What to Expect from a Venue Events Team.

Every hotel or performance venue with a facility to host events will have an events team who are there to service your every need when booking a venue for your proposed event. However, realistically what can you expect form this team and can they really help make your event a success?

No two event teams are the same and the level of service can vary enormously, it depends too on the type of venue: hotel, concert hall or exhibition centre. The type of venue to some degree also determines the size of their events team. It’s important to remember that a venue events team is primarily there to sell you their space, they have a financial target and will be in selling mode from the moment you first speak to them.

Assuming you have narrowed down your potential venues based on size, location and availability you can start negotiating with the venue events team and assess their capabilities. There will always be an events manager who will be your main point of contact and will act as liaison to deliver your requirements. Demand to meet the events team and assess each team member’s capabilities including F&B, technical support and engineering along with a construction team if necessary. Get an overall understanding of what services can be provided and how well they will work with external suppliers you may want to bring in. 

Once everything has been agreed ensure that you exchange schedules and event plans along with relevant contact details. Again, your main point of contact will be the venue events manager who should provide you with appropriate contact names and numbers along with an escalation process should problems be encountered. The venue events manager will also provide details on the venues IT platforms and compatibility of booking systems for example that may or may not match your own events software platforms.

Agree the billing process, will you have to pay invoices up front or will the billing of services be invoiced post event, or any combination of these. All financial aspects should be clearly stipulated in any contract that is agreed. A good venue events manager will always be asking for your feedback on every aspect of the services they provide too. Together you can identify operational issues and potential solutions. Your venue events manager should be on-site and available before, during and after your event to tackle any problems encountered for rapid resolution. The last thing you want is encountering a problem and not being able to contact the right venue department manager to resolve the situation.

If your venue is within a hotel your venue events manager can also facilitate group room bookings too for your own events team and performance artists and that is going to save you a lot of time, one less task for you to worry about. After your event you should insist on a post event review meeting with the venue events manager and their team so you can understand what went well and what did not. This is key, not only for the venue but for your own records in assessing whether you would use that venue again for future events.

If you use an events management software solution like FestivalPro you get built functionality for planning, scheduling and calendarising your selected venue requirements. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The FestivalPro platform is easy to use and enables close liaison with venues for document management of contracts and technical specifications along with venue contact details and shared calendars for seamless collaboration.    

Photo by Matheus Bertelli from Pexels

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