Staff given annual leave to enjoy Game of Thrones premiere

TV Night Popcorn Sofa iStock/OcusFocus

Something for the weekend: Are you planning to stay up through Sunday night to watch the US season six premiere of Game of Thrones?

The episode airs in the US at 9pm Eastern time on Sunday 24 April, which means UK fans wanting to take a first look will need to remain awake until 2am on Monday 25 April.

For employees at creative technology organisation +rehabstudio this won’t pose a problem. Staff in its London and Belfast offices are being given an additional half day of holiday so that they can watch the episode as it airs in the US and still come into work on Monday afternoon refreshed after a solid night’s sleep.

The organisation has also spared a thought for those who prefer to wait for the UK premiere of the show on Monday night, at the more reasonable hour of 9pm, by requesting that its US staff refrain from sharing spoilers about the show on the intranet until it has aired in the UK.

It seems that +rehabstudio is ahead of the game; almost a third (32%) of those planning to watch the Game of Thrones season six premiere intend to stay up into the early hours of the morning to watch the episode as it airs in America, according to research by Lottoland.

Its survey of 2,384 UK office-based employees also found that 9% of respondents plan to take Monday 25 April off work because of the premiere, 53% of which have booked annual leave and 47% of which intend to phone in sick.

Jon Snow might know nothing, but at EB HQ we’re pretty sure +rehabstudio knows a thing or two about ensuring its employees get their popular culture fix.