Social season (United Kingdom)

In modern times in the United Kingdom, "the Season" is known to encompass various prestigious events that take place during the spring and summer.

In this era the British elite was dominated by families of the nobility and landed gentry, who generally regarded their country house as their main home, but spent several months of the year in the capital to socialise and to engage in politics.

[citation needed] The opulent coming-out party held for the 17 year-old Lady Sarah Consuelo Spencer-Churchill on 7 July 1939 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, less than two months before World War Two was declared, has been styled by some as "the last season ever".

The events that now constitute the London social season are increasingly hosted or sponsored by large companies (i.e. "corporate hospitality").

Society would retire to the country to shoot birds during the autumn and hunt foxes during the winter before coming back to London again with the spring.