Often just a last minute thought, choosing your venue can make a crucial difference to the success of your event. Too cold, too uncomfortable, and too hard to find are just a few of the concerns you might see on your feedback forms if you forget to plan accordingly. Today’s guest post from venue comparison site Hire Space addresses a few key DOs and DON’Ts to think about when searching for the perfect venue.

DO: Make a Tick List Before you begin your search, make a tick list of what you want from the venue. Location, price, and size are obviously the big ones, but think about additional items you can’t be flexible on. Do you need a stage? Do you want to bring in your own catering? Get this all written down and work down your list in order of preference. It’s important to be flexible, but also be realistic — if a venue doesn’t fit your tick boxes, don’t even consider it.

DON’T: Wait Until the Last Minute Your venue should be one of the first details you lock down. We’ve spoken to event organisers in the past who’ve had to ask their keynote speakers whether they can switch days once they realise their dream venue isn’t available, which is a conversation nobody ever wants to have. Plan to start looking 5 months in advance if you’re looking for an event with 100-200 people and if you’re expecting 400+ people, give yourself close to a year.

DO: Be Upfront on Details If you’re organising something unusual, communicate that with the venue. We once placed an “International Relations” conference in a church, and 2 weeks before the event discovered the topic was in fact a different type of “relations” conference (giving couples advice on their bedroom affairs). The venue decided to politely decline, and the customer, who would with more notice have been very welcome in lots of other venues, had to cancel. Cue much disappointment all round.

DON’T: Pay Twice For lots of people, booking a venue currently works in much the same way as booking a hotel did 20 years ago. You go to an agent, they take down your details and then search for a venue, compiling a list of their favourites. For this service they add a commission of anything up to 25% on top. Up until this year this service was actually pretty necessary, venues are notoriously hard to get hold of and the industry is full of ‘secret’ venues that only those in the know, know. The big change has been the launch of comparison sites, opening up the market so you can search prices and book online. What’s more, these sites have established relationships with venues and so take their wages from the venue, not the customer. Saving you big bucks!

DO: Pay a Visit Simple, but so important. Get your list of venues down to a couple of final options and book in a day to visit the venues, check the acoustics and give all the AV stuff a spin. Checking out the venue in person will always save you time in the long run!

As always, we hope these are helpful. Please do pop a comment below if you have any tips you’d like to share with the community and feel free to give Hire Space a shout Twitter or Google+ with any venue finding questions!