How to Choose An Event Venue

If you’re holding an event, we’ve got the blog post for you.

When you’re holding an important event, you need to get the right location. If the area, vibe, and look of the place aren’t right, it can throw the whole event off.

Finding an event venue is often one of the first few things that you’ll do during the planning process. After all, if you don’t have a venue, you don’t have an event.

Yes, you need to know what to look for in a venue, but to do that properly, you need to know some important details about the event that you’re holding.

You can’t book a venue before you know some of the more crucial details about your event; type, size, aesthetics, and general geographical location all need to be sorted out.

In this post, we’re going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to choose an event venue the right way. You’ll be able to rest easy once you’ve checked this off of your to-do list, so let’s get started.

Choosing an Event Venue: A Step-By-Step Guide

It’s important to be able to get the venue selection out of the way early on in the event planning process. Once you’ve settled on one, you can start sending invitations, planning decor, layout, and promotion.

Plus, if you wait too long, the best event spaces can get booked up. In this, we’ll give you a quick guide for selecting the right venue for your event.

Location

Likely, the first thing you’ll think of when planning the event is the location of the venue. If your guests are flying in from outside Malta, consider a space in the central or north part of the island, which is the hub for hotels.

Other things to consider when choosing the location are parking, transit access, and the amount of traffic in the area. You don’t want to stress out your attendees with travel difficulties before they arrive at your event.

Cost

The second thing you’ll look at after you’ve selected a few candidates is the rental cost of the venue. As we alluded to earlier, venues tend to book up fast during certain times of the year, which will, in turn, raise prices. If you get in on something early, you could get a decent price.

If you’re charging an entry fee for your event, then you can splurge a little more on the venue. Try not to skimp out, but don’t overpay for something that you know should be cheaper.

Capacity

The trickiest part of booking a venue for an event is waiting to find out how many attendees are confirmed. The uncertainty makes it hard to know what type of venue to book, but you need to book before prices get higher and rooms get booked.

All that you can do in an RSVP situation is base the room size on how many invites you’ve sent out. Assume that everyone will come and cover your bases that way. It’s better to have too much space than not enough!

Venue owners can’t legally allow more people into their room than capacity allows, even when it might seem like there’s enough room, so you have to account for that.

Depending on the type of event, you will need to consider the flow of people walking around. When you start adding tables, props, and decor into the equation, space can be taken up quickly.

Services

You should find out what exactly you’re paying for. Is it just the space that you want or are you getting some services included in the venue rental fee?

Some event spaces will have in-house catering, supplied furnishings, and a setup and cleanup crew. Often, if you opt to use the in-house services, they’ll waive the venue rental fee. It can be a lot off of your plate as the event coordinator to have all of these services included in the fee.

If you don’t have to plan out meals, decor, and the setting up of the event, you can focus your energy on the actual event going off without a hitch.

If you want to hire a professional event planning service, most venues will allow you to opt in and out of their various offered services.

Secondary Things to Consider

Once you’ve covered the main factors, you’ll probably have your venues narrowed down to a few selections. Use the following criteria to help you make your final decision.

Layout

If you’re holding a conference or something where people will be speaking, you’ll need the venue layout to be conducive. Choose something that has a stage, supplied audio/visual equipment, and appropriate seating.

The ambience is a factor as well. If you don’t plan on making a lot of changes to the existing decor, you should choose something that fits the motif of your event. When you’re viewing the room, take a look at practical things like outlets for lighting and access to washrooms.

Accessibility

You’ll know if you need to worry about this based on your invite list, but thinking about venue accessibility is something to consider. Wheelchair ramps and lifts are present at most venues nowadays, but some older ones might not be as accessible.

Weather

If you’re holding an outdoor event, it’s important to consider the possibility of inclement weather. Depending on where you are and what time of year it is, you could be dealing with rain.

For instance, here in Malta, it rains in the winter, so an outdoor event would be better suited for the dryer summer months.

Flexibility

The ability to book the venue with some flexibility on a date is huge. You’ll have to pay a bit more for this flexibility, but this option can be invaluable during the beginning stages of event planning; before you have a date fully nailed down.

Start Planning Your Event Today

Finding an event venue can be stressful, but with these tips, you should be off to a running start. It’s important to remember that many venues aren’t going to be completely set up to fulfil your needs.

With iCAN, you can rely on our professional event management and planning service that offers security, lighting, A/V supplies, staging, carpeting, decor, conference systems, and full event management.