Liverpool has become the hen-party capital of the North. How did this happen?

By Ophira Gottlieb, with additional reporting by Sophie Atkinson

At the blow of a whistle, the women all dotted around the purple-lit dance floor start to pull their knickers up. I use the word ‘knickers’ reluctantly — it’s only because Anne-Marie, who’s sat next to me, used it first.

“The last one to get their knickers on has to take a shot,” she had explained a few moments earlier, shouting over the music in a thick Irish accent. Now every girl has retrieved, seemingly out of nowhere, a large pair of pants with the words ‘Demi’s Hen 2024’ scrawled large across the arse of them, hopping in their heels as they struggle to yank them up over their dresses.

I don’t usually spend my Friday nights sat in the corner of cocktail bars, drinking daiquiris and watching women on their hen nights. Believe it or not, I actually have better things to do — me and my cat are on season five of The Sopranos. But tonight The Post has sent me hen hunting, which is how I’ve ended up at Jam Restaurant & Bar on Sir Thomas Street armed with a list of Liverpool’s most bachelorette-infested venues, to try to find out why the city has become such a popular destination for hen parties.

Earlier this year, the Gateshead-based hen and stag party organiser Last Night of Freedom revealed that Liverpool had topped their hen party league table — which is based on thousands of sales of destinations across the world, rather than subjective evaluations of each city — for the third year running. As a burgeoning data scientist, I understand that the more data one has at their disposal, the better. I cross reference these results with those of GoHen, a company which claims to be the leading hen provider in the UK. GoHen’s 2024 list crowns Bath as the most popular hen party destination nationally (owing largely to the influence of Bridgerton, event manager Ellie Silk explains) but Liverpool comes second. Finally, I chuck in the results of Glamour Magazine’s non-ranked 21 best hen do destinations in the world for 2024 list, in which Liverpool rubs shoulders with less elegant destinations like Lisbon, Valencia and Amsterdam. Whichever way you slice it, Liverpool appears to hold the dubious honour of being the capital of hen parties in the North.

It hasn’t always been this way. Matt Mavir started Last Night of Freedom 25 years ago and he’s seen the way hen and stag dos have evolved over the last quarter-century. According to him, until 2010, Liverpool had never made it into the top ten. By 2017, the city was hovering at third place, but after Covid, it hit the number one spot and stayed there. Now, he says, “it couldn't be more popular. It's really having its day.” This must have something to do with Liverpool’s cultural offering, he reckons. People associate it first and foremost with youth culture and fun, thanks to (in no particular order): The Beatles, Cream, City of Culture and Eurovision. 

Beyond this, as with almost anything in England, it’s also about property. As the age at which people wed has risen (according to the ONS, in 2022, the average woman marrying a man for the first time was 30 years old and if she were marrying a woman, she was 32 — in contrast to 2000, when women marrying for the first time were in their mid-twenties), hen parties aren’t as interested as they once were in non-stop clubbing. Mostly, they’ve got that out of their system in their twenties, and instead want proper quality time with their friends: one big night out, and one night chilling at home. While most hen parties will still plump for hotel rooms, this trend has meant the unstoppable rise of ‘hen houses’ — partying in your pyjamas in an Airbnb with your mates. Unlike somewhere like Manchester, Liverpool has a vast array of affordable city-centre flats to rent, Matt points out.

Then there’s Ru Paul’s Drag Race. From the get-go, the show was a runaway success, with the first season drawing in 15.6 million streams on BBC iPlayer. According to Ellie from Go Hen, the fact that a Liverpudlian won that season was significant. The Vivienne, who described herself as being “from a gorgeous little fishing village called Liverpool”, drew attention to the city’s incredible drag scene. Now, going to a drag show is a big part of many hen weekends here.

Jam has been on Sir Thomas Street since 2016, and according to Anne-Marie (who owns the place), business has grown over the last eight years. “Pre-Covid it was really busy,” she explains, “but after Covid it was even busier, because of the backlog of hen parties.” These parties account for a considerably large percentage of Jam’s customers. Right now there are two groups of women present, and both bare the telltale signs of the hen night: cowboy hats and garters and penis paraphernalia galore. “A lot of restaurants don’t want them because they’re… unique,” says Anne-Marie cautiously, as one woman trips over her pants on the dancefloor. “But we do.”

Places like Jam, which effectively separate your hens from your average punter and their pint, serve a noble cause. For a few hours at least, hen parties are kept off the streets and out of regular bars, where they run the high risk of being incredibly annoying to anyone and everyone present. This is even more the case with the rise of pre-booked hen packages, where parties are syphoned across the streets of Liverpool from one gregariously themed bar to the next, barely making contact with civilian life. 

