Find me a venue! This, of course, is the demand which any venue finding service must respond to. Finding an appropriate venue for conferences and/or events is its raison d'etre. But, as always, the devil is in the detail. What would be an appropriate venue? Where in the country should it be? When? What facilities should it have, and at what price? If you want to find a venue which is right for you, and for your event, there are a lot of specifics which need to be determined first. Even if you were to take the course of finding the venue yourself, you would nevertheless discover that certain detailed questions must be posed, given due consideration, and answered, to avoid wild-goose chases. Using a venue finding service has the advantage 'en-passent' that the agency will be very used to putting together a relevant set of such questions: making use of their wide experience of the process. Basic Questions: The following is just a rough list of the things one needs to know in order to effectively, go out there and find your venue. 1) Where are you based? 2) Where will your attendees be coming from? How many do you expect? 3) What meeting rooms do you require? 4) What level of catering/accommodation will the attendees be expecting? 5) What are the dates, and how flexible can you be? 6) Are you planning activities other than talks etc? 7) What is your budget overall? These are some of the nitty-gritty details which need to be sorted out, before any attempt is made to find a venue. Clearly, for instance, if the attendees are at a high level in their respective organisations, they might take a dim view of two-star, or lower quality, accommodation; as another example, if you are based in the West Country, but most of your attendees will be from abroad, then it's worth considering venues in London: and so on and so forth. Even More Basic Questions: I.e. not more questions of the same kind, but instead, some questions which are even more basic. These points are not ones which relate directly to the detailed requirements for your venue. They are issues which need to be determined, in order to understand how necessary and accurate the various specifications you've decided on, actually are. And to what extent these are flexible/negotiable. In particular, If there is a problem finding a venue which adequately fulfils all your stated needs, due either to cost, or to other reasons, then it may be necessary to re-evaluate your prior conclusions, on the basis of these very fundamental questions: 1) What is the primary goal of your event? 2) What are its objectives. Of course, the goal/objective approach to project management is something which has proven its worth in a remarkable variety of circumstances. A very brief case study. Let's say a national company decides to hold a conference to explain its new stock control system to relevant employees: what are its underlying principles, advantages and so on. The goal of this conference might then be expressed as 'To disseminate information regarding the xyz stock control system to all members of staff who will have contact with it.' And the objectives in this case are fairly easily identified, mostly they will all be of the same type: communicating such and such facet of the system to so and so staff. This being a national company, there may well be a requirement for attendance by large numbers of staff, from all sorts of different levels and functions in the organisation, and from all over the country. Can all these people be accommodated at one site, and at one time? Is it best to use different meeting rooms in parallel, for presenting different things to different people, or to have everyone present for (almost) every presentation? The answers to these questions will, obviously affect the kind of venue which is to be looked for (assuming that the conference cannot be held at the company's own premises). If the requirements for the venue turn out to be so stringent, that none can be found which will satisfy them all, then it will necessary to go back to the goals and objectives, and ask for instance, is a single conference the best and most cost effective way of fulfilling these? The answer in this case is likely to be no, that a number of smaller meetings, for specific areas of the organisation might be more productive. A significant effort could still be required to find venues, but this effort will be, perhaps, of a quite different kind. Conclusion: Find me a venue? Yes, certainly. But not just any venue. Let's give all the various characteristics of the event, and its reasons for being, due consideration, then find a venue for you which both effective, and cost effective.