Three things to know before you ask.
One
The invitation
It starts with a member giving Mark your name. Nothing else moves until he does, and he does not move quickly. He writes within the week if he writes at all, and a week of silence is also an answer, not a delay. There is no form behind any of this, no list you can put your own name on and no fee to hand over to be considered. The only currency in the whole arrangement is a member willing to say your name out loud and stand behind it.
If he writes, your first evening is as that member's guest, not as anyone in your own right yet. You sit where they sit, drink what the table is drinking, and you answer for how you behave. At the end of the night the table decides, quietly and without you in the room, whether you are asked back on your own account. Some guests are never asked twice, and nobody explains why. There is nothing to appeal, and nobody to appeal it to.
Two
The evening
An evening runs to a clock the host keeps, not the one on your wrist. It is short by design: doors, drinks, play, a count, and out before the small hours turn the room into something else. Nothing on the timeline moves for a late table or a good story.
- 19:30Doors. Names are checked against the list. Masks go on before you cross the room.
- 20:00Drinks. You see the room for the first time and the host for the evening is introduced to the table.
- 21:00Tables open. The host explains the game and sets the pace for the night.
- 23:00Last hands. The host calls it and the table plays out what it is holding.
- 23:30The count. One number, read once, with the charity's name against it.
- MidnightCarriages. The room empties the way it filled, a few at a time.
None of this is a performance for you. It is how the same evening is run every time, for every table, so that what happens at nine looks the same as what happened last season.
Three
The cause
Every evening carries one charity, named on the invitation before anyone arrives. It is not chosen by whoever is loudest at the table on the night and it does not change once the cards are dealt. You know exactly where the evening is going before you have sat down or ordered a drink.
Whatever the tables raise across the night goes to that charity in full. Brand Events keeps none of it and takes none of it as a fee against the room. The total is published on this site within the month, alongside the charity's own written confirmation of the figure, so the number in the end is never only the house's word for it.
Members choose where the next evening's total goes. A charity is put to a vote before the following invitation is sent, so the cause named on your next invitation was decided by the room you sat in last time, not by Mark and not by the house.
Sealed on the night.
Each seat has a card and a token. The token is yours for the evening and comes back to the house at the end. Nothing leaves the room but the total raised.
Membership does not end at midnight.
Between evenings, membership is this site: the board with whatever comes next on it, and the vote on where the next total goes. There is no clubhouse to check into and no calendar of extra perks to browse. Most evenings, there is nothing to do at all.
You still bring guests. A guest sits at your table on your word, and how they behave at it is on you, not on Mark and not on the host. That is the one thing membership asks of you between the evenings themselves.
Everything else is quiet by design. The next invitation arrives the same way the first one did, from someone who decided your name was worth saying.
- Black tie and masks. Masks stay on until the host says otherwise.
- The venue is disclosed to members only, the day before.
- No phones at the table. No photographs of faces, anywhere.
- Every table plays for the named charity. What is raised is published.
- Guests are the responsibility of the member who brought them.
- Doors close at nine. Late is late.
- Eighteen and over. Identification may be asked for at the door.
- The host's word is final.