How To Pick The Right Venue For Your Event

When planning an event, one of the most important things you’ll need to do is find a venue. Finding the right venue can make or break an event, and unless you do this for a living, there are many things you may not think to consider when you start looking for the perfect spot. This article is intended to bring those considerations to your attention, and put you on the right track to finding the perfect place to host your event. 

Before you start looking for a venue, you’ll need to make a basic outline of the things you know you want at your event. Number of guests, whether or not you’re going to serve food and booze, if you need guest lodging, if you’ll want decor, or entertainment, or a dance floor – these are the things you should consider before you even start looking for a venue. Once you have your basic outline of the things you know you want at your event, you’re ready to start looking for a venue.

Here is a list of considerations when picking a venue –

Capacity
Location
Price & Inclusions 
Lodging
Food & Beverage Program 
Spaces & Staffing
Licensing & Restrictions  
Setting Expectations
Contract

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Capacity

One of the first things you’ll want to consider when search for a venue is how many people you plan to have at your event. You number of guests will control what size venue you’ll need. It’s simple – larger events need larger venues. Venues will typically clearly list their capacities on their websites. If you’re wondering how many rooms a hotel has, hotels.com is a great resource, as they list room counts and bed counts for all of their properties. This consideration is pretty straight forward, and is a good place to begin.

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Location

When considering a venue’s location, the primary things to consider are the weather, the commute, and the venue’s proximity to everything else.  

You will to want to find a venue somewhere where the weather will work with you and not against you. You can’t always avoid a rainstorm, but you can do a bit of research on the larger weather trends for a specific location at that time of the year you’re hoping to have your event. 

Generally, you’ll want to go somewhere where the weather is best that time of year – avoid costal areas during hurricane season, and avoid hot and humid places in the summer. Avoid rainy season in areas that have one. Be aware of wildfire season in areas prone for that type of occurrence. Since you can’t control the weather, you don’t have to harp on this too much – it’s going to be what it’s going to be – just be sure you’re not planning your event when and where you’re going to be likely to run into bad weather. Simply googling “average weather by month in (geographical location)” will give you a good idea of the best time of year to be in any place.

The second location consideration when picking a venue is how far you and your guests are going to have to travel to get to your event. Whether your guests are flying in or driving in, their commute is going to be their first experience with your event, so you’re going to want to be sure it’s an enjoyable one – or at the very least palatable. A bad commute is a bad start to the event.

If the majority of your guests are driving in, it’s best to pick a venue where most will be driving two and a half hours or less. Having to drive three hours or more is an exhaustive commute, and will make it so that your guests are arriving tired rather than energized. 

If the majority of your guests are flying in, ideally your venue will be ninety minutes or less from the airport. Airport travel days are already exhausting, so having a long ground commute after your flight is not ideal. 

If your perfect venue is remote and requires long travel to get there, thats ok, I would just caution you from having too much planned for guests on their arrival day. They are going to need to recuperate from their travels, and giving them a chance to recover will allow them the opportunity to be energized, rather than exhausted, for the rest of the event. 

The last thing to consider here is the proximity of your venue to everything else. If the venue you pick is remote, there won’t be many other resources nearby, and you and your guests will need to be able to rely on your venue for everything you may need. If your venue is nearby to other resources, it won’t need to be as robust. The further into the middle of nowhere you bring your guests, the more you and your venue are going to need to take care of them. If you bring your guests somewhere where resources and amenities are plentiful, they’ll need less from you and will be able to take care of their own needs much easier. 

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Price & Inclusions- 

There are a wide range of pricing structures for venues. The primary thing that will influence the price of renting a venue are the inclusions. By inclusions, I mean the things a venue can include other than just their buildings and spaces. Food, booze, lodging, AV equipment, staff, transportation, entertainment, wellness programs, and recreation activities are all examples of inclusions. A venue that includes lodging, food, booze, and a wellness program is going to be drastically more expensive than a venue that simply provides a hosting space. 

A venue that has many inclusions available will mean two things – a higher price tag, and less for you as the planner to figure out. Conversely, a venue without inclusions will always be less expensive, but is likely going to require more of you as the event planner. Figure out the balance that you’re most comfortable with. If you have a robust event in mind and you know you’re not interested in or capable of taking on a large amount of planning, find a venue that will have the ability to take on as many aspects of your program as possible. If you know you can handle the planning and are willing to do so to save some some money, partnering with a less robust venue is an option for you. 

When establishing your budget, I typically advise people that ideally 60-70% of their budget should be allocated for the venue rental, the F&B program, and if you’re providing it, lodging. Any alcohol you plan to serve should be included in this. 

If you’re spending more than 70% your budget on these things, you may end up having to skimp in other areas that will negatively impact your event. The rest of your budget is more flexible depending on what you consider to be the most important. If you’re having a live band, that is going to require more of your budget than a playlist or a DJ. If you want lots of flowers, that is going to be a bigger budget commitment than if you’re going for more modest decor. In general, if you have 30-40% of your budget left after covering your venue, lodging, and F&B program, within reason, you should be able to make whatever else you’re interested in work.

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Lodging- 

A big decision for any event, especially ones that last multiple days, is whether or not you will be covering the cost of lodging for your guests. If you’re hosting an event where people are not buying tickets (weddings, family reunions, etc), guests typically expect to cover their own lodging expenses. If you’re selling tickets to your event, you can either provide lodging and charge a higher premium, or not provide lodging and charge less. 

If you are not going to provide lodging, the venue you pick needs to either have lodging available for guests to secure for themselves, or be close by to other lodging options. If you’re going to have alcohol, ideally the lodging options are walkable, or transportation is available so there is no drinking and driving. 

