Recommend me a room for talks and drinks in London, that doesn't cost the earth...

September 2, 2008 5:58 AM

Can anyone recommend a room to rent in central London for an evening do? We'd like the room from 6.30-10 (or so). Needs to be able to hold about 100, with projection facilities, and preferably with the ability to bring our own refreshments (or to have decent and cheap catering).
posted by handee to society & culture (6 comments total)

Try any university institutions in the area where you want the event. Most act as conference venues, have a choice of room sizes and would be well set up from basic to more complex catering. Most will have a conference dept dedicated to this kind of rental. Central London you have Imperial, UCL, LSE, SOAS for starters.
posted by biffa at 7:01 AM on September 2, 2008

A room with projection facilities you say. Have you tried your local cinema?

The Picturehouse chain allow hiring of their auditoria and naturally have the ability to project pretty much whatever format you'd like and they have a few cinemas in London.

Our local Odeon also does this but I can't say whether that would be the same for their sites in London.
posted by electricinca at 12:32 PM on September 2, 2008

The Horse Hospital.
posted by Dr.Pill at 12:38 PM on September 2, 2008

This sounds a bit like This Happened and they've used a few different venues you could check out...
posted by so_necessary at 1:18 PM on September 2, 2008

What's your budget? What's the meeting for? Who's going to be there? Is this low-key/high profile? Informal/formal?

Here's some places I've been to meetings, etc, or I know have meeting rooms that you could use. I eat any free food without prejudice so I can't comment on that so much.

The prices may vary, I was rarely the one doing the booking...

Places I've been:

Mary Sumner House
New Connaught Rooms
British Museum (they have an education centre downstairs below the courtyard) - in fact probably some of the other big museums and galleries could probably take you too.
Baden Powell House


Places I've heard good things about;

London Zoo
The Abbey Centre


You might also try searching this database, which was created for voluntary organisations in Westminster, but lots of the facilities in the list also do private bookings.
posted by Helga-woo at 2:43 PM on September 2, 2008

The King's Fund

An excellent venue and you won't get more central. If this is a not for profit or academic event, their discounted rates are exceptional.
posted by genesta at 4:52 AM on September 3, 2008