Brits are best advised to look overseas when planning low cost stag parties, but might want to avoid Amsterdam, which has been named as the most expensive location for a stag weekend in Europe.
Researchers from Pissup.com looked into the cost of attending a stag do in 23 European cities, and found the average per-head cost of two days and two nights partying in the Dutch capital to be £537.91, over £35 more than the next dearest mainland European location, Barcelona (£499.79). Although cheap flights make both cities easily accessible their reputations as party capitals mean stags and their pals face high costs on weekends there.
Four popular British party cities – London (£521.69) – which was the second most expensive overall – along with Newcastle (£466.17), Bournemouth (£464.70) and Edinburgh (£451.52) – are among the most expensive in Europe, with the UK (£476 on average) being the third most expensive country behind the Netherlands (£537.91) and Spain (£499.79).
Meanwhile Brno in the Czech Republic was found to be the cheapest stag weekend option. Partygoers can expect to pay in the region of £281.92 for their weekend’s activities there, with Bratislava in Slovakia nearly as good value, recording a £283.51 average.
The study took into account a full set of average costs per city including return flights from UK (or trains if they were cheaper for UK travel), two nights accommodation, a healthy beer budget of 20 beers per person, two nights out in a night club, a visit to a strip club, a daytime activity (such as shooting or quad biking) and six taxi fares over the course of the weekend.
The most expensive place for accommodation, drinking, nightclubs and activities was London, but Amsterdam prices are not far behind. Even accounting for the current weak euro, the added cost of getting to Amsterdam from the UK means the famous Dutch party city just edges above the English capital in terms of overall costs.
Brno is the cheapest option of them all being cheap to get to and very reasonable for costs such as hotels, food and beer, with the pound buying stag groups plenty of Czech Koruna on arrival. Meanwhile the Bulgarian capital Sofia was the second cheapest overall, with a 0.5l beer (just under a pint) costing the equivalent of just 75p there and an average nightclub entry charge working out at £3.76, when converted from Bulgarian Lev.
The four cheapest countries to visit in the study were Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Poland with each member of the stag group potentially spending £200 per weekend less on trips to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc than they would in Amsterdam.
Rasmus Christiansen from stag party organisers Pissup.com commented, “Going abroad for your final weekend of freedom is always more fun and more adventurous than staying in the UK and the relative strength of the pound means it can often be a cheaper option too. Stags and their mates who make it to Eastern Europe and further afield often find that the extra hour or so on the plane makes a big difference, as their accommodation, food and drinks are much cheaper. It also means they have more spare cash to use for some adrenaline pumping fun, shooting machine guns, riding quads through forests and sampling other local delights!”
“Amsterdam may have come out on top in terms of overall costs but it is still a massively popular destination for stags and there’s a reason for that. For many people the excellent nightlife scene of Amsterdam make it worth spending the extra cash on.”
