One kind of evening
Whole weeks and long weekends, planned in one conversation
Some of the work here is not an evening at all. A week at the exhibition halls with four dinners inside it. A long weekend where the same companion is free from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. A month of Tuesdays. These are planned once, in one conversation, rather than rebuilt from nothing every time.
The ladder does not change for any of it. Each evening sits on its own rung, from £250 for an hour to £1,800 for a whole night, and a run of them is simply the sum of those rungs. There is no package, no block figure and no discount, because there is nothing to discount.
Companions for whole weeks and long weekends
A show week, evening by evening
Royal Docks and ExCeL runs the exhibitions that fill this side of London, and the pattern barely varies: two nights of client dinners, one night when the stand has emptied you out and two quiet hours in a hotel room is the whole ambition, and one night that gets away from everybody. Planned together, those three shapes can use the same companion, which means she already knows the clients by Wednesday. Planned separately, they use three strangers.
Monday to Friday, as Maude writes it back
Monday: nothing, because the stand is being built and you will be asleep by ten. Tuesday: four hours at £900 from seven, a client dinner on the boulevard, with a brief sent on Sunday. Wednesday: the same companion for the same four hours, at a different table across the river in Greenwich. Thursday: two hours at £500 at the hotel, since by Thursday nobody wants another table. Friday: three hours at £700 from nine, for whatever the last night of a show becomes.
Four evenings, four rungs, one name, and every figure on the page before the week begins. If the hotel is on the dock, her ride for each evening is quoted with it, once, in writing.
Weekends, and what they are not
A long weekend is a series of bookings with gaps in it, not a continuous engagement. She goes home in between. Friday evening, Saturday from the afternoon, Sunday lunch and a walk: that is a normal shape, and it is written out hour by hour before it starts, so both sides know exactly when she is with you. What it is not is an open ended arrangement. Every hour in it is named and every hour in it is counted.
Where a long stay tends to sit
Hotels out by the docks when the week is an exhibition week, the estate when it is straight business, and London Bridge surprisingly often for anyone who wants the river and the Jubilee line without the towers. All three are on the map this desk covers, and the travel line reads the same for a week as for one evening: nothing inside Zones 1 and 2, a written figure for E16.
Four who plan a week well
Vanessa thinks in timetables and will have the whole thing gridded before you do. Margo is the one for the nights with long dinners in them and a table nobody wants to turn. Violetta does the slow version: an arcade, a river wall, a table with no rush anywhere in it. Karolina will check the high water time and build the walk around it. All four, and the other twenty four, are on the desk.
What to send, and when
The dates, the hotel, and roughly what each evening is for. A week out is comfortable and a fortnight is better, because the women who plan well are also the women who fill up. Maude comes back with who is free across the whole run, the shape of each evening and every figure written out before you commit to any of it. Change any single evening with three hours of notice or more and nothing is owed. The rungs are on rates.
Two pages of the tape on this
Questions on this booking
Does booking a whole week cost less?
No. Each evening is priced on its own rung and the week is simply their sum. The advantage of planning it all at once lies in the diary rather than the arithmetic: the same companion held for every night you want her.
Can I move one evening without disturbing the rest?
Yes. Every evening in the plan stands on its own, so moving Wednesday to Thursday touches nothing else. Three hours of notice keeps the change free, exactly as it would for a single evening.
What if she falls ill halfway through the week?
Maude tells you at once and offers a second name for the evenings that remain, briefed on everything the first one knew, or releases those evenings with nothing owed. You choose which.
Will she remember Tuesday's clients on Thursday?
That is most of the reason to book one name for the week. She keeps the brief from the first dinner and adds to it, so by the third evening she knows who drinks what and who is quietly looking for a new job.
Other after hours
Send the room and the hour
Write the district, the time and the length of the booking. The desk answers with a name and an arrival window, and the evening is set.