Last week I went to the opening of Flight Club Birmingham and had a lot of fun. It’s got a great location on Temple Street at the heart of Birmingham City Centre, so it’s really easy to get to. It’s a perfect place to meet up with friends especially if you live in different parts of the city.
Flight Club has a great layout and decor. There are elements of the fairground including a carousel horse, but it’s also modern and up to date as they use the latest technology to make the games work. It has everything you’d expect from a city centre bar: stunning cocktails, delicious food (I recommend the pizza), even a DJ and dance floor.
The concept behind the bar is called ‘Social Darts’. Social Darts is played in an area called an ‘oche’ (rhymes with hockey). You get your own dedicated space with throw lines, darts, a seating area, table for drinks and somewhere to put your stuff (coats and bags). It is a bit like going bowling as you have your own space and the technology keeps score for you and tells you whose turn is next. When you get there you each take your picture (or you can opt for an emoji instead – I did this the second time around as I didn’t like having the picture taken from below) and then you add your name. Each oche can hold up to 12 players and costs around £30 for the hour which isn’t per person, it’s per playing area which makes it a good price really. There are also off peak deals if you are playing in the daytime.
Our host for the evening was the helpful and friendly Maggie and she quickly got us up and playing. There’s 5 fun games you can play and each one was very different to your usual game of darts. In fact there’s no need to have any darts experience at all. The darts and the dart board look just like standard ones,but Flight Club use clever technology to do the scoring for you.
The clever super computer also films you and replays key moments just like when you are watching sport on the television. I hit a bullseye and got a replay of my throwing, realising and celebrating my flucky shot. I can see this working so well as a night out for a group of friends, maybe work colleagues or just a group of mates wanting to have fun.
There’s a good range of drinks on offer. I’d have liked to see a bitter or two on offer, as well as the great selection of IPAs, as this was the only noticeable gap in the drinks selection. Plenty of other beers and ciders though from stouts through to fruity ciders. An enormous range of spirits is available and obviously some are used in the delicious cocktails they make at Flight Club. There’s plenty of choice for wine drinkers too.
I had such a good time. I was better at darts than I thought I would be too. Flight Club is a great concept and I can easily see myself going back for a night out with friends very soon.
Disclosure: I was invited to the Press Launch of Birmingham’s Flight Club.
