Nine million people. Most of them going home to talk to nobody.
Why London
London is the easiest city in the country to be surrounded by people and speak to none of them. The tube has rules about it. The pub after work is the same eleven colleagues. The flatshare is three people with different shifts.
It is also a city people arrive in constantly, alone, at every age, and then discover that the friends they assumed would appear do not appear. Nobody tells you that the hard part starts after you find somewhere to live.
So we run rooms small enough that not talking is not an option, and we cap them so the person who booked one seat is never the odd one out.
What runs here
Pick by how exposed you want to be. Every heat runs in London.
Daylight, drop in
Up to 24 · 90 minutes
Something to do with your hands
Up to 18 · 2 hours
The long table
12 to 16 · 3 hours
Two seats
2 · 2 hours
Every heat
Most people do. Every format is built for the person who booked one seat, not for the group of four who already know each other.
No badges, no pitches, no exchanging LinkedIn. If someone starts, the room tends to sort it out.
Knock, Challenge, Connect. The same consent-first protocol as everywhere else on FirstMove, so nothing reaches anyone who has not opted in.
The VibeZone closes with the room. Profiles and chats go with it. What you leave with is whatever you actually built at the table.
Every format is capped. A room you can cross in ten steps is a room where you will speak to someone.
Tap a question to expand.
Venues move around London and are picked for the room rather than the name: somewhere small enough that the table can hear itself. The exact address goes out with your booking, and every listing carries its own location before you claim a seat.
No. SoulFire is a connection programme, and most formats have nothing romantic about them at all. Even the paired dinner is framed as two people at a table rather than a date. People come to meet collaborators, find friends in a new city, or just spend an evening somewhere that is not their flat.
A VibeZone is the social layer FirstMove switches on inside a partner venue, festival or campus. SoulFire is FirstMove hosting: we choose the format, pick the room, cap the seats and run the night. Every SoulFire has a VibeZone inside it, but not every VibeZone is a SoulFire.
No, and we would rather you did not. Every format is designed around people arriving on their own, which is why the seats are capped and the rooms are small.
It depends on the format. A daylight brunch and a seated dinner are not the same thing to put on, so each listing carries its own price. Check the format you are looking at in the app.
Everyone in the room booked a seat on their own to meet strangers, so you are the median attendee rather than the odd one out. Start at Ember if you would rather have daylight and an easy exit.
Yes. We work with venues on formats that suit the space, and the same partner programme covers organisers, venues and promoters. Start on the partners page and tell us about the room.