Our members only: Click through and enter the code ‘THEPLUSONES’ for a free bottle of Champagne with each booking!

Sydney’s hottest roaming dinner party’s taking the harbor city’s social scene by storm, and making the whole “meeting new people” dilemma a whole lot more fun. We sat down with the Sydney Soiree team to find out more.

First of all, tell us a bit about your soirees?

We’re a social networking events company that bring people together in a new and exciting way. Our Soirees offer a unique dining experience that look to disrupt the norms of socialising and bring an innovative and exciting approach to meet like-minded people. Our core concept is what is known as ROAMING DINNER PARTIES.

Targeted at city professionals and socialites, typically aged between 25-40, we invite groups of 4 friends (all girls or all boys) to become either HOSTS or GUESTS for the evening.

HOSTS prepare and cook a 3 course dinner at one of their houses and GUESTS roam between three different houses spending an hour for each course (providing the wine as they do so). Throughout the evening each group (HOSTS or GUESTS) will therefore meet three different groups from the opposite sex that they have never met before. Our role is to organise the logistics for the night and matchmake groups of friends!

At the end of the final course, all groups head to an exclusive after party to reconnect with those they met over dinner and to also meet groups from the other dinner parties also taking place simultaneously on the night.

Each event typically involves 288 guests, 72 groups (36 groups of girls & 36 groups of guys) and 12 simultaneous dinner parties.

The after party is also an open event, featuring live entertainment, for friends to join in the fun. The after party typically sees 400 in attendance in total.

Ticket sales ending. Click through here and enter the code ‘THEPLUSONES’ for a free bottle of Champagne with each booking!

How did it all get started?

It all started back in 2014, as all good ideas do, over a glass of wine (or three). How could we combine our love of socialising and food & wine with meeting new people and create an event that is a break away from the usual night out with the added twist of not only making new friends but possibly also meeting a new partner?

Roaming dinner parties are not a new concept but no company has thought to commercialise it here in Australia, with real size and scale. Until we came along!

Roping 24 of our mates into it, we rounded up one Soiree and tested the concept. Would this have legs? And what we found is it certainly did, everyone loved it and so lo and behold we had a company, we had an active audience and Soiree was born!

What an exciting turn. So, who are these soirees for exactly?

Our Soirees are aimed at young professionals largely between the ages of 25 – 40 who are socially adventurous and keen to step outside the usual boundaries of socialising. But we’ve had all sorts of interesting people take part, from lawyers to lifeguards, from doctors to professional sportsmen

How often do you have these? (and why)

Approximately 5 Soirees a year. Enough that our clients have the chance to do something unique and different on a fairly regular occasion but also have enough time between them to allow for the excitement and anticipation to be created.

However as the Soiree Global group continues to grow we are expanding to doing other alternative events which keep in line with our core features of food, wine, socialising and roaming but are innovative and creative in their essence. So watch this space!

And, what fun shenanigans do people get up to during your soirees?

Ha, all sorts! We create the platform for people to be creative as they like. It’s their dinner party after all. Apart from the mandatories that was ask for including a three course meal and not to exceed the one hour time limit for each course, it’s a pretty blank canvas…

Aside from the standard dinner party ice breaker games, we’ve had groups book live music for their courses, set up murder mysteries over dinner and even book yachts around the harbour

We are constantly impressed with the creativity of our guests

Have you got any fun anecdotes from past soirees?

Apart from surprising groups with celebrity groups (Bondi Rescue, Sydney Swans, Kiss 106.5 The Thinker Girls and countless Bachelor/Bachelorette contestants) we have certainly had our fair share of funny stories which I am not sure we are at liberty to make public…!

Probably our favourite stories however are those of successful matchmaking and the proof is definitely in the pudding (mind the pun) – one girl in particular Sophie, met her now fiancé on Sydney Soiree and fell head over heels in love. She is now a partner in the business and has moved back to London with her man to set up our operation over there! This is just one of many couples that have met their match on our events. Although it must be said we are not an exclusively singles event as those in relationships can make the best wingmen and wing women…

So we hear you’re expanding

Yes we sure are. Since starting in Sydney and having such a great response, we have had so much appetite from guests and are constantly being asked when we setting up in other cities here in Australia and abroad. Following our launch in LONDON last year, we are launching in MELBOURNE this June and have plans for the US and Canada later this year.

Out of all the soirees you’ve hosted and been to, have any particular ones been your favourite?

Every event that takes place has been unique in its own way, sometimes they are themed (1920s, Tropical etc) for added fun but honestly we love them all made so great by the interesting people taking part.

But our flagship “Valentines Soiree” is always a good one given the spark and crackle in the air…!

What is your ultimate goal, with these soirees, for the city’s social and dating scenes?

With Soiree we aim to consistently deliver to the absolute premium for our guests, we are consistently looking of ways to innovate, to keep our events relevant and interesting and to ultimately make sure that our guests leave with a huge sense of “wow I would love to do that again next week”

Our aim is to bring meeting new people and dating back into reality, to get people off the apps and into real life and have a cracking night with your mates along the way.

We want to be the biggest and the best at what we do and to be the most talked about social events company in Australia

Exciting. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Be creative. Be adventurous. Do something different with your Saturday night.

And lastly, for God sake – get off Tinder.

Great. This sounds like heaps of fun! How can someone sign up? 

EventBrite booking link for our next event on Saturday 20^th May is: https://tinyurl.com/mlk6gmk

Remember to enter the code ‘THEPLUSONES‘ for a complimentary bottle of Champagne with your booking!

Bookings close this Thursday and we are close to a sell-out. Tickets are $260 for the group ($65 per person) Otherwise like our FB page and follow us on Instagram at @sydneysoiree.

 

Image Credit: Sydney Soiree.