What Planners Are Really Looking for In a Venue
Event planners are on the go every minute of the day as they search for venues and plan multiple events. With so much going on, how can you make your venue stand out?
Our panel of experts, which includes Lisa Flores of Columbus Hospitality Group, Courtney Church of Corinthian Events, Jeanette R. Patenaude of Ropes and Gray, and Jessica Singh of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, shared their secrets to connecting with event planners during Tripleseat’s annual EventCamp.
One common question venues have is “How much information do you need from us when you’re doing your venue research?” The planners said that they look for quite a bit of initial information such as photos, room options, floor plans, and menus on venues’ websites and during the first contact with event teams because they typically create a PowerPoint of venue options to present to clients. Patenaude said that she appreciates when a venue follows up via email with a private events package document that outlines event options.
“There are some venues that I’ve worked with that after I’ve reached out to them and they get back to me, they send me their private events package and it has all the information and that’s so much easier than to go online and try to find photos, capacities, and things like that. So when it’s all laid out and sent it’s going to make our job so much easier and quicker,” Patenaude said.
The group also discussed the differences between site visits from event planners as opposed to other clients interested in booking events with venues. The planner often takes the lead because they’ve been working with the event client.
“By the time I am taking my stakeholder to a site visit at either a venue or a hotel any sort of location, I’ve already been there. I’ve done that preliminary work. We’ve met already… I can sell your space for you,” Singh said. “Be there for moral support. Be there to make us shine because we’re going to make your place shine and that’s very important to take back to us. We all want to make sure that you guys look like rockstars to us and we look like rockstars to them because that’s how this is all going to work out. And then we come back. We keep you in that rockstar list of venues.”
Check out the full panel discussion by watching the recording below or visit our EventCamp site to view all of this year’s sessions.
EventCamp 2018 What Planners Are Really Looking For In A Venue from Tripleseat on Vimeo.
Don’t miss the next EventCamp!
We’ll announce our plans for EventCamp in early 2019. Sign up for email updates to be the first to know the details and get access to earlybird ticket rates.