One of the best ways you can elevate your venue is by hosting a private event. They offer exclusivity, a set revenue, and great brand marketing.
From birthday parties to baby showers, and charity gala’s to business dinners, your event space can become the most wanted space for private events.
Preparing a Private Event Space
As a venue manager, you want your venue to be the perfect setting for a client's private event. Private event spaces should provide gold-standard services, food, and ambiance. Whether you manage restaurant or bar spaces, the special occasions that you host should ensure that customers return.
Event Ideas
There are numerous types of private events that you can host that can elevate your venue. With each event, you need to ensure that you prepare the event venues, such as restaurants, accordingly. Below we have listed a few private event ideas and some tips for preparing event spaces.
- Private restaurant event: During the planning process make sure your food and drinks services are all pre-arranged and ready to go before the gathering. These events are usually hosted to showcase a chef’s new menu or explore new flavors. From the kitchen to the dining area, you want everything to be perfectly in style for a fine dining experience.
- Engagement party: These are meant to be fun! They’re a precursor to the couple’s big day. We suggest hosting this in either a private dining room or during happy hour (especially if your venue has access to good natural light). Private, intimate parties like this also help to elevate your venue to a more classy space.
- Private party: Hosting private parties usually means the organizer has a theme planned. In this case, they should give you clear communication on how they want the space organized. Do your best to give them exactly what they want.
- Holiday party: Let’s be real, the holiday season can get messy. If we can suggest anything it is a well-stocked bar area (that leads to many consumed alcoholic beverages). For both holiday and private parties we recommend hiring live music. It’s a good way to showcase local talent and bring some festivity to the party.
- Baby shower: although you might be hosting the shower, there’s a high chance that mom/godmother has organized an event planner. As the venue manager, you can work in tandem with the event planner to create the perfect intimate atmosphere needed for the baby shower.
Set a Date & Confirm the Guest List
First things first, set an event date. Ensure that you have no clashing events on the same day. Then, find out the exact number of people your venue will be hosting. Your client may even send out a form to RSVP to their guests, and then forward that to you. Working alongside event planners may help streamline these details.
Curating Event Spaces
Once you have been sent a guest list for the private party, it’s time to arrange the seating plan. One of the easiest ways you can elevate your venue is by creating an aesthetically pleasing interior. As a venue manager, managing event spaces is crucial. From table arrangements to seating lists to standing spaces, your space needs to be accessible to everyone.
You also need to take into consideration the location of food and drinks, and bathrooms. You don’t want to place the canapes next to the bathroom…
Catering & Dietary Requirements
One of the reasons people love to hire a venue like a restaurant or bar for a private event is the catering. Personalizing the catering experience for the event that you are hosting is crucial. Some guests may want canapes, others a table service.
As an event manager, creating the dining plan can be … tedious. But catering to all the guest's needs at your private event could secure your next event. For example, some of your guests may be gluten-free, vegan/vegetarian, or lactose-free.
Working in the hospitality industry your restaurant should already be able to cater to these requirements. If not, it’s time to create new recipes in your kitchen space.
As you prepare your restaurant for its next party, make sure your front-of-house team is knowledgeable about all the food they’re serving. The back-of-house team and front-of-house team should all be on the same page about allergens, ingredients, and what people are eating.
Marketing Private Events
Marketing
Owning a venue such as a restaurant or bar can become stressful during the off-season. As a way to generate income, you can host private events. Hosting private events such as birthday parties, corporate meetings or conferences in restaurant venues ensures a flow of revenue all year round.
You can also promote your venue online during the off-season. Market your restaurant as a venue that can host a business dinner, company meeting, and even team-building events. Depending on your venue space (e.g. a bar) you could even host unconventional events.
Try something like audience-led poetry nights which are associated with a university or college. These could bring in a new set of customers with university students.
If you market your venue towards hosting private events, you can expand your brand image and gain new guests. Using an online management software system seriously helps when it comes to marketing. Tools like Perfect Venue can collate separate events and streamline different calendars, emails, and finances.
Feedback
Let’s say you own a restaurant. Your team has spent ages planning the private party, and today you have to manage the space. You’ve been consistently checking the different spaces and energy in each room. It has felt good and energizing. However, at the end of the night, how will you know if people had a good time?
After you host a private event such as a company gala, send your guests a post-event follow-up form. This allows them to give you constructive feedback that you can apply to your next event. Similarly, ask them for their phone number so you can send them specials or connect them to your loyalty program.
Ask them “How did you hear about us?”. Perhaps they knew about you through their company or social media pages. Maybe they’ve been to your location before for a team-building event. This information will help you streamline where you need to market more frequently in the future.
Conclusion
Now you’re all set to host an elevated private event!
If you aren’t already using an online management software system, we recommend checking out Perfect Venue. We offer a free 14-day trial for you to test it out on your next client. Make life easier for yourself with image gallery carousel displays of your different proposals.