The benefit of this is two-fold. Jam creates a safe space for women to be as daft as they desire without having to worry about irritating other customers, and more importantly, without fear of being embarrassed. “That’s why it’s good to have separate venues,” explains Anne-Marie. “You’ve not got anybody taking the mick out of them.” I ask her if she personally enjoys hen parties. “That depends on perspective,” she says. “As a business owner I like them, but personally I wouldn’t go where the hen parties go.” I ask her why she thinks Liverpool has become the hen party capital. “It’s the friendly welcome,” she replies. “I think Blackpool was the place for them a few years ago. But I’m not comparing Liverpool to Blackpool ’cause we’re not tacky.”

This is up for debate. Looking around the bar, a good percentage of the surfaces are covered in gaudy fake flowers. Disco balls hang from every other ceiling tile, and pom-poms hang from the rest. Underneath it all, a singer performs Bruno Mars covers very sincerely and disconcertingly well. Even the air is purple. As someone who normally likes their bars post-war grotty, I have to admit that I’m surprised by how much I like it here. 

So at some point after Anne-Marie leaves I begin to worry that my presence may be upsetting this sacred space. You know, me, alone in the corner, with my camera and my notebook and my newspaper with the eyeholes cut out. To rectify this, I approach one of the parties and ask them if I can take some pictures and join them for a chat. They confirm enthusiastically. “Are you sure? It’s gonna be in the papers,” I stress to them. “Doesn’t matter, we’ll be back in Ireland by the time it comes out.”

I’m speaking to Gemma, 29, who is here for the hen night of Debbie, 31. She describes the group as being from “all over the place”, which I later clarify means Dublin, Louth, and Meath. Gemma’s sister and Debbie’s bridesmaid, Claire, was in charge of organising their weekend away, and rather than using a prepaid package, Claire browsed the various package websites, then cherry-picked and booked everything herself. This took quite a bit more time, but saved the group a significant amount of money. They picked Jam because of the “Instagrammable aesthetic,” Claire explains, “all the flowers and the purple lighting.” Tomorrow they’re going to Tonight Josephine for a drag and burlesque brunch, and then to Ball Park, ‘Liverpool’s biggest adult ball pit’, a tagline which unfortunately implies that there must be other adult ball pits nearby. 

Why have they come to Liverpool, of all places, for the hen-do? “We just heard that the nightlife is great,” says Gemma simply, “and that it’s a great destination for hen parties.” She doesn’t mention Ru Paul or the cost of a flat — if these things affected the group’s decision, then they did so rather discreetly. Having got what I came for, I leave the warm, purple womb of Jam for the cold and littered paving of Mathew Street, the second place on my list.

Mathew Street at midnight on a Friday night is the worst place I’ve ever been to in my life, and readers of the Birmingham Dispatch will know I’ve been to Digbeth. I dip into a nearby bar where through the open facade I can make out the highest density of bridal veils and plastic cocks among the various pissed-up punters, and with some difficulty, because I’m sticking to the floor, I slog my way over to a woman by the bar who’s holding a drink in one hand, and a naked inflatable man with a real man’s face taped on to it in the other. “Who’s this?” I ask. “My uncle,” she replies.

Shannon and the rest of her party have not travelled far – they’re only from North End, over on the Wirral. The bride-to-be, Tasha, is 41, and she gives me the distinct impression that she doesn’t want to speak to me, which is fair enough. But as I continue on my circuit around Mathew Street I find myself struggling to have a coherent conversation with anyone, and I begin to realise that, now past midnight, the majority of hen nights are either falling out or falling over, and either way are not in a particularly fair state to be interviewed for the regional press. I decide that a brief break is in order, so I find a bar just off Mathew Street that does two-for-one whisky slammers, order a couple for myself, and go sit with a group of people who look very much like they’re definitely not on a hen night.

Jade, sitting next to me, is originally from Leeds but now lives in Liverpool. I can’t quite remember what she does, but I remember that her boyfriend is an orthodontist because they both have unusually straight teeth. When I tell her that I’ve just come from Mathew Street, she replies with an Uegh sound. “I personally avoid the place,” she says. Jade is at first surprised when I tell her of Liverpool’s laurels as the Hen-Do-Haven of the North, but on second thought she recalls seeing an unusual amount of hen parties on her nights out in Liverpool, compared with those in Leeds. 

