Horsebox Bar Hire in Surrey

The Drunken Jockeys offer everything from bar solutions to complete event management. Known for their hand-made rustic bar, vintage antiques and great cocktails, they offer a personalised and flexible service to help create a truly unique experience for a wide variety of events. Here they share their story and tips for when looking to chooses a similar provider.

What do you need to know from an organiser in order to provide a comprehensive quote?

For us to provide a comprehensive quote to a customer, we need the event date and the estimated number of guests.
A useful piece of information would be the age range, more specifically the ratio of adults to children. This is important as it affects our costs and needed supplies to ensure a successful event.
Finally, whether the event is in a public or private location. This affects set up and close times.

What advice would you give to a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?

Firstly, I tell the customer to ask providers why they believe they are suited to the event. There are lots of bars and therefore a lot of choices, getting the right bar is paramount to achieving the best result. I would say look for quotes that are personalised and really seem to listen and understand your needs. If a provider doesn't do this, it doesn't bode well for the future.
Finally, we believe the person you are in contact with should attend the event. Or at least your point of contact should be the same. Too many times can a breakdown in communication lead to an unsuccessful outcome.

Please tell us a little bit about how and why you started the business.

Founded in 2018 by three school friends Zack, Will and Will, The Drunken Jockeys started as an experimental project to convert a 70-year-old horsebox into a fully functioning bar. The project quickly became their passion, after 4 months of working weekends and evenings through sunshine, rain and snow their horsebox was completed and named Arabella. Before long one bar became 2 and the Jockeys found their close friendship flourished behind the reclaimed wood countertops of their rustic conversions.

After a successful first season, the boys realised their clients loved their rustic style. The Drunken Jockeys set out to combine their personable style of service, with creative well-made cocktails and develop their vision of theatrical high-quality bar designs in an effort to offer something never seen before.

Please tell us about a booking you've had through Add to Event, how did it go? Would you recommend us to others?

Great! Add to Event has become a real lifeline for our business. We are fortunate that locally we gain a lot of events through referrals, however, in a quiet period, we decided to try Add To Event. With a little work to set it up, we were instantly successful. The quality of our imagery combined with our stand out bars meant we achieved our first event within a few days and not many quotes! We were exposed to events outside our normal catchment area and had a whale of a time hosting a 30th birthday cocktail party near Southampton. We were complimented on our great communication and received a stunning review. More importantly, the event went really well and the clients were a dream. Thanks!!