The Practical Guide to Managing Event Venues

This is a short, accessible and practical guide to running venues which are in the business of hosting events. Using honest guidance peppered with the author's real-life situational anecdotes to contextualise the topics, the book is logically structured around the key stages of event management: pre-event, onsite and post-event. Topics covered include developing the client relationship, marketing, financial accountability, risk, interdepartmental communication, onsite procedures and post-event evaluation. This is a fundamental resource for all event management and hospitality students. It is also a book for anybody who manages a venue or is a venue event manager. The Practical Guide to Managing Event Venues makes the business of venue management appealing, understandable and achievable.

Philip Berners has been the event manager at high-profile venues, including the London Hippodrome, Camden Palace and Thorpe Park. He has also organised events in a range of venues in the UK, Poland, Portugal and Italy. His knowledge of using venues for events extends to public parks, royal parks, conference centres, nightclubs, hotels, restaurants, sports centres, exhibition halls, country houses and disused warehouses. He is currently lecturer and course coordinator for the BA Hons Events Management programme at the Edge Hotel School, University of Essex, UK.

Part I The Management of Event Venues 1 What is a Venue? 2 The Berners Hierarchy of Event Needs 3 Hotels as Venues for Events 4 Venue Reputation 5 Events as a Source of Income 6 Venue Professionalism 7 The Need to Meet Expectations 8 Venue Culture Change 9 The Berners One-Person Management Structure 10 The Role of the Venue 11 Procuring External Services 12 Winning Business and Retaining Clients 13 Budgeting Events 14 Guests at Venues Part II Event Procedures for Venues 15 Enquiry Handling 16 Show-round Procedure 17 Confirmation and Contract Procedure 18 Lead-in Procedure 19 Client File Procedure 20 Client Relationship Procedures 21 Event Schedule/Function Sheet 22 Operational Procedures 23 Get-In and Set-Up Procedure 24 Rehearsal Procedure 25 During-event Procedures 26 De-rig Procedure Part III Post-event Procedures 27 Post-event Procedures 28 Case Studies