In the case that you are providing lodging for your guests, a venue with onsite lodging, or lodging that is walkable, is usually the best option. It really complicates things having to incorporate a transportation program to get people back to their beds at night. 

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Food & Beverage Program – 

When selecting a venue, considering the food and beverage (F&B) program you’re interested in providing is important. Many venues have an internal F&B departments. Other venues don’t offer F&B, but often they will have restrictions on what vendors they do and don’t allow to serve at their venue. Knowing your venue’s capabilities as well as restrictions when it comes to F&B is important. 

If you’re considering utilizing your venue’s internal F&B program for your event, have a meal there. This will give you an idea of what their team is capable of, and whether or not it’s in line with what you have in mind for your event. Also review their menu prices. Typically food per person at your event will be on par with the most expensive entree on their standing menu. 

If you’re wanting to outsource your catering, make sure your venue is aware of this, and get a good idea of what they will and will not provide to support your caterers. Caterers will need at minimum space, water, and electricity. Many venues that have their own in house F&B programs do not allow outside caterers. 

The other consideration here when picking a venue is the beverage program you’re interested in providing. If your venue has a liquor license, meaning they regularly sell alcohol, they will likely not allow any outside vendors to supply alcohol. This mean if you want to serve booze you have to serve theirs, and pay their prices. Covering the cost of alcohol is the quickest way to use up your event budget. If you’re trying to save money, consider offering a cash bar (where guests pay for their own drinks) rather than an open bar.

If your venue does not regularly sell alcohol, you can likely set up your own bar. While this can save you quite a bit of money, it’s a tough undertaking for someone who doesn’t regularly plan events. For more on setting up your own bar, see our article on All Things Bars & Booze. 

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Space & Staff-

A more general consideration for selecting a venue is whether or not they have appropriate spaces for the things you’re wanting to do at your event. The best way to approach this is to list all of the things you’re going to need space for, then when you go to tour your venue, identify the spaces where you’ll host each of those activities. If the venue has a good option for each of your needed spaces, it’s an option for your event. If the venue does not have spaces to accommodate your plans, it’s probably not a good option for you. 

Your approach to evaluate staffing is similar to evaluating spaces – when considering the activations you’re going to want at your event, consider what your staffing needs will be. Generally, if a venue offers an inclusion, they will staff it as well. A venue that provides food will also provide food servers. If your venue offers yoga, they will have an instructor. If you’re partnering with a venue that doesn’t offer many inclusions and you’re planning to outsource many things, know that you will also be responsible for staffing, which will come with both extra coordination, and extra costs. Staffing is one of the most difficult parts of events, so if your venue has staff available, my recommendation is that you use them. 

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Licensing, Restrictions, & Setting Expectations- 

Sometimes venues will require licensing or have restrictions when it comes to noise, alcohol, smoke, capacities, and various other things. Restrictions of this sort are pretty standard, it’s just something you’ll want to be sure you’re aware of when selecting a venue.

It is important to be thorough and honest with your potential venue about what you plan to do at your event. The easiest way for an event to go wrong is for you and your venue to not be on the same page. Tell your venue exactly what you are hoping for, and you’ll know if that’s doable for them or not. If you don’t tell them everything you want, you’re leaving room to be disappointed. 

At some of the events I host, we want to keep the bar open and the party going until sunrise. I tell our venues about this desire at our very first meeting. Some venues have noise and alcohol restrictions that require the party to end earlier. Other venues don’t have restrictions, they are just not into the idea of a party until sunrise. Because I told them about our plans, I was able to learn in the first conversation that those are not the venues for us.

Keeping things a secret from your venue is never a good idea. Not only will that venue not appreciate you as a customer, they will likely not meet your expectations, and if this is a repeat event they probably won’t want you back. Venues can deliver better service knowing exactly what to expect ahead of time. I can’t stress enough the importance of being open and honest with your venue about what they can expect of you, your guests, and your event. 

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Contract – 

Evaluating contracts with a venue can sometimes be tricky, and can get you into trouble if you don’t know what to look for. 

The first important thing when it comes to contracts is to make sure that everything that has been agreed to verbally is listed in your contract. If it’s not in writing, you can’t depend on it happening during your event. The person who verbally agreed to things isn’t always going to be the person executing your event, so if you’re expecting something to happen, make sure it’s written in that contract. 

The next thing to beware of with contracts is minimums. Oftentimes, a venue will ask you to agree to a F&B minimum. The number listed as the minimum does not mean that is what you can expect to spend on food and beverage – it means that is the least you should expect to spend on F&B. Having minimums in contracts makes it really hard to predict your total costs and stick to a budget, and puts you in a position where you can be surprised with a much larger bill than you were expecting. In an ideal situation, you’re able to agree to an exact cost with your venue for F&B, not a minimum, and get it written into your contract that you will not be charged any more for your F&B program than the contract clearly states. 

The last thing to be aware of in contracts are fees and surcharges that are not clearly stated in dollar amounts. Oftentimes venues will give you a set dollar amount for an item, followed by a sentence that says that you will also be charged taxes, a service charge, a hospitality fee, and a few other percentage points for this and that. These taxes and fees can be very high, sometimes as much as 30%. A contract written like this can also put you in a position where you’re surprised by your final bill. The best way to approach this is to ask for an all in price listed in currency (not percentages) that gives you a final total amount with all taxes and fees included. A good contract is one that clearly lists the total amount you will be expected to pay, and does not leave any room for surprise financial charges. 

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I hope you find this list helpful when searching for the perfect venue for your event. There is a lot to consider, but finding the right venue is one of the most important aspects to planning a good event. The right option is out there, and now you have a better idea of how to find it. Best of luck on your search!

-Cyn

PS- If you’d like to download a copy of this list, including summaries for each section, you can do so below.

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