Whether it’s your own small business with a modest number of employees or you work for a large, international company, it may be that you’ll be tasked with finding an event venue at some point. If that leaves you wondering, ‘but how do I find a venue for my event’, then this guide is for you! Or you could use the easy option of using a venue finder.
Picture the scene, if you will. You’re a PA for an extremely busy person, and your brief is to find the perfect venue for a company conference. All you’ve been told is that there will be 200 attendees, and around half of these require accommodation for one or two nights.
Common sense tells you that the venue must be accessible via public transport or car so that all those invited are able to attend. Everyone in attendance will also need feeding, several times per day.
Let’s say, for example, that the conference is to take place in Manchester, so it’s not too far from employees from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Plus there are good rail and road links, and a major airport.
In a city the size of Manchester (or Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and especially London), how do you even begin to narrow down the options?
If you’re wondering how to book a venue for an event without it taking up so many hours of your valuable time, then you need to know about venue finders!
How to find a venue for an event
THE EASY WAY!
Imagine there was someone who could listen to your brief, before immediately narrowing down the options to just a handful of venues in the city of your choice. Or even in the countryside, in a charming small town, or by the coast.
Well, guess what (the fact that this site’s called Venue Finder Pro might have given the game away here). As luck would have it, there is someone who can do exactly that! Enter the professional venue finder.
Professional venue finders
A venue finder does just as it says on the tin (or in this case, the website). They specialise in finding venues. In fact they’re experts in choosing a venue for an event. Their knowledge means they can, more often than not, immediately pinpoint the venues that might be the perfect match for you.
Why waste so many hours on booking a venue for an event when a professional can do that on your behalf?
Well… money could be one concern. It might save you time, but how much money does it cost to hire a professional venue finder?
Free venue finders
In fact, venue finders work for you for free. There is no charge for using the services of a pro venue finder. So how do they make any money? Surely there must be something in it for them, apart from the feel-good factor felt after helping someone out?
This is how it works. Venue finders will book a venue for an event, and that venue will pay them a commission. It’s their reward for bringing them the business. And this is how a venue finder makes money.
Does that mean, then, that the venue finder will find a venue for an event based on the commission they’re going to make? Well they could do that. But if they sent clients to unsuitable venues, just because of what was in it for them, then they could very soon go out of business!
The venue finding business
Reputation is everything when it comes to venue finding. The professional needs to maintain good relationships with both venues and clients. And more than anything, they want repeat and word-of-mouth business.
This means it’s in the interests of the venue finder to book only a venue that’s right for their client. So do you have any say when it comes to choosing a venue for an event?
Absolutely. What doesn’t happen is that the venue finder goes ahead with booking a venue for an event without your definite say-so. You’ll even need to sign a contract with the venue, so there’s no way this could happen.
When you’re looking for a venue for an event, the first step is to contact the venue finder. They will then ask for a brief – plus a few questions you might not have thought of. Then they can set to work, finding a venue for an event you want to hold.
This may require a lot of research on the part of the venue finder. Research that you don’t then have to undertake. This can clearly save you a lot of time.
In some cases, a professional venue finder won’t need to do much research at all. This is because they know the business inside out. It’s their full-time gig, and if they’re like the team here at Venue Finder Pro then they have decades of experience in finding venues.
Year upon year of maintaining relationships with clients and venues, visiting hotels and booking conferences, meetings and other events has taught them a lot. They can visualise which events will work seamlessly at which venues.
Their little black books (or the virtual equivalent) are also packed with useful industry contacts. If they don’t know the answer to a burning question of yours – or indeed whether a specific venue really would be the most suitable place to hold an event – then they know just who to call.