£120 million office party

Hotels, restaurants, clubs and bars were full to capacity last night and will be again tonight.

Venues such as aircraft hangars and stately homes were booked months in advance, with magnums of champagne, top DJs and even circus entertainers laid on.

City bonuses are fuelling the festive excess but everyone is getting into the party spirit as worries over a global credit crunch are cast aside.

Analysts say the £70 million estimated to have been spent last night is seven times higher than on a normal Thursday and tonight's £50 million total will be another record.

But there is concern at the level of binge drinking. Paramedics are driving a "booze bus" around London tonight to help drunken workers. Field hospitals have been set up in the City to deal with a 15 per cent surge in 999 calls. Party induced cases range from minor injuries to hypothermia. Paramedics today pleaded for restraint amid fears that response times to genuine emergencies will suffer.

Booze bus medic Brian Hayes said: "Last week we had a 53-year-old professional woman who could barely stand after a Christmas party and it is going to be worse tonight. The level of drunkenness is getting ridiculous."

But the warnings are unlikely to quell the partying and the financial sector led the celebrations on what is the last full working week of the year for many employees.

One hedge fund management group spent £350,000 on a party for 60 people. Party planners Quintessentially Events said their unnamed client's extravagance included flying in the world's leading champagne fountain specialist to a stately home, snow machines and unlimited Dom Perignon.

Thousands of the City's top earners were entertained at around 300 corporate parties last night. One of the most flamboyant included jugglers, acrobats and contortionists at Old Billingsgate for almost 2,000 members of staff from investment bank JP Morgan.

Vicky Hartley, from party organiser The Concerto Group, said that for top corporate events the turnover would be about £250,000 for each one, with £50,000 changing hands at smaller parties.

"There is talk about the country going on an economic downturn, but we have not seen that for Christmas parties. People don't cut the budget because bosses know it is very important for staff."

Party planners have companies in the creative and
media fields flying employees to casinos in Monte Carlo, black-tie balls at stately homes in eastern Europe and away days to Paris on Eurostar.

Most restaurants across the capital were booked months ago. At the Red Fort Indian restaurant in Soho, manager

Ashutosh Bhardwaj said: "We probably took over £30,000 and nearly all of that was from office Christmas parties."

Marie Funnell, 32, out last night with colleagues in Liverpool Street, said: "There is absolutely no way our bosses would cut the budget for our party. We've done really well so we deserve it."

Property investor Lucy Joyce, 26, drinking in Broadgate Circle, said: "People might be worried about the economy and their mortgages but the Christmas party is an institution and no employer would dare be a Scrooge."

At Pitcher & Piano in Bishopsgate, account manager Wes Rock, 26, said: "I'm out entertaining clients. Money's no object."