What Happens After You Send Us Your Brief?
One of the questions we’re asked surprisingly often is, “What happens once I’ve filled in your enquiry form?”
It’s a fair question. If you’ve never used a venue finding agency before, you might wonder whether your enquiry disappears into a queue or gets sent to dozens of venues without your knowledge.
The reality is much simpler—and much more personal.
Every brief we receive is reviewed by one of our experienced venue finders. Before we even begin searching, we take a few minutes to understand exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Guest numbers, location, budget and dates are important, but they’re only part of the picture.
We also think about the purpose of the event.
A conference for 300 delegates has very different requirements from a leadership retreat for 30 people. A networking reception needs a completely different atmosphere to an awards dinner. Understanding the objective helps us recommend venues that don’t just tick the practical boxes but genuinely suit the event.
If anything isn’t clear, we’ll usually get in touch. It’s often a quick phone call or email to clarify a detail that could make a big difference to the venues we recommend. A brief conversation at the beginning can save hours of unnecessary searching later.
Once we understand your requirements, the real work begins.
Despite what many people assume, we don’t simply press a button and generate a list of venues.
We draw on years of experience, our venue knowledge and our relationships across the industry to build a shortlist that we believe is genuinely worth considering. Sometimes that includes well-known venues, but just as often we’ll recommend somewhere you may never have found through an online search.
As we review potential venues, we’re constantly asking ourselves questions.
Will the layout work for this event?
Is the location convenient for the delegates?
Will the venue create the right impression?
Is there enough flexibility if guest numbers change?
Does it represent good value for the budget?
These are the same questions we’d ask if we were organising the event ourselves.
Availability is another important part of the process. There’s little point recommending a venue that’s already booked or no longer suitable for your preferred dates, so we work with venues to establish what’s realistically available before presenting our shortlist wherever possible.
When we’re happy we’ve identified the strongest options, we’ll send you a carefully selected shortlist rather than an overwhelming directory of possibilities. We believe a handful of well-matched venues is far more useful than pages of search results that leave you with even more decisions to make.
From there, we’re as involved as you’d like us to be.
Some clients know exactly which venue they want after seeing the shortlist. Others ask us to arrange site visits, answer questions, negotiate rates or suggest alternatives. Every event is different, so our support is flexible too.
One thing that often surprises new clients is that our service is completely free.
We’re paid by the venues once a booking is confirmed, which means you benefit from our expertise, market knowledge and venue relationships without paying a fee. Our role is to save you time, simplify the search and help you book a venue with confidence.
Finding the right venue isn’t just about matching a postcode and a capacity. It’s about understanding people, events and objectives.
That’s what happens after you send us your brief – and it’s why we believe a personalised shortlist will always be more valuable than an endless list of venues.
Carrie Larwood is Managing Director of Function Fixers and has spent more than 35 years helping organisations find venues for conferences, meetings and corporate events across the UK