On the prowl in Poland
Saturday night in Kraków. A bunch of Englishmen in red Lycra shorts and tiny, feminine tops dash out of Rooster bar at ul. Szczepańska and head for the trendy Prozak night club. At the same time, at Warsaw's Enklawa club, a team of 25 English-speaking gentlemen in Superman outfits try to chat up three blondes giggling at the bar. They spent the day at a military base shooting Kalashnikovs and are now trying to make the most of the the city's nightlife.
Although the Czech capital was the first Central and Eastern European city discovered by stag and hen weekend organizers, Poles have recently capitalized on this typically British rite of passage.
On the bandwagon
"Poland was a bit late in spotting the trend. After Prague and Budapest in the late 1990s, stag weekends moved to Riga, Bratislava and also later to Kraków. Now we can observe the third wave - they opt for Warsaw, Wrocław, Sofia and Tallin. They want to go somewhere nobody's been before and spend a great weekend in an environment where nobody knows them," explains Hubert Bienias, director of Polventure, a company organizing short trips to Poland.
When Bienias was setting up Polventure over a year ago he didn't think 90 percent of his income would come from stag weekends. "We didn't plan it - it just happened," he explains, but now he knows a great deal about the market.
"There are some 450,000 weddings in England every year and Ł520 [zł.3,029] million is spent on the organization of stag weekends annually. The peak season for us is June and July because August is the most popular month for getting married," he says.
Deep pockets
According to recent Morgan Stanley Credit Cards research, the cost of a weekend stag extravaganza will set mates of the British groom-to-be back some Ł365 (zł.2,121) per person. The food and drink usually makes up a hefty chunk of the bill, with men spending an average of Ł112 (zł.651) during a weekend, while women, usually more stingy but also less likely to travel, consume just under half this amount.
"When a group comes for a stag weekend in Warsaw they will probably spend the same amount of money they would spend in Blackpool but will get much more for that. It's value for money that counts for them," Bienias explains.
The stag weekend program involves pub crawling, go-carting, Kalashnikov shooting or other military games. And drinking. Lots and lots of drinking.
"There's of course the usual question - where to go to meet the ladies? We prepare a half day event with barbecue and beer and then show them the best clubs to go to," says Kasia Ostrowski, manager at Crazystag.com, a Kraków-based stag and hen weekend organizer.
Tough customers
In the peak season Crazystag.com has five to seven groups per weekend to entertain and Kasia Ostrowski has no doubt that it is a good idea for a business. Even though the groups are usually quite loud and easy to spot, even in the most crowded places, neither Bienias nor Ostrowski recall any serious problems with their customers.
"The only damage so far was a broken bed in a hotel and we only had to deal with the police when one of the participants lost his passport," Bienias says.
Ostrowski has had to deal with more troublesome customers but bears no hard feelings.
"At first they always say 'we're not like the others, we're real gentlemen,' and I tell them not to promise anything before 10 pm," she laughs. "At the end, it's usually the stag that's in the worst state - once we came to take a group back to the airport and the stag was lying on the bathroom floor and not moving. His pals said it was because of food poisoning - 'it's bad pierogi' they said, but the doctor we called had his doubts," Ostrowski recalls, adding: "At the end of the day everyone gets back home safe and sound and happy." And, one assumes, in time for the big day.
