Our industry is encouragingly back up and running at full speed, and Hippo Events has seen a huge increase in the number of Venue Finding enquiries for live events over the past 6 months. It’s safe to say that Covid has affected our clients’ confidence most specifically when looking at hotel and venue contracts.

Changes have taken place in almost every industry over the past 24 months, not least in the events world. Below we take a look at how Venue Finding has changed as a result of the pandemic.

Availability
It’s no secret that there’s a pent-up demand for events. A lack of face-to-face contact for such a prolonged period has meant the need for in-person events is essential. This has been heightened even more so in December with Christmas parties cancelled due to the uncertainty surrounding the Omicron variant.

This demand is proving to have an enormous effect on availability of venues.

Understandably, hotels and venues need to prioritise the accumulation of previously postponed events, but when adding the demand for new events in the mix it makes for a challenging circumstance.

It’s apparent that Covid is less prominent during the summer months, therefore increasing demand over this period even further, although perhaps diluting demand over the Winter or Autumn months.

The domestic market in particular has seen increased demand, with international travel still in uncertain times.

Availability is becoming hard to come by. It is for that reason Hippo Events are advising our clients to plan as far in advance as possible in order to ensure their first (or even second) choice is available.

First / Second Options
Historically most venues have worked off a First & Second Options when holding provisional bookings with clients.

With the high demand for events, we are now seeing a huge number of venues working off a Joint First Option (or Shared First Option) basis.

In laymen’s terms, this means they’re working off a first come, first-serve basis. In other words, whoever signs the contract first gets the space.

After all, who can blame them? They’ve been impacted just as much, if not more, than most hospitality venues, and need to recoup their income as a result.

This does therefore mean needing to act fast. When placing the enquiry we advise clients that they’ll need to be in a position to make a quick decision, and be ready to sign as soon as possible, otherwise risk losing their preferred venue choice.

Flexible Terms & Conditions
Throughout the pandemic Hippo Events have renegotiated countless venue contracts on behalf of our clients due to postponements, often on more than one occasion for the same contract.

It’s extremely important to us, as well as our clients, that we successfully negotiate either minimal or no fee’s involved in moving the event to a future date.

Our focus on contracts now is to ensure our clients are covered, should Covid or Lockdowns rear their ugly head again in the future. Understandably our clients have anxieties around signing contracts due to the perceived possible financial liability should the event not be able to proceed due to Government intervention.

Encouragingly, almost all venue and hotels we have collaborated with offer flexibility in their T&C’s and recognise the ongoing crisis that has hit our industry so hard. It is extremely rare to find a contract that doesn’t agree to postponement without financial penalty, should the worst happen.

We want to take this opportunity to reassure our clients and to encourage planning with confidence rather than fear. We ensure when passing over a venue contract to you that we have negotiated good terms and conditions for you, and event highlight these when sending over the contract to ensure you haven’t missed anything.

Fit For Purpose
Delegate safety is paramount and thus organising a Covid-secure event is of upmost importance.

Throughout the pandemic we have received regular updates from both independent and chain hotels and venues on their latest Covid-19 safety policies, including details on increased cleaning, ventilation, one-way systems, catering, social distancing, sanitising stations etc. This is extremely encouraging and demonstrates that venues are at the forefront of implementing these measures and adapting their facilities to ensure delegate safety.

Rest assured Hippo Events will never place our clients in a venue that is not demonstrating the highest levels of focus on attendee safety.

Moreover, the demand for hybrid events has seen a huge increase the past 6-12 months. Ensuring your venue is ‘fit for purpose’ and can accommodate an event virtually as well as in-person is become increasingly important. Sourcing a hybrid compliant venue entails a large number of additional considerations than a standard F2F event. Technical infrastructure, Internet speeds, On-site AV support and many more are among those that need to be established.

We are here for you
As a Venue Finding specialist, we ensure we are always thinking of the above, advising you as appropriate and working with you to ensure we find you the perfect hotel or venue for your event. It is our primary aim that we ensure we support you.

Hippo offer Event Project Management and Global Venue Finding services. Contact us today on 01372 460 100 or events@hippoevents.co.uk to see how we can assist.