetic shifts and blocks, and enable healing, regeneration and reconnection.
In the spirit of Halloween, we’ve spoken to a tarot card consultancy that can entertain at your event – read it here