Lead time: how many weeks ahead each date tends to need

Lead time is not a rule. It is a practical guide to how early the hour you want is likely to be claimed on a given date, drawn from how the calendar behaves year after year.

The rough figures

• New Year's Eve: four to six weeks, more for an hour close to midnight.
• The Canal Parade weekend: three to four weeks.
• King's Day evening: two to three weeks, four for one particular woman.
• The dance event: two to three weeks, with the free move kept for when the timetable is published.
• The other days from Christmas to New Year, and New Year's Day: two to three weeks.
• Marathon weekend and long weekends in May: a few days.
• An ordinary evening in February or November: often the same day.

What a longer lead time does to the deposit

Any booking fixed more than twenty-four hours before its start carries half ahead, on any date. So booking early for a date that is not peak, such as marathon Sunday, still means a deposit. That is the price of certainty: the hour and the name are held.

Naming more than one woman

On the dates with long lead times, naming two or three women you would be glad to see shortens the process to a single reply. Each woman keeps her own dates, and on the big ones some choose not to work at all.