A Match Made in Heaven: How Group and Meeting Planners Can Find the Right Venues for Any Kind of Event

Let’s take a glimpse inside the mind of a modern event planner. On any given day, they’re likely consumed with thoughts of budgets, guest lists, event size, space requirements, locations, venue options, amenity requirements, contracts, confirmations and, of course, steadily shrinking timelines. Cue the check-lists that never end, and clients’ complete reliance that the meeting, event, or party they’ve imagined will come to life in a few weeks’ time. No pressure, right?

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, event planning isn’t all glitz, glamour and Hollywood-esque parties. Sure, it might be some of that, but mostly it requires a lot of work, meticulous planning and attention to detail, a collaborative approach, and a little (or a lot) of help from technology. Rewarding? Absolutely. But the modern event landscape, especially with the continued rise of small meetings and corporate events, provides a long list of demands for event planners and venue spaces alike.

Finding the Perfect Venue

Arguably one of the most important items on that list of demands? The venue. In our world, an event can only exist when a venue has been secured. Oftentimes, the venue will make or break the event, helping to curate the perfect backdrop to the gathering, meeting, celebration or party in question. In the case of a wedding, the bride and groom might have dreamed about their ideal venue space for years, with no detail spared. In the case of a corporate meeting or conference, the venue will play a critical role in ensuring attendees are comfortable, supported, engaged, and leave the event feeling inspired and connected to their company.

In the past, this pivotal step was also a notoriously difficult one. Event planners were tasked with vetting and booking the perfect venue, while hotels and venues were tasked with marketing their space to prospective planners. Supply and demand — sounds pretty simple, right? Well, it wasn’t. Burdened by the limitations of manual processes, the time required to identify, tour, and book a potential venue for an event simply took too long, while venues’ sales teams struggled to keep up with RFPs and basic enquiries. Both parties were subject to the arduous process of email catch-up and phone-tag, repetitive questions, and a far too complicated path to booking. Within a landscape that is oftentimes ruled by tight deadlines, this way of doing things simply wasn’t cutting it for planners or venue spaces.

A Better Way of Doing Things

Fortunately, venue management technology is changing the game. Closing the gap between planners and venues/hotels, management technology acts as an integral central platform to ensure the process of securing a venue is, dare we say it, easy.

Planners: picture a virtual, one-stop-shop marketplace. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can find everything you need that relates to a prospective venue. First, you search by location and date. From there, you scan the list of available venues, gauging their aesthetic, capacity details, and price. Once you’ve narrowed it down to a few options, you delve a little deeper, taking a 3D virtual tour of the grounds and floor plans, viewing options for customised packages, detailed descriptions of amenities, FAQs, and more. The information doesn’t stop there, though. Without having to send a single email-borne RFP, you can generate an instant quote, capitalise on a last-minute booking opportunity, send (and receive a reply to) an automated RFP in minutes, book, and pay online. No missed phone calls, no days lost between correspondence; ultimately, no headaches at all. With floor plans, 3D tours, packages, real-time rates and availability all displayed online within a user-friendly platform, booking becomes entirely painless. Those tight deadlines we spoke of? No problem. You’ve got this under control.

From the perspective of the hotel or venue, we realise a similar benefit. Freeing their sales staff from the confines of manual RFP follow-up, each member of the team can better serve prospective clients, answer questions in a timely fashion and provide personalised, attentive service. The function space receives real-time, global visibility and the platform can be accessed from anywhere, 24/7. Staff are able to easily manage the sales pipeline and compare budgets to actuals while ditching spreadsheets in favour of instant, automated reports and built-in resource management. This ensures space is yielded effectively, and venues can spend time cultivating meaningful, memorable relationships with event planners that encourages future partnerships (and glowing reviews).

Let’s face it, from planning the event itself to managing budgets, getting permits, confirming transportation and catering, booking security and/or entertainment, and ensuring attendees have everything they need; event planners have enough to worry about. Venue management technology makes it easier for event managers to organise great conferences, events and meetings, whilst ensuring hotels and venue spaces can effectively market and yield their space any time of the year. Suddenly, venue management technology becomes the middle-man that venues and planners didn’t know they needed, and that middle man is very good at his job.

About the Author

Lauren Hall is the award-winning Founder and Chief Executive Officer of iVvy. Lauren is a passionate entrepreneur with more than 25 years’ business management experience at Executive and Board level, successfully building multiple companies from startup to strategic and financial exit. With a background in programming, accounting and marketing, Lauren’s expertise spans manufacturing, retail, advertising and technology industries in both South Africa and Australia.

She co-founded iVvy in 2009, overseeing our growth to 1,000 clients in 13 countries and expansion to New Zealand, Asia, Europe and North America.

Ernst & Young recognised Lauren as a future global leader of industry through the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women Asia-Pacific program for 2016. Lauren won three International Silver Stevie Awards for Entrepreneur of the Year Globally 2016, Innovator of the Year 2016 and Entrepreneur of the Year Asia Pacific 2016 and recently was named Gold Coast Business Woman of the Year 2016.

About iVvy

 iVvy offers meeting planners the ability to search, compare, book and pay for function space, catering and group accommodations online, 24/7. By providing conference centres, hotels, restaurants and cruise lines with an integrated revenue management and distribution platform, iVvy equips Venue Operators with the tools they need to manage inquiries on any device, anywhere. With enhanced reporting and analytics, Venues are provided with greater visibility over their business so they can yield their meetings & event spaces to maximise revenue.

With offices in 5 countries and a global team providing support 24 hours a day, iVvy’s groundbreaking, cloud-based software offers scalable solutions that tackle core issues faced by the travel, MICE and events industry, and continues to service the world’s leading hospitality groups, major corporations, travel companies, government offices, associations, universities and nonprofits.