February 2020
The UK's outdoor hospitality business magazine for function venues, glamping, festivals and outdoor events
The UK's outdoor hospitality business magazine for function venues, glamping, festivals and outdoor events
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FUNCTION VENUES<br />
As with any new venture, getting<br />
off the starting blocks can be one<br />
of the most daunting aspects.<br />
For some of you reading this,<br />
you may already be well versed in running<br />
events but are now looking to diversify<br />
your business to include outside space or<br />
take advantage of emerging trends. For<br />
others, it may be that you are sitting on a<br />
piece of real estate and are not quite sure<br />
how to really get the most out of it.<br />
This short guide is designed to help get<br />
you thinking about the steps you’ll need to<br />
take to get off the ground.<br />
EXPLORE YOUR OPTIONS<br />
Before you dive headfirst into renovating<br />
an underutilised barn into a hedonistic<br />
cavern Led Zeppelin would covet, you<br />
should first take a step back and put<br />
together a number of ideas based on<br />
your income aspirations, market trends,<br />
investment capital and operating costs.<br />
While it may take some time to really get<br />
into the details, this exercise is absolutely<br />
necessary. You may find that weddings and<br />
outdoor music are far more profitable than<br />
conferences and camping.<br />
Writing a three year business plan,<br />
including a draft budget and cashflow<br />
projection, is essential. Not only will it<br />
help focus you and your team but will be<br />
a useful reference when you’re looking at<br />
how to grow your business in the future.<br />
Starting<br />
Out<br />
Venue and Ventures’ Iain Beaumont offers an<br />
overview on getting your event up and running<br />
LICENSING AND REGULATION<br />
Once you have determined the type of<br />
business you wish to operate, you are<br />
likely going to have to obtain consent from<br />
a number of different statutory bodies. If<br />
you’re looking to sell alcohol or play music<br />
into the small hours, you’ll almost certainly<br />
need a premises license. If you are looking<br />
to hold civil ceremonies, then you will<br />
require a wedding licence from your local<br />
authority. It is important to deal with these<br />
aspects early on as once they’re sorted you<br />
can really start to focus on energising the<br />
business.<br />
KNOW YOUR SPACE<br />
You’ve run the numbers, you have a plan<br />
and the licences are in hand – so far, so<br />
good. The next step you need to look at is<br />
the condition of your site and its facilities.<br />
If you already have good facilities and a<br />
structurally sound site, it may just be a<br />
simple requirement of getting things tested<br />
to ensure that you’re safe and compliant.<br />
If it involves knocking down the internal<br />
walls of a listed building, you’re going to<br />
need to get consent to make it happen. If<br />
your idea involves opening up rooms to<br />
provide guest accommodation, then you<br />
may find it is necessary to upgrade your<br />
heating and plumbing – eight baths running<br />
at once from a single boiler might prove too<br />
much.<br />
GET MARKETING<br />
It is likely that you will have already<br />
identified who your business appeals to and<br />
therefore will understand who you need to<br />
reach out to. The next step is knowing how<br />
you connect with your audience and get<br />
them excited about your offering.<br />
WEBSITE<br />
This should be your first real marketing<br />
investment; it will be your primary platform<br />
from which you can promote your offering.<br />
It should be slick, easy to navigate and<br />
professionally built. Once up and running,<br />
it is likely that you will need to invest some<br />
time and resources into search engine<br />
optimisation (SEO) to ensure you’re high up<br />
the rankings in Google.<br />
From the outset, I would recommend that<br />
you focus on imagery and video to highlight<br />
your offering – a 90-second video clip will<br />
give visitors to your website a great overview<br />
of your venue. While words are important<br />
to help build your search engine profile,<br />
don’t get bogged down with paragraph after<br />
paragraph of clunky text – the reality is that<br />
most people will skim read at best.<br />
VIDEOS AND IMAGERY<br />
Having a good stock of high-quality and<br />
brand-aligned imagery and video on your<br />
website is very important. I really cannot<br />
stress this enough, and your iPhone image<br />
library is unlikely to give you the professional<br />
feel that you’re after. Once you have a great<br />
range of media, you can also start linking it<br />
with your chosen social media.<br />
SOCIAL MEDIA<br />
If you have not embraced social media<br />
already, then you will need to get this<br />
established early on. The key platforms<br />
which will help inspire a large cohort of<br />
your market are most likely to be Instagram<br />
and Pinterest, with YouTube, Facebook and<br />
Twitter following closely behind. If you’re<br />
struggling to find the time to source and<br />
post fresh, relevant and timely content, I<br />
would recommend outsourcing this aspect<br />
22 WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM
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