Whether you are planning a corporate event, or one for your personal brand, it is always important to get the venue selection right. The right venue always tends to bring out the best outcome of your event. Perhaps, other additional factors play a part in this such as the music, the drinks and food served, but usually, the venue is the most important determining factor. Moreover, the venue will help to add to the memorable experience of your attendees. It was from a lot of consideration that we were able to compile a comprehensive list of the most important factors to consider when going for that venue for your event.

• Budget/Pricing

First and foremost, the most determining factor is cost. The venue tends to consume the largest portion of any events budget and should be considered wisely when choosing a venue. Always choose a venue with the best value for cost whilst remembering to stay objective with the event to avoid higher expenses than the revenue raised.

• Accommodation specification

Always choose the venue that will provide the right spacing for your event. What we refer by this is that the venue should be able to accommodate all the anticipated guests. Other requirements also include, the technical specifications such as lighting, electricity, and other amenities such as lavatories. Moreover, you could check their facility and equipment since a good venue offering these added services as well tends to reduce cost of acquiring them moving forward.

• Food and Beverages

It is also important to consider the availability of refreshments such as food and beverages for your event and whether they come together with the venue hired as part of the paid cost or whether you would alternatively need to seek out outside catering.

• Availability

You should as well check to see that the venue is available either during the day or night and what time of the day is your venue going to be available for rent or hire. And always remember to book for your venue well in advance to avoid any last minute scramble to get a venue on short notice.

• Security

This is one factor that is always overlooked when selecting a venue but it is of great importance for your event. People tend to associate well with brands that take their interests into consideration. Therefore, it’s important to ensure your event has the right form of security to safeguard attendees’ properties, such as security checks at the door and guards and bouncers patrolling the event. The best deals for venues in this case are those that come with their own personal venue security personnel when the venues are hired.

• Competition

Sometimes venues tend to hire out different parts of their venue to different events on the same day or weekend. Say two weeding receptions at different locations on the same day. I mean they are also in the business of making money right. Therefore, it is highly important to choose a venue wisely to ensure that there is limited competition for your event that won’t either conflict or interrupt with your event.

• Location

It is important to analyze in detail the convenience of your venue being taken into consideration with regards to travelling convenience for your attendees. They should be located at a considerable distance to minimize the traveling costs that they will incur. Alternatively, you could analyze the strategic location with regards to proximity to public transport termini such as railways, airports and bus stops and whether the venue offers ample on-site parking or proximal parking elsewhere.

• PWD Consideration

Now this factor is one that I like a lot. Showing that you’re taking a lot of thought and consideration for attendees that are persons with disability (PWD) by choosing a venue that offers easy access to them with features such as ramps and their own designated parking goes a long way into building on the credibility of your brand.

• Vendor restrictions

Always ensure that the venue you choose has some sort of arrangement with certain vendors to sell certain required goods to your attendees. However, the event should not have open access to vendors coming to the event to minimize issues with regards to sell of any illicit products such as drugs.

• Insurance

Some venues require that the event holders have insurance as a requirement before they even consider doing any form of business with you. Therefore it is important to make sure that you do your research before hiring a venue and possibly take out an insurance policy for your events as you continue to host more and more of them, to build on your chances of hiring that venue.

• Venue Policies

Insurance is just one example of venue policies. It is important to familiarize yourself with the full scale of all the terms and conditions of your venue before you actually put pen to paper and hire that venue for your event.