You Are Already Doing the Hard Part
If you are reading this, chances are you are already running events. Maybe it is a supper club in your home kitchen. A pottery workshop in a rented studio. Wine tastings in a bar you have an arrangement with. Sushi-making classes on Saturday mornings. A foraging walk followed by a cook-up. A cocktail masterclass. A sourdough course. Whatever it is — you have built it, you run it, and people come back.
The hard part is always the same: getting more people through the door. You are spending hours on Instagram, juggling bookings via DMs and email, chasing payments, wondering whether your next event will fill or whether you will be cooking for four people again. The creative work — the actual experience you have designed — is the thing you love. The marketing, admin, and payment processing is the thing that drains you.
That is where we come in.
What a Host Partner Gets
80% of Every Ticket Sold
Let's start with the number that matters. You keep 80% of every ticket sold through our platform. We take 20%. There are no hidden fees, no setup costs, no monthly subscriptions. You sell a ticket for £30, you keep £24. That is it.
Payments are processed through Stripe and land in your account directly. You do not invoice us. You do not wait 30 days. The money flows to you as tickets sell.
A Platform That Sells Tickets For You
Your events are listed on Dinners With Friends, where a growing community of people are actively looking for social experiences. These are not passive browsers — they are people who have already decided they want to get out, try something new, and meet people. They just need to find the right event.
Your listing includes everything a potential guest needs: what the event is, when and where it happens, what is included, how much it costs, and how to book. Guests buy tickets through the platform, receive confirmations automatically, and get reminders before the event. You do not need to chase a single booking.
Marketing and Exposure
We promote events across our channels — email newsletters, social media, and the platform itself. Your events appear alongside our own dinners, which means your supper club or workshop is being seen by the same audience that is already buying tickets to social dining experiences. The crossover is natural: someone who comes to a Dinners With Friends dinner on a Wednesday is exactly the kind of person who would book your Saturday pottery class or your Friday wine tasting.
Analytics and a Dashboard
You get a dedicated company dashboard where you can track ticket sales, see your earnings, view your payout history, and monitor how your events are performing. It is clean, simple, and gives you the data you need to make decisions about pricing, capacity, and scheduling without guesswork.
The economics work in your favour the more you use the platform. A single event that sells 12 tickets at £25 puts £240 in your pocket. Run four of those a month and you are earning nearly £1,000 — from the ticket sales alone, before any additional revenue from food, drinks, or materials.
What We Are Looking For
We are not a launchpad for ideas that have not been tested yet. We are a growth platform for experiences that already work.
You Are Already Running Events
This is the main requirement. You need to have an existing track record — even a short one. If you have been running a supper club for three months, a workshop series for six, or a tasting evening for a year, you qualify. We want to see that you know how to deliver an experience, manage a group, and handle the logistics of running a live event.
If you have a brilliant idea but have not actually done it yet, we would encourage you to run a few events independently first. Test the concept, refine the format, build some confidence. Then come and talk to us. We will still be here.
You Have Business Insurance
This is non-negotiable. If you are running events where people are paying to attend, you need public liability insurance at a minimum. If you are handling food, you may need additional food safety certification depending on your local authority's requirements. If you are running workshops with tools or equipment, you need to be covered for that too.
Most event-based businesses already have this in place. If you do not, it is straightforward and relatively inexpensive to arrange — there are several UK providers that offer event-specific policies starting from a few hundred pounds a year.
Your Events Bring People Together
This is less a formal requirement and more a philosophical one. Dinners With Friends exists to create human connection. The events on our platform should reflect that. We are not looking for passive experiences where people sit in rows and watch something happen. We are looking for events where people interact — with each other, with you, with the food, with the craft, with whatever the experience involves.
A cooking class where people work in pairs. A wine tasting where the conversation is as important as the Chenin Blanc. A pottery session where people are laughing at their wonky bowls. A supper club where strangers share a table and leave as acquaintances. That is the energy we are looking for.
