Malmaison Reading

You can step off a train at Reading and be in your meeting room within a few minutes, because Malmaison Reading sits across Station Road from the station entrance. You also get rooms for 4 to 100 people, in-house food from the hotel’s brasserie and 76 bedrooms upstairs, so a board meeting, team day or dinner can be run with one booking. The hotel occupies a building from 1844 that the venue describes as the oldest station hotel in the world and as a former Great Western Railway building; its meetings brand is called Work+Play.

Event spaces and capacities

You can choose between three bookable rooms and three glass meeting pods. The largest room, The Mal, takes 80 theatre style, 80 for dinner or 100 for a standing drinks reception, and its published dimensions of 13.5 m by 6 m give about 81 m². Work+Play One and Work+Play Two each seat 20 to 24 around a single table and suit board meetings or private dinners. The venue lists no exhibition space.

Capacities as published by the venue in its Work+Play brochure and on its meeting rooms page, checked 13 November 2026. Areas are worked out from the brochure’s length and width figures; every room is listed with a 2.5 m ceiling. The pods page prices a pod at £225 for a half day (early or late session) or £275 for a full day, per pod, with soft drinks, tea and coffee included on full-day hire, wireless screen sharing and soundproof glass walls. That page says a pod fits up to 6, while the brochure gives 4 for Pods One and Two.

Getting there and parking

Your delegates can arrive by rail without a taxi: the hotel says Reading station is directly opposite, about 200 ft away, and puts London about 30 minutes off by train. There is no on-site parking, and the double red lines outside mean no drop-off point, so the venue suggests the station short-stay car park opposite, which is free for 20 minutes, for unloading. For longer stays it names the station’s long-stay car park (RG1 8BT, about six minutes’ walk) and The Oracle Riverside car park (RG1 2AG, about ten minutes). The hotel puts Heathrow 30 to 40 minutes away by car or by the airport coach from the station’s coach stop, and Gatwick 60 to 70 minutes by car, longer at peak times.

Catering, AV and accommodation

You do not need an outside caterer, because meeting food comes from the hotel’s own Chez Mal Brasserie and Bar menus. The brochure describes two buffets: a sandwiches and sides lunch with soup, salads and fries, and a hot buffet of bowl food with soup, two mains and a dessert, plus a conference café area for drinks and snacks during the day. The day delegate package covers room hire, three rounds of tea and coffee, a hot and cold buffet lunch, an LCD projector and screen or TV, a flip chart, water, fruit, sweets and Wi-Fi. A 24-hour package adds dinner, an overnight room and continental breakfast. Neither package has a published price. For team time the hotel offers in-room cocktail masterclasses and lists local options including Go Ape, go-karting and Hi5 events. The hotel has 76 rooms and suites, 24-hour reception and room service, free Wi-Fi throughout, and it is cashless.

What to ask before you book

• The Mal’s 100 standing figure is the top of the venue’s range: ask whether a theatre set for 80 leaves space for a registration desk and refreshments, or whether those move to the conference café area.
• Pods One and Two are listed at 4 in the brochure but up to 6 on the website, so confirm the number for the pod you book.
• Ask for the current day delegate and 24-hour package rates, and the minimum numbers they apply to, as none are published.
• With no parking and no drop-off outside, ask how speakers’ kit, banners or exhibits reach The Mal from the station short-stay car park.
• Check which of the 76 bedroom types can be held for a 24-hour package group and when the release date falls.
• The venue publishes no access statement, so ask about step-free routes from Station Road to each meeting room.

Related on Events Review

• Conference venues in Reading
• Reading Town Hall, a larger historic venue in the same town
• Conference hotels across the UK
• Hotel du Vin Brighton
• The Queens Hotel, Leeds
• Grand Central Hotel Belfast
• Principal York
• Choose the venue around the event, not the headline capacity
• Turn venue accessibility claims into a usable event plan

Sources: Malmaison Reading Work+Play, meeting rooms, Work+Play brochure (PDF), pods, packages, menus, team activities, private event rooms, parking and directions, rooms and suites and hotel overview, checked 13 November 2026.