How to Choose a Venue

The venue had a huge impact on attendance for the softball

tournament I planned for my sorority.  

Last year, I was VP Philanthropy for my sorority. In the past our philanthropic softball tournaments did not receive the participation it deserved. All of the funds raised went to a good cause, so why did it seem like every year our chapter struggled to get other people to come to the event? At last, I found the answer-the venue.

Venues have a huge influence on your client's budget, attendance and overall performance. There is a lot of pressure to pick the perfect place to host an event for your client. Choosing a facility tends to be a hit or miss. If there is a low budget for a conference this might create a negative atmosphere. Employees might be frustrated by technical problems due to a lack of equipment that the client could not afford causing the employees to not enjoy the event.

Julius Solaris wrote an article about How Event Planners Choose Venues. This article included research from the Journal of Convention and Event Tourism on how event planners are directly influenced by the choices other individuals and organizations make. There are two major influences that affect an event coordinator's decision when choosing a venue.

The first major impact is if the venue received good reviews in the past. Event planners rely heavily on word of mouth when it comes to selecting a venue. Listening to online event planning blogs, reviews or articles in magazines will sway their decision of whether to book the venue or not. Event pros trust online reviews as if they heard the information directly from their best friend.

The strongest influence on choosing a facility is the meeting room information. It is mind boggling that the meeting room information is more important to professionals than the cost of a venue, food service, attractions, exhibit space and tech support all together! Event planners want to make sure they are keeping their clients happy, so if they can find a venue with a meeting room that delivers all bells and whistles their client wants there is a great chance the planner will book it ASAP! Meeting rooms are important to clients, especially if the facility offers packages for using audio, visuals or any other technology for corporate meetings.

After learning that people did not like to attend our chapter's softball tournament because the venue's location was far away from campus, I decided to find a facility closer to campus. This small adjustment turned out to be a huge success for our philanthropy. We increased both our attendance and profits from the previous year! Listening to customers and venue reviews are great ways to ensure that choosing a fantastic venue will turn your event into a home run!