Participating in at least a modicum of alcohol-induced mayhem is an integral and, some might say, a formative part of the modern undergraduate experience. But the company that tried to turn the formula into business gold is this week experiencing a backlash so fierce it has caused it to be banned from student unions across the country.

Carnage UK is an organisation that organises drinking events for an estimated 350,000 undergraduates in 45 towns and cities every year. National outrage against the group was provoked last week when 19-year-old Philip Laing was found guilty of ending a seven-hour drinking binge, during an event organised by Carnage, by urinating on a wreath of poppies at a war memorial.

Laing, who now faces a jail sentence, was one of more than 2,000 students who attended the marathon bar crawl last month. He told a court in Sheffield that on the night of the incident he had been "the drunkest I have ever been at uni" and had no memory of his actions.

This week Carnage will run 10 identical nights in cities across Britain. At each event, teenagers pay £10 for a T-shirt for free entry to around 10 bars and a nightclub, many of which offer cheap drink promotions to mark the occasion.

But when the Observer contacted the student unions in the cities where the events are to be held, more than half said they had urgent concerns and were doing all they could to disrupt or ban the drinking marathons. The unions were not alone – the Observer also spoke to local authorities, MPs and police who confirmed that they too were doing all they could to ensure the binge-drinking extravaganzas did not take place.

"There is an acute and real danger to students who get caught up with these nights, not to mention the danger to members of the local population, and the harm done to town and gown community relationships," said Richard Budden, vice-president of the National Union of Students (NUS). "An increasing number of campuses want to see the end of these events and are doing all they can to stop them by prohibiting ticket sales and banning all publicity.

"They take students on pub crawls that degrade the participants, put students' welfare at risk and lead to antisocial behaviour. They make their money and then disappear, leaving student unions, police, and sometimes even the hospitals to pick up the pieces."

The judge presiding over Laing's case has led the way for the retaliation against Carnage. District Judge Anthony Browne had harsh words for Laing's "disgusting and reprehensible" act. But he also held the organisation itself to account.

Browne said Carnage should be up in the dock alongside the sports technology student from Sheffield Hallam University. "Carnage is the name of the organisation I believe promotes this activity, and some might say somebody [from the company] should be standing alongside you this morning," he said.

Opprobrium for the company and its events have spread since Laing's case hit the headlines. The NUS has launched a campaign to stop the company holding any further events, writing to local authorities and MPs, spelling out its concerns and asking for support. According to an Observer poll, at least 17 student unions have already barred Carnage and all its advertising from their premises and others are expected to follow.

In addition, pubs, clubs and students in Bangor, north Wales, have combined forces to stop Carnage events. Their boycott came after a local man was allegedly attacked during an event that necessitated a doubling of police and ambulance resources, and led to the local MP raising concerns with the Home Office.

Bangor was not the first city that found itself having to record a violent incident linked to a Carnage event: Gethin Bevan was just 20, a brilliant student at the University of Bath who, according to his friends, was "always smiling". At the inquest into his death last year his friends were at a loss to explain why the apparently happy biology undergraduate had hanged himself by a belt behind a nightclub during a night out.

The coroner, Terence Moore, was also confused. There was no evidence to suggest the keen rugby player wanted to take his own life, he said. Equally, there was no suggestion it was a prank or an accident. His death occurred after five hours of extraordinarily heavy drinking during a Carnage bar crawl.

Carnage insists it doesn't encourage irresponsible drinking but those who have attended the nights say it is almost impossible to do otherwise.

"The expectation of a bar crawl is that everyone will have at least one drink in each bar on the route," said 19-year-old Jo, who attended an event in the north of England last year. "But because there are up to 2,000 people on the same route at the same time, there is a massive crush at every venue, which leads to people mass purchasing drinks so they don't have to queue again. Carnage might not explicitly encourage binge-drinking but the impact of these factors is inevitable. It is pretty much what the name of the organisation promises."

This week, Carnage will stage events in locations including Bath, Lincoln, Swansea and York. So alarmed are the student unions in those cities that they have threatened to withdraw their endorsement from any bar that agrees to take part. Loughborough's student union has also waged a largely successful anti-Carnage battle. A spokesman said: "We got the night cancelled two years ago but, last year, Carnage tried to hold the event for Loughborough students in Leicester. Again, we campaigned against it. This year Carnage is not being held for Loughborough students in either Loughborough or Leicester."

Bath Spa University has been in talks with the council to ban the event. But, said Daniel Leigh, the student union's vice-president, the union's promotion of sensible drinking might have played into Carnage's hands: "The union has stopped organising any specific university-led bar crawls, and this might suggest why Carnage is so popular," he said.

Varsity Leisure Group, which owns Carnage UK, denies it encourages irresponsible drinking. "This is completely untrue," said a spokesman. "Student unions do not like Carnage UK events because they clearly compete with their own, less well-resourced events."

On its website, the company states: "At the forefront of our mindset is student safety." It cites measures such as free soft drinks at all venues and on-site medical services.

But those who experience the events disagree. "External medical teams attend Carnage events as a matter of course," said Ben Whittaker, vice-president for NUS Welfare. "Any organised bar crawl that has an ambulance following behind it clearly has something deeply wrong."