Royal Military Academy Sandhurst event hire

The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is the British Army's officer academy at Camberley, training officers since 1802 and the place every Regular and Reserve officer in the Army commissions from. It sits behind its own gate on an active MOD site, so the diary belongs to the units, messes and welfare committees inside it. Our booking there was the Commissioning Ball in August 2026.

The Camberley work sits on the corporate event hire in Camberley page, the Camberley area page covers the town, and the venues page lists the rest of the named venues we work at.

The Commissioning Ball

A commissioning ball marks the end of the 44-week commissioning course, and the academy runs three intakes a year in January, May and September, so the ball calendar is set well ahead. It's a formal evening in a dressed room, and that decides what goes in: pieces that set up and test quickly, run from a standard 13amp socket, and hold a queue without taking over the floor.

We took the Gold Cup horse racing challenge and the Chaos four-player reaction game. The Gold Cup puts four riders on hobby horses with their horse running down the lane in front of them, and the Chaos cabinet puts a station at each side of the cube and runs a race to 100 points. Both sit on a carpeted floor and plug in, which is what a ballroom set out for dinner can take.

Rooms and the Sandhurst Trust

The academy's room hire runs through the Sandhurst Trust, which lets the prestige rooms of Old College, along with lecture theatres and break-out rooms, for private functions, conferences, board meetings and dinners. The Trust's rule is that the rooms are only bookable by RMAS staff and serving or retired military personnel, so the person booking the entertainment is usually the mess or unit officer running the event, and the quote goes to them.

The best-known room is the Indian Army Memorial Room in Old College. It was the academy's chapel until 1879, then a dining room, museum and function room, and it carries stained glass and around a hundred objects from the British Indian Army after its 2019 refurbishment. The Wellington Room, the History Room and the Hastings Room sit in the same building, and the Royal Memorial Chapel and the Roman Catholic Chapel are both on site.

• 45 milesFrom Havant, M3 nearly all the way
• 13ampGold Cup and Chaos run off standard sockets
• £10mPublic liability, licensed-premises cover included
• PIPATagged inflatables and PAT-tested electrics

Working there

Sandhurst is a secure site, so the practical details come from whoever is booking: which guests and suppliers are coming through the gate, at what time, and where the vehicles go on arrival. We ask for that list early, because the access and timings decide what we can rig and test before the room is needed for the dinner.

The drive is around 45 miles from our unit in Havant, M3 nearly the whole way, which keeps the travel line on the quote small and lets us crew a long evening without a night away. Dave, our in-house PIPA and RPII inspector, signs off every inflatable before it leaves the unit, and the crew on a ball are the same RPII-examined operators who work the rest of the calendar. We hold £10 million public liability insurance with licensed-premises cover, the risk assessment and method statement go out with the booking, every inflatable is PIPA-tagged and inspected annually, the electrical kit is PAT tested, and the operators who stay with the kit are first-aid trained and enhanced-DBS registered.

For a military ball or mess evening at the academy, ring us on 01428 751925 or fill in the enquiry form and tell us the date, which mess or unit is booking, the room, the guest numbers and how long the entertainment has in the programme.