An event doesn’t start when you open the doors, people turn up and the band strikes up. It starts way before, right back to the arrival of the invite.
The majority of events aren’t lucky enough to be sold out within hours of releasing the tickets, many need to entice their audience with vision, content, and aspirations of the event to come. Professional event organizers are increasingly seeing the pre-event experience as vital as the on the day experience; they want their guests in the right frame of mind as they enter the ‘room’, they want them to want to turn up.
The main reason anyone goes to any event is unchangeable; value. The guest needs to take away a business result, a new contact, new education and information, or even a level of entertainment value. If they see the value they come, but they need to be sold this value before ahead of the event.
This is where unique venues come into play.
They aren’t content, but they are context. The event organizer will create the value through the content, but the venue can add entertainment and environmental value. It makes sense, unique venues are, for the most part, culturally recognizable icons. They carry with them the weight of history, influence and are entertainment in their own rights. Unique venues offer gardens, museums, exhibitions, cultural experiences or sporting heritage. They are the sort of places people are waiting for a reason to go to and they can be the tipping point.
Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), Edinburgh, 2/5/13.
Opening celebration for the new expansion.
© Malcolm Cochrane Photography
mail@malcolmcochrane.co.uk
Lime Venue Portfolio is a group of unique venues, from sporting icons such as The Oval, and Twickenham, to historic country houses like Hatfield House and Hever Castle; from the adventurous settings of HMS Belfast and Bristol Zoo & Gardens, to the unusual settings of the Chill Factore or the Imperial War Museum North.
These are all iconic locations that mean something to both a local guest list or a national one. They underline the message of the event, be it sporting prowess, heritage, the story of winning, or the home of Rugby. Most importantly they mean something more than a traditional conference center or hotel.
They are a statement that comes alive the moment the invitation arrives on the guest’s desk. They create that brilliant commodity event organizers are always after; anticipation.
That means that guests arrive ready for the event, and this feeling of anticipation and preparation is only built upon as they enter the venue. Depending on the event organisers wishes, they arrive with either heart rates or concentration levels heightened, which is a brilliant way to ensure they get the best of their experience and that the event provides a return on the investment the organizer has made.
Once the important pre-event experience is dealt with though, there is the on the day event, and the post-event period to think of. Again, the venue plays its role here; it underlines the content of the event by linking in with the aspirations or values of the organizer or providing a dramatic setting for the event itself. But they also help create memories; the wonderful thing about ’unique’ is that it is memorable. The memories of the event are heightened because of the venue it took place in, guests will remember what took place, but will be able to weight it more by remembering where it took place as well. This is important for any organizer looking for their event to resonate long after the doors are closed.
An event is a pitch for people’s time, and they need to show value and a return on the time they take from their guests. Content is of course king, it’s the reason to go to an event. But the venue shouldn’t be a passive bystander, it needs to contribute to the feel of the event.
A good venue – a unique venue – can help create anticipation, impact, and memory.
Lime Venue Portfolio offers the largest collection of unusual, sporting and cultural venues across the UK & Ireland.
