The Top 20 Excuses For Flaking On A Club Booking
Here at Velvet PR we typically deal with hundreds of bookings every week and whilst the majority of our guests are fantastic and we enjoy looking after them time and again in the clubs we host, sadly there are always the guests who make our lives a bit of a nightmare. Troublesome guests can include those getting too drunk, being rude or not dressing according to the club’s requirements.
There is one particularly upsetting category of troublesome guests however, who we simply name 'Flakers’. Flakers are those who book in a big group of guests (often for a birthday) then cancel within mere hours (sometimes minutes) of the event taking place after having planned for days on end their night out to minute detail.
In celebration of these flakers who we have grown so fond of, we have compiled a top 20 list of the best excuses we have been presented with to explain the cancellation. Whether the excuse is valid or a porky pie remains a mystery, but we have helpfully accompanied each of the 20 excuses with it’s own lie-o-meter (which works on a scale of 1-3 with 1 being almost certainly true and 3 being a Double Whopper with extra bacon and cheese!). Also, for your reference we've helpfully added a frequency of use scale so you can see just how often we get offered each of the following (again on a 1-3 scale with 1 being low and 3 being so common they probably have it saved as a shortcut on their phone for easy access!).
So here we present our ultimate list of the top 20 excuses for flaking on a booking. Whether you are reading this simply for your amusement or as a how-to guide on some of the best cop-outs you can have at your disposal next time you are in urgent need of a get-out-of-jail-free card, we hope you will enjoy the fruits of our research, and don’t feel afraid to refer someone to this next time you hear one of these infamous lines. We certainly will be!
1. ‘I got bitten by a homeless person’s dog and I’m in A&E now. I don’t think we can make it tonight’.
Frequency Of Use:
2. ‘My cat got sick. We can’t come now I’m afraid.’
Frequency Of Use: 
3. ‘Sorry for the last minute change of plan but I have to attend a funeral.’
Frequency Of Use:
4. ‘I’m afraid we can’t come now as my uncle just died. What’s happening tomorrow - any parties then instead?’
Frequency Of Use:
5. ‘Family emergency...We aren’t coming now’
Frequency Of Use:
6. ‘We had a car accident on the way so we don’t think we can make it to the club’
Frequency Of Use:
7. ‘We can’t make it now as I’m ill’...’What about the rest of your group of 20+?’...’No they can’t come either’
Frequency Of Use:
8. ‘Sorry I got food poisoning so I’ll have to cancel’
Frequency Of Use:
9. ‘My friend’s hamster got lost in her garden so we can’t make it this time’
Frequency Of Use:
10. ‘Sorry I realised I was too young to get into your club tonight’...’How old are you?’...’14’
Frequency Of Use:
11. ‘We won’t be coming...Something came up’
Frequency Of Use:
12. ‘The birthday girl dropped her cake on the way and she’s too upset to come now’
Frequency Of Use:
13. ‘Sorry my friend got pregnant last night unexpectedly, we’re not going to be partying tonight’
Frequency Of Use:
14. ‘We can’t come. Unexpected business trip came up’
Frequency Of Use:
15. ‘We’re not going to make it tonight.’...’Any reason why not?’...’Personal reasons / Unforseen circumstances’
Frequency Of Use:
16. ‘Where are you?’...’Im in Greece’...’What about your birthday night for you and your group of 10 guests tonight that we’ve been arranging for the past month’...’Oh. Was that tonight?’
Frequency Of Use:
17. ‘I’m going to have to cancel. My wife just found out I was going clubbing so it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now. Next time, sorry’
Frequency Of Use:
18. ‘Sorry, change of plans so we can’t come’
Frequency Of Use:
19. ‘Sorry can’t make it. I’m in hospital’
Frequency Of Use:
20. ‘My mum is insisting she needs to join and we don’t want to take her. Sorry we will have to cancel’
Frequency Of Use:
Unlike many of the excuse-makers responsible for the above, we've put time into this research so we'd love to hear your feedback. Any of these sound familiar? Are you guilty of one or two of these? Let us know...
