My parents have been going with friends to the Royal Victoria now for the last few years and say it's fantastic.
Personally it never appealed to me, so a group of about 10 of us do the same thing each year, one person hosts the evening and cooks up shed loads of food (some kind of theme, be it curry, or chinese etc) then after we eat, we get very drunk and go out to watch the fireworks, then come back in and drink til it's all gone