What Kind of Events Work
The short answer is: almost anything, as long as it involves people being together in a room and doing something they enjoy. Here are some of the formats that work particularly well on our platform:
Supper clubs and pop-up dinners — The most natural fit. You cook, you host, people come and eat together. Whether it is a five-course tasting menu in your living room or a themed evening in a rented kitchen, the format maps perfectly onto what our community is already looking for.
Cooking workshops — Teach people to make pasta from scratch, roll sushi, bake sourdough, or cook a proper Thai curry. These are consistently popular because they combine learning with socialising — people bond over shared incompetence with a rolling pin.
Wine, cocktail, and spirit tastings — Guided tastings with a social element. The key is that people are tasting together, comparing notes, and having conversations — not sitting in silence with a scorecard.
Pottery, ceramics, and craft workshops — Creative experiences where people make something with their hands. The shared activity takes the pressure off conversation, which makes these particularly appealing to people who find traditional social events daunting.
Cultural food experiences — An evening exploring the cuisine of a specific region or culture. Think "A Night in Oaxaca" or "Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony." These work brilliantly because they combine food, storytelling, and cultural exchange.
Foraging and outdoor experiences — A morning foraging walk followed by a cook-up. A coastal walk ending at a seafood restaurant. Anything that combines the outdoors with food and conversation.
Wellness and dining — Yoga followed by brunch. A meditation session with tea. A breathwork class that ends around a table. The combination of physical or mental wellness with communal eating is increasingly popular and genuinely valuable.
The Process
Step 1: Create Your Company Profile
Head to dinnerswithfriends.co.uk/host and create a company profile. This is where you tell us about your business, your events, and what you do. Include photos, a description, and any relevant credentials or certifications.
Step 2: Review and Approval
Our team reviews your application. We look at your existing events, your insurance documentation, and the overall fit with our platform. This typically takes a few days. We may get in touch with questions or to arrange a brief call.
Step 3: Set Up Payouts
Once approved, you connect your Stripe account through our dashboard. This is a one-time setup that takes about ten minutes. Once connected, payments from ticket sales flow directly to you.
Step 4: Create Your First Listing
List your events on the platform. You set the title, description, date, time, location, capacity, price, and any other details guests need. You have full creative control — we do not edit your listings or tell you what to charge.
Step 5: Start Selling
Your events go live on the platform. Guests discover them, buy tickets, and receive automated confirmations and reminders. You focus on delivering the experience. We handle everything else.
Start with one or two events. See how the platform works, get a feel for the audience, and refine your listing based on what sells. Most partners find their stride within the first month and then expand from there. We work closely with every new partner during this period — think of it as a supported launch rather than being dropped in at the deep end.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a physical venue? Not necessarily. Many host partners use rented spaces, community halls, home kitchens (for supper clubs), or partner venues. Some events are outdoors. As long as the space is suitable for the experience and meets any relevant safety requirements, it works.
Can I set my own prices? Yes. You decide what to charge. We have no minimum or maximum ticket price. Price your events based on what they are worth and what your market will support.
How often do I need to run events? There is no minimum frequency. Some partners run weekly events, others do monthly pop-ups, and some run seasonal series. You set the pace.
What if I already sell tickets through another platform? You can list your events on multiple platforms. We do not require exclusivity. However, the events listed on Dinners With Friends should be available for our community to book — we cannot list events that are already sold out elsewhere.
Do you take a cut of my food and drink sales? No. The 20% platform fee applies only to ticket sales processed through our platform. Any additional revenue — food, drinks, materials, merchandise — is 100% yours.
What support do I get? A dedicated dashboard, analytics, automated guest communications, marketing exposure, and a direct line to our team. We are a small operation and we care about every partner doing well. If something is not working, we want to know about it so we can help.
The Opportunity
The social dining and experiential events market in the UK is growing rapidly. People are spending less on things and more on experiences. They are choosing small gatherings over big nights out. They are looking for alternatives to the pub and the restaurant. They want to learn, to create, to connect — and they are willing to pay for experiences that deliver on those promises.
If you are already building those experiences, we want to help you reach more people. Our community is full of exactly the kind of guests who will love what you do — curious, open, sociable people who are actively looking for their next great evening out.
The infrastructure is built. The audience is there. You just need to bring what you are already brilliant at.