Twelve Feet Away — September's Evening, and an Encore on 13 October

September's Members' Evening at the Grosvenor Rialto worked, so we're doing it again on Tuesday 13 October. Forty seats. What happened last time, and how to book.

September’s Members’ Evening did what it was built to do. People met someone they should have met years ago, and at least two of those conversations have already moved to a second meeting.

So we’re doing it again. Same room at the Grosvenor Rialto, same method, same cap of forty. The details are below, and below them, what September looked like from the inside.

V8 Nexus October Members' Evening poster: An Evening at The Rialto, Tuesday 13 October, 18:00 to 20:30, Grosvenor Rialto Casino, Piccadilly. Forty seats, complimentary drink, Solo £30, Duo £50.
October's Members' Evening at the Grosvenor Rialto, Piccadilly. Forty seats.
  • When: Tuesday 13 October 2026, 18:00 to 20:30
  • Where: Grosvenor Rialto Casino, 3–4 Coventry Street, Piccadilly, London W1D 6BL
  • Included: a complimentary drink on arrival
  • Tickets: Solo £30, or Duo £50 for two guests
  • Guests must be 18 or over

Book a solo place (£30) · Book a duo place (£50 for two)

If you book a solo place, the form asks who you’d most like to be introduced to. Answer it properly. It’s the most useful thing you can tell me before the evening, and the section below on how September worked explains why.

What happened in September

When I wrote the invitation to this one, I said the problem with most networking evenings isn’t the room. The right person is usually standing twelve feet away. Nobody puts you in front of them.

On 15 September we put people in front of each other, and I have spent the days since watching those conversations continue in people’s inboxes.

The Grosvenor Rialto Casino and Bar on Coventry Street, Piccadilly, London, venue for the V8 Nexus September Members' Evening
The Grosvenor Rialto, Piccadilly. A former cinema, which explains the gold frame around the screen.

The part that happens before anyone arrives

This is worth saying again because it is the whole method, and it is unglamorous.

Before every Nexus evening I go through who is coming and look for the overlaps. The property developer who needs the tax specialist. The founder raising who should meet someone who has already done it. Two people in adjacent sectors who would refer to each other for years if they ever met.

Then, on the night, I introduce them. In person, with the reason said out loud.

For October I’m asking you directly. The solo booking form has one question on it that matters more than the rest: who would you like to meet? Tell me, and I’ll start looking before you walk in.

That is it. It isn’t complicated. It is just work that most events don’t do, and it is why the room is capped at forty — past that, an evening stops being a set of introductions and becomes a crowd.

Executives and business owners seated in the Backstage Bar at the Grosvenor Rialto during the V8 Nexus September Members' Evening in Piccadilly
Mid-session. Business owners, professional services, and people building with AI, in roughly equal measure.

What the room was like

Buzzing, and specifically buzzing in the right way. Not the polite hum of people waiting for a reason to leave. People were two and three deep at the tables, past the job-title exchange and into the part where someone describes what they are actually stuck on.

That is the part most rooms never reach, and it is the only part that produces anything afterwards.

A few things came out of the evening that I did not plan and could not have: collaborations between people I introduced for one reason who found a better one themselves, and at least two conversations that have already moved to a second meeting. Introductions open a door. What people do once they are through it is theirs.

Gina Cheng hosting the V8 Nexus September Members' Evening, presenting to members beside the screen at the Grosvenor Rialto, Piccadilly
Opening the evening. Behind me, the members' film — business leaders who want more than a room full of strangers.

Thank you to our partners

This evening happens because three organisations decide each month that it should.

  • Grosvenor Casinos, for hosting us at the Rialto and sponsoring the venue, as they have consistently for this community. Particular thanks to Nina Inceman and the casino team, who make the logistics invisible. That is the highest compliment you can pay an events team.
  • HongKongers Magazine UK, and Pauline Lau, for the sponsorship and for a community partnership that keeps bringing genuinely interesting people through the door.
  • V8 Global, and Alan Law, for the steadfast sponsorship and for the vision behind this circle in the first place.
V8 Nexus members networking over drinks at the Backstage Bar, Grosvenor Rialto Casino, Piccadilly
After the formal part, which is where most of the useful conversations happen anyway.

And to everyone who came

Thank you for bringing your ideas and your energy to the table, and for being the kind of guest who makes an introduction easy to make.

A curated room only works if the people in it are worth introducing to each other. Everyone there had been through the same screen, which is what makes an introduction worth accepting rather than merely polite. You held up your end of that.

Join us on 13 October

If September was your first Nexus evening, come back for the people you didn’t reach. If you missed it, this is the one to be in the room for.

Book on your own, or bring someone who belongs in the room with a Duo ticket. It’s forty seats, because the introductions only work at that size.

Book a solo place (£30) · Book a duo place (£50 for two)

I read every booking myself. That’s how the introductions get made.

See you in October.

V8 Nexus

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