The questions worth asking before you rent a party venue

21 August 2026 · 5 min

Almost every first visit to Højdevej 59 opens with the same three questions: how many people fit, what does it cost, and where does everybody park. All three are fair. None of them is the question that decides whether the evening actually works.

The ones that decide it are duller, and they usually surface about a week before the party, when knowing the answer can no longer change anything. So here is the list we would carry into a viewing if we were the family hiring a hall rather than the people letting one, grouped the way a real planning conversation runs, with our own answers written under each group.

The money questions, including the one everybody forgets

Ask for the shape of the bill before you ask for the size of it.

• Is the fee charged on the room, on the hour, or on the guest?
• Is there a minimum, and what happens if the party ends up smaller?
• What is inside that fee, and what turns up later as a separate line?
• Is the clear-up afterwards included, or billed on top?
• Are children charged as adults?
• What is due at booking, and what is due after the night?

The forgotten one is the clear-up. A hall that quotes low and then adds a cleaning charge is not cheaper, it is quoted differently, and you learn the difference at the worst possible moment.

Here, the hall fee is charged per person and covers decoration, sound system, projector, staff and cleaning, so nobody from your family is stacking chairs at midnight. Hall booking has a 30-guest minimum: a smaller party is genuinely welcome, but the hall fee is billed for 30 guests, while menu and drinks are charged for the guests who actually come. Children aged 5 to 12 pay half the menu price. Everything above sits in one place on the prices page, and the questions we answer most often takes the rest in writing.

The time questions: access, setup and when the music stops

• What time can we get in to decorate, and is that time part of the booking?
• Who lays the tables, and who takes everything down again?
• What time does the music have to stop?
• What time do we have to be out of the building?
• Is anything else booked in the same room before or after us?

The music question is the one people skip, then discover on the night. Ask it early, ask for the answer in writing, and build the running order backwards from it. It also decides who you hire. A band that plays late is only worth booking into a room that is allowed to be loud late.

The question about another booking matters more than it sounds. We have one hall, not four. If the day is yours, the setup has room to breathe. If somebody else has the room in the afternoon, your decorating starts when they leave. Ask any venue that outright, for your date, instead of assuming.

The food and drink questions

• Is there a kitchen in the building, or does the food travel to you?
• Can we see the menus, and can they be adjusted?
• Can the whole menu be vegetarian?
• How do you want allergies given to you, and when?
• Can we bring our own drinks, and how is that charged?
• Is it a buffet or plated service, and who decides?

Maiya Nepali Kitchen is in this building, a corridor away from the hall, so the people who cook your dinner are the ones who carry it in. There are set menus (Sølv, Guld, Platin, Diamant) and custom menus, all priced per person, and any menu can be made fully vegetarian. Drinks are per guest: an unlimited soft drinks package, use of the venue's plates and glasses without a drinks package, or tap water only. You can also bring your own drinks for a flat fee that depends on the size of the group.

On allergies, the useful habit with any venue is to give them in writing when you book and again with your final numbers, named guest by named guest rather than as a total. On service style, we have written out what each one does to an evening in buffet or plated dinner.

The practical questions nobody asks until the day

• Where do guests park, and how do the ones without a car arrive?
• Whose sound system is it, and will somebody show us how it works?
• Can we bring our own decoration, or a cake from elsewhere?
• When do you need the final guest count, and how far can it move?

That last one deserves pushing on. Danish guest lists move in the final fortnight in both directions, and a venue that wants a locked number a month out is asking you to guess. Find out which number the bill is built on and the day it stops moving.

Parking here is free and on our own site, which is worth asking about anywhere in Copenhagen and rarely gets this answer. Guests arriving without a car have the metro and bus network on Amager to work with, and we have mapped the routes in how guests get here.

How to actually use the list

Do not send twenty questions in one email. Send the four or five whose answers would rule a venue out, then bring the rest to the viewing and ask them standing in the room, because a room answers half of them by itself.

Come and try it on us. Book a visit to the hall at Højdevej 59, 2300 København S, bring the list and the guest count, and we will go through every line of it with you. You can also just call, on +45 21 95 92 92.