Bingo Loco, the saucy new Irish bingo event taking the US by storm

In 2017, three friends from Dublin came together to throw a novel event in the city: rave bingo . The idea was to mesh the mentality of a theatre performance together with the energy of a festival to create an interactive, unique new show for younger audiences to enjoy.

The result was Bingo Loco , which has grown to become one of the most recognizable events in the country .

It all starts with bingo. Upon entry you get your book, your marker and you sit down with your friends to play three games. All the while there’s confetti bombs; lip sync battles; dance breaks; DJs and a few saucy props.

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It’s been such a success that co-founders Craig Reynolds, Stephen Lawless and Will Mear have brought it to the UK, Australia and Dubai - and now, Americans can join in on the fun too.

Bingo Loco launched in the US earlier this year, with a massive expansion planned over the next 12 months.

Craig is heading up the operations from New York, where there are already 36 Bingo Loco nights penciled into the calendar.

“We’re actually in 27 locations in the US now and it’s still growing,” he told IrishStar.com . “There’s the major cities, Chicago , New York, Los Angeles , Austin, Houston, but we’re hitting all of these other areas too like Savannah, Cincinnati, Charlotte - the list goes on. We’re definitely keeping busy.”

It’s been a success so far, with 20 sold-out shows taking place in April alone. Craig said that the team had their eyes set on the US for a while, but that the company has grown quite naturally since starting out.

“It literally just started with myself and two friends. I’ve been doing events since college, students’ nights and so on, and they were from similar backgrounds,” he said.

“I was running music festivals and club nights and I just thought there was room for something more experimental. We tried out different things and eventually put on a bingo event in Dublin .

“There were only about 100 people there, and it was a struggle to get them in, but it worked really well and everyone wanted to do it again.”

The trio started to organize the events every month and soon, it grew legs. “We would do events once a month in Dublin and then twice a month and then it got to a point where we got an offer to do Vicar Street,” Craig said.

“That sold out and then venues around the country started asking us to come in. Next thing you know we all switched over to work at it full time and now we have a team of 15 people and we’re touring Ireland and Australia and the UK. It all happened very naturally. And we’re really happy with the progress we’re making in the US.”

Bingo Loco has proved popular not just with Irish immigrants but also with a wider audience.

Craig said: “The first couple of shows are usually Irish heavy in the bigger cities but I’ve been to about 20 shows where there’s just one table of Irish people. We actually didn’t have any first generation Irish at a show in Buffalo last month.

“People are just mad for entertainment and events in the US. They're very keen to go and experience things, and prices can be insane. So they’re more than happy to pay $30 for a ticket for this.”

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Over 350 shows are planned for the US over the next year and while the event is traveling far and wide, it will take place regularly in a lot of cities.

“A lot of events will do a show once a year in each place but we’re all about residencies and regular shows,” said Craig.

“In New York we’re going to do 36 events, in Los Angeles we’ll do 24 and in Chicago we’ll do 18. We have different MCs that we work with so it’s a completely different experience each time.

“It’s a pretty big undertaking but we’ve a really good team here and it’s working really well so far. The US is the biggest entertainment market in the world but we enjoy a good challenge; it keeps it fun and exciting.”

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