The Red Engine-owned business will be located on a two-floor property that was formerly a Revolution bar on Queen Street and will have a capacity for 300 guests.
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There will be 10 oches at the darts-themed bar that will also serve food and drink and is a one-minute walk from Exeter train station.
Red Engine, which also operates Electric Shuffle, said the Exeter opening continues Flight Club’s expansion into regional towns and cities across the UK, following recent openings in Oxford, Newcastle and Reading.
Ahead of the public opening, a three-day soft launch from Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 December will give locals who register in advance free Social Darts and 25% off food and drink before the doors open fully.
Victorian fairground
The group said the opening carries particular significance for the business because, in 2012, co-founders Steve Moore and Paul Barham were in a Devon pub when they watched a young crowd gathered around a game of darts. That moment led to Flight Club, which launched in London’s Shoreditch in 2015 and now operates across the UK, US, Australia and Ireland.
Like every Flight Club, the Exeter venue is designed in-house, combining the look of a Victorian fairground with the warmth of a traditional British pub.
Red Engine CEO and co-founder Steve Moore said: “Exeter has been on our list for a while. It’s got a big student population, a strong after-work crowd and a wider Devon catchment that comes into the city for a night out, and Queen Street puts us right in the middle of all of it, a minute from the station.
“It’s also where the whole thing started. Paul and I had the idea for Flight Club in a Devon pub back in 2012, so bringing the brand home is a full-circle moment for the team. Opening in December means we’ll be ready for Christmas parties from day one and we can’t wait to start celebrating.”
Meanwhile, Flight Club has also launched a ‘Friday Night Challenge’ across all of its UK venues.
The free, walk-in activation runs every Friday from 7.30pm to 8.30pm and is open to all customers in a bid to “bring back the spontaneous Friday night out”. Having started earlier this month (October), Red Bull was announced as its first brand partner for an initial eight-week takeover.
Fridays are more planned out now
The business said almost three quarters (73%) of British consumers say they prefer to visit the pub on a whim (source: Zonal and CGA by NIQ) and competitive socialising continues to grow, with 34% of visitors going more often than they did a year ago (source: KAM).
The way it works – and it is free of charge – is each player throws three darts at the bullseye. Flight Club’s in-house camera vision technology measures the distance of each dart from the centre of the board to the millimetre, and the combined total gives each player a score. At the end of the hour, the six leading players return to the oche for a final showdown to decide the venue’s winner.
Every venue crowns a winner each Friday and each victor receives a Flight Club medal. Anyone who lands three bullseyes in a single turn wins a ‘Golden Ticket’, giving every player a shot at the top prize whether or not they make the final. And the golden ticket gives the owner two tickets to any 2027 Red Bull event of the winner’s choice.
Moore said: “Fridays are one of the biggest nights of our week, but the way people get there has changed. With hybrid working, a lot of people aren’t sitting in a city-centre office waiting for 5pm anymore. At the same time, nights out have become more planned than they used to be, so we wanted to give people a reason to be spontaneous.”