“It always seems to be a lot of older, middle-aged women,” she recalls. “Late thirties, forties. And they always seem very casual.” At this point, conveniently, a group of hens in their late thirties and forties walk past the bar window, dressed very casually. “See, look!” she says, pointing. “People used to dress up for hen nights. But a lot of these older groups just all match a colour. Or wear whatever they want. Just jeans or trainers.” Jade goes on to tell me about an encounter she witnessed between a hen night and a stag do outside Turtle Bay bar, just over the road. She says it all too fast for me to write it down verbatim, but I can tell you that it involves a gratuitous amount of public indecency.

Having taken my break, I resolve to tackle the remaining venues on my list, but this proves both challenging and fruitless. Alcotraz, the deeply tasteless prison-themed cocktail bar, is booking only. Moonshine Saloon, the comparatively tasteful cowboy-themed bar next door, is closed. Concert Square is inaccessible because every street leading to it is all but covered in sick. I am at a loss. I head to Stanley Street in the Pride Quarter, and into the first club that I can see with a drag queen standing outside. It is one in the morning.

Icon is completely empty except for a few men in harnesses slow dancing, a bored-looking DJ in drag playing various tunes that are not slow-dancing appropriate, and the bartender, who is vogueing enthusiastically behind the bar while asking me if I want a drink. I tell them I’m writing an article about hen nights, and they put two fingers in their mouth and make a gagging noise similar to Jude’s aforementioned Uegh. I ask them to elaborate. “It’s hard when they come to queer spaces and don’t respect them,” they explain. “Their only idea of drag queens is Ru Paul’s Drag Race.” I ask them why they think that is. “Well, they’re all middle-aged women,” they reply.

I get a very similar response when I speak to two young drag queens standing outside the club. Both are relatively new to drag: Crypelle, a disabled artist on crutches, has been performing since early February, while for Roxie Horror, a gothic-looking queen in a blonde wig and long black dress, this is only their fourth time taking their drag persona public. 

They both agree that it’s 50/50 whether a hen party will be good fun, or a total nightmare. “It probably depends on where they’re from, what they’re used to,” offers Roxie. “And how much they’ve had to drink.” Roxie explains that many hen nights come from cities or towns where there might not be a huge drag scene, and they don’t know what to expect, or how to behave. 

Often their only knowledge of the scene is from the telly, and they may not have an understanding of alternative drag, or drag etiquette. “They go out expecting Ru Paul, very conventional drag, and they’re gonna be wrong,” explains Crypelle. Roxie agrees. “There’s been a couple of times when people have expected drag to just be a man in a dress. But there are a lot of drag queens in Liverpool who are women, or transgender.”

This has led to several serious incidents in the Liverpool scene, and a bad name for hen parties as a result. “I know a few people who have been called slurs by hen-dos, and boundaries with touching can be a bit…” Crypelle pulls a disapproving face. “Don’t get me wrong, we look phenomenal,” she says, “but like, look, don’t touch.” 

Roxie explains that it’s been noticed within the drag scene that prepaid packages have added to the hens’ sense of entitlement. “Say for example a hen do has booked a pub crawl,” she explains. “Because they’ve paid, they expect that they’re allowed to do certain things. But common decency is still a thing.” Crypelle even recounts a recent incident where members of a hen night had taken her crutches from her, thinking they were costume props. “They don’t understand it’s an extension of your body. They just grab them. I need this to be standing!” she says.

But it’s not all bad news, and some hen parties have proven extremely lovely. It turns out that Roxie — like most of the people I have interviewed today, for reasons I can’t explain — is Irish, and she describes a beautiful encounter with a hen night from Ireland on her first night out in drag. “These random women from Ireland, from Cork or Derry, they came up to me and told me I look amazing. They asked me if I was getting paid for this, they couldn’t believe that I was just doing it for fun.” Roxie recalls being nearly brought to tears by how kind the hens were towards her, and attributes her determination to continue with drag, in part, to this incident. “People from back home, giving me the confidence to keep going, it really helped.”

It’s 2am now, and the streets smell like chips and curry sauce, a clear marker of the end of a night. Even the gay bars are closing their doors, and I think it might be time to clock off. On my brief saunter home, I take the time to reflect on the nature of hen dos, the city of Liverpool, and the like, and it seems a strange trajectory: from a safe space for women, to a safe space for queer people being disturbed by the same women. The crux of the matter seems to be that hen nights are ultimately messy, imperfect, chaotic, ugly even. 

Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing – maybe even quite a good thing – that places like Jam and even Mathew Street exist. They’re tacky, yes, but girlhood is tacky, womanhood can be tacky, I can be tacky when provided the opportunity. There’s something rather moving about having a designated space for the divinely feminine desire to be cringe. And so, in conclusion, I have come to the understanding that I am pro-adult ball pits and themed cocktail bars and hell streets covered in sick. Alcotraz prison bar, though? That might be taking things too far.