Right lads, whilst the soon-to-be-Mrs carries on about flowers and colour schemes and the dreaded boutonnieres we thought we’d offer you a much needed distraction in the form of some Stag party ideas for you and your best man to ponder! Stag parties are getting ever more adventurous and there’s a whole host of awesome activities you can get up to between pubs, so courtesy of the good folks at Maximise here’s what’s set to be the top trends for 2014!
Seven New Trends for 2014 Stag Dos
With the new year upon us, it’s time to look forward to what the stag dos of 2014 will bring us. Stag weekend specialist Maximise share what activities and destinations are already topping their bookings for next year, and predict the hottest trends for 2014. JCB Driving in Las Vegas anyone?
New Activities
It seems that the classic stag activities just won’t cut it in 2014. All the traditional stag favourites - paintballing, 5-a-side football and go-karting – have evolved into more extreme versions of themselves and these souped-up activities are set to be big news for stag dos next year.
1. Quirky Karting
Forget standard go-karting, 2014 will be all about bigger and madder adventures on four wheels. Whereas mud karts and quad biking are all the rage now, next year stags will be booking up everything from Blind Driving to Tank Driving, JCB Driving to Motorised Bathtub Racing!
Blind Driving - It sounds exactly as it reads – driving blindfolded! The driver has to negotiate a tricky course with his co-driver giving him instructions, a good one for building (or breaking) friendships!
Tank Driving – It’s the bad boy of four-wheel fun. Tank Driving is great for a military-themed stag do and gives you the chance to steer a proper tank without the fuss of signing up to the army.
JCB Driving – Appealing to stags’ inner-child, 2014 is going to be a good year for guys who want to realise their hard-hat dreams. Companies can set up a JCB race if you’re a competitive bunch.
Motorised Bathtub Racing – as mad as it sounds! This is a great choice for stag dos looking for something totally random to surprise the groom with. Bathtubs are hardly streamlined for minimum wind resistance, they have a terrible torque-weight ratio and atrocious handling to boot – which makes the title of Fastest Bathtub Racer all the more prestigious.
2. Bubble Football
Another activity set to take stags by storm next year is Bubble Football. For two hours, stag groups are wrapped up in huge inflatable balls (similar to zorbing balls) and try to play a game of 5-a-side. Every tackle and every pass ends up with someone flying, bouncing or rolling across the floor – absolute chaos and, according to Maximise, already a top seller for 2014. A session of Bubble Football typically costs around £30 per person and there are venues available in the major UK cities. (Check out the Bubble Football video below – funny stuff!).
3. Horror Experiences
If traditional paintball didn’t get you breaking into a sweat, the game’s now evolved and super-sized into horror experiences, usually involving the un-dead. Already popular in 2013, this trend is set to gain even more popularity next year. Instead of aiming a paintball gun at another stag party, horror experiences typically involve you aiming a laser gun at ‘zombies’, with elaborate sets created in abandoned shopping centres and underground bunkers all over the UK. The experiences can be fully immersive, with a whole day set aside for the activity. Some companies even offer a half-day of training, (including how to use weapons, build traps and learn close-quarter combat) before unleashing the zombies on you.
New Locations
4. Newcastle
Although the south coast was once the go-to location for UK stag weekends, Brighton, Bournemouth and Newquay are being replaced with northern cities for 2014 stag bookings, in particular Newcastle. According to Google, Newcastle is the most searched for city for stag dos. The city’s got a massive reputation for cheap nightlife and at the start of the year footballer Kazenga Lua Lua left Newcastle claiming it was too much of a “party town”. Too much party for a footballer – that’s quite a reputation for one city to uphold! The increasing popularity of Newcastle as a stag destination can be attributed in part to the Geordie Shore effect, which actively showcased the different nightlife spots around the Newcastle area.
5. Las Vegas
Not exactly ‘new’, but Las Vegas is definitely going through a re-brand at the moment, with less focus on the casinos and more attention on the huge parties put on there by international DJs. The new ‘Ibiza’, Las Vegas is growing in popularity for stags next year thanks to new flight routes added in 2013, cheaper package prices and exposure from films like The Hangover and celebrities like Cheryl Cole, Will.i.am and the infamous Price Harry incident. Maximise has even created a Prince Harry stag package so guys can relive the cheeky prince’s experience for themselves.
6. Barcelona
Stags are moving away from eastern European locations and heading towards warmer Spanish locations. Barcelona is proving popular already for 2014 thanks to a combination of an increasing number of short and cheap flights available from all over the UK, it being showcased as a football-focused city and finally for chasing hens! (Barcelona is the most popular over-seas destination for UK hens).
7. Munich
In contrast to eastern European cities like Krakow and Prague, Munich is starting to gain a reputation as a sophisticated stag destination. The city has a comparable drinking culture to Britain with the iconic Oktoberfest and Steins festival taking place each year. Munich is easily accessible from the UK and the German drinking culture is going through something of a revival in the UK, with chains like the Bavarian Beerhaus taking off. Munich is topping Berlin for a stag holiday as on average it’s not as cold as Berlin, it’s easy for non-locals to navigate and there’s less of the pretentious clubs that Berlin is getting notorious for.
Maximise create bespoke packages including the activities and destinations mentioned here for memorable stag weekends. For more details visit Maximise.co.uk or call 0208 236 0111.
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