Book a month ahead and one in four cancels

Lead time, not party size or day of week, is the strongest signal that a booking will fall through.

Between 1 September 2025 and 31 August 2026, venues on Stampede took 1,069,453 bookings. We pulled every one of them into a single query to answer a question operators ask us constantly: which bookings are most likely to fall through, and can you see it coming?

You can. The strongest signal is not party size, day of week or time of day. It is lead time.

Cancellation rises with every week of notice

Of bookings made on the day, 11.4% were cancelled. Made one to six days ahead, 14.9%. One to four weeks ahead, 19.6%. Thirty days or more ahead, 26.4%. A table booked a month out is more than twice as likely to be cancelled as one booked that morning.

That long-lead group is small, 72,241 bookings or 6.8% of the year, but it is the group with the biggest average party (5.16 covers) and the most work attached: pre-orders, place cards, a section held back on a Saturday. It is precisely the booking you plan around, and one in four of them will not happen.

Party size matters less than you would think

Tables of one or two cancelled 9.9% of the time. Three to four, 11.5%. Five to six, 11.9%. Seven to ten, 12.3%. Only at eleven and above does it jump, to 15.2%. Big parties cancel more, but the gap between a two and a ten is 2.4 points. The gap between a same-day booking and a month-ahead booking is 15 points.

December is the worst month, and the busiest table

December had the highest cancellation rate of any month at 16.8%, and the largest average party at 4.35 covers. March was next at 13.9%. The summer months ran between 8.3% and 9.0%. The pattern is the same one as above wearing a different coat: December bookings are made further ahead, by bigger groups.

The shape of a British week

Saturday carried 24% of all bookings, Sunday 18%, Friday 17%. Monday carried 8.5%, and 49% of Monday bookings were walk-ins recorded on the day planner. Sunday has the biggest tables (3.67 average), Tuesday the smallest (3.25). 6pm and 7pm together account for 36% of pre-booked start times.

Two honest limits

First, this is our venues, not the industry. Stampede skews to UK independents and small groups, and to venues that run a day planner. Second, the year is not like-for-like across months. Walk-ins recorded on the planner grew from 20% of bookings in September 2025 to 48% in August 2026 as venues adopted the walk-in sheet, so the monthly volumes reflect adoption as much as demand. Every rate above is calculated within its own group for that reason. We have also left no-shows out: only a minority of venues mark them, so the recorded rate (under 1%) says more about habit than about guests.

What to do with it

If cancellation risk is mostly lead time, then the protection belongs on lead time too. In Stampede, a deposit or cancellation charge is set per booking type, flat or per cover, with a minimum party size that triggers it and a free-cancellation window, so a "large party" or "Christmas" type can carry protection that your Tuesday table for two never sees. Guests who book far ahead are also the most willing to hear from you: 76.6% of month-ahead bookers ticked the marketing box, against 61.7% overall. A reminder a few days out, by text or email, is the cheapest cancellation you will ever prevent.

Since August, deposits and cancellation charges can be refunded in full or in part from the booking itself, with the guest told automatically, so a firmer policy does not mean a harder conversation.

The query

Everything above comes from one SQL file over the bookings table, grouped by lead time (created_at to start_time), party size band, month, weekday and hour, counting status = cancelled against all bookings in the window. The file is published alongside this post and we will rerun it each quarter.