Christmas Entertainment Ascot

Ascot's December work splits the way the rest of the year does: the schools around Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale run their Christmas balls and boarders' dos, and the hotels and function venues in between take the staff parties. The town is about 50 miles from the Havant workshop, usually the A3 and then the M25 or the M3 depending on the day, and LVS Ascot alone keeps us busy up there through the school year.

School balls and boarders' evenings in Ascot lean on the indoor list: the rodeo reindeer or the rodeo Christmas pudding as the centrepiece, the magic selfie mirror or Christmas photo booth taking the pictures all evening, and the retro arcade machines, racing simulator and air hockey running the sides. Staff dos take the same shape in the hotels, and Whack an Elf plus the Christmas mega wire slot into the smaller function rooms. For the younger end of the diary, Santa's grotto, the inflatable snow globe and the Christmas side stall games carry the family events in the run-up to Christmas.

LVS Ascot is the booking that keeps recurring, and the boarders' events there are an every-year fixture now, with the leavers BBQ and the fundays in the summer diary. That kind of relationship is the pattern for a school December too: the ball committee wants operators who turn up with the right paperwork for the bursar, run the pieces all evening and leave the hall as they found it.

The boring-but-important bit, since Ascot schools and corporate bookers tend to check: the firm has been Joanne and David Morris's since 2002 out of the Havant unit, every item is owned outright, and the crews who arrive are ours, RPII-examined, first-aid trained and enhanced-DBS registered. The electronics are PAT tested yearly and the rodeo machines hold ADIPS certification. Ascot bookings get the £10 million public liability certificate with the licensed-premises addition as standard, and the risk assessments travel with them when the bursar asks.

If the ball is one date among several, the Ascot event hire page holds the full range, the student event hire in Ascot page follows the school calendar, the corporate event hire in Ascot page covers the staff side, and the garden games hire in Ascot page is the summer fete kit.

The Ascot date, venue and rough headcount are the three things to send early - the staffed pieces go with the operators before the kit goes, and December Saturdays go first of all.