And why this is a self-fulfilling prophecy for the organiser's pains

The titel 'Let's go somewhere sunny' is a true quote from a professional corporate event organiser. This was a reaction when I asked how she currently searches for the right venues for events. She was very much convinced this is normal, which I could tell from the twinkle in her eyes. Well, it's normalised but it shouldn't be normal. The reason why is that she, or any other organiser, doesn't always know on forehand what she's actually looking for when sourcing for venues. 'All we know is that we need good weather. So yes! Let's go somewhere sunny! Everything else comes later'.

I can only imagine that such a scenario starts something like this:

CEO to organiser: 'Hey, we should organise an awesome event for our clients to appreciate them. Can you check out some nice venues for this?'

Organiser to CEO: 'Yes, that sounds great! What kind of program and where do we wanna go?'

CEO to organiser: 'Not sure yet about the program, but let’s go somewhere sunny in Europe! We need good weather right?'

Organiser to CEO: 'Allright, I’m on it!'

And so the venue finding starts... And all of a sudden you realise that you are so busy as well with so many other things... 'How to get this done? Let’s try Google first'. You’ll probably enter something like: ‘Unique event venue in Southern Europe’. Google’s answer: ‘About 1.460.000.000 results’ (!!!). 'Oh my! How am I ever gonna find a great venue?' Then you’ll probably choose for a venue finding platform from page one of Google. 'Check, this is already so much better'. But then still you’ll get over 500 to 5.000 (!!!) hits for profiles to go through one by one. You’ll shortlist some by clicking some random filters and decide to send venues your request. What follows next is that the offers you receive are:

• Not matching your expectations (while you actually had non seeing your search criteria);
• There is missing information;
• Many venues will decline as they don't have availability;
• Some are?way to expensive;
• Some even don’t respond at all…?

And so stress and frustrations are rising...

'Allright, this isn’t working. I need help'. My last resource is to call in an agency. 'Ooh wow! They offer their services for free. Perfect, I’ll give them the brief and tell them I need responses by the end of the week in my inbox', because, the time is ticking. Guess what? Agencies are going to execute the very same task. They will too get those responses from venues. Why? Because there is just so much info missing for a venue to build a tailor made, seamless matching offer.

A self-fulfilling prophecy

When I started to explain this corporate event manager that her method for venue sourcing isn't working from a venues perspective because to produce a great offer, it needs way more details to take it even serious.

This opened her eyes. And away went the sparkle in her eyes...

The strange thing is that, after a deep research we've done with Wice that still the main 'pains' organisers experience are:

• Slow response time;
• Bad quality offers;
• Extremely time consuming;
• To complex process.

Yet, with the given factual scenario mentioned above, all these pains are being kept alive by the event organisers themselves. Also, for example, because with some venue finding platforms you can easily select all 4 star hotels in one destination. For Barcelona for instance, there are 400+ of them. If you choose this option you are putting 400 people to work with only a chance of winning the business by 0,0025%. This is just not fair! And you do the math when you do the same thing when sourcing 3 different destinations and not just Barcelona…

My question is: 'How can you as an event organiser expect to receive great offers from venues when all you give them is just a little bit of info?'

It is common sense that this isn’t working. But then why is it still happening? Well, because there is just no perfect solution (yet). I can even understand from an organisers’ or agency’s point of view that this is the way they work. Because you don’t have all the details already from the first moment right? You are learning and adjusting along the way during the process. But do you as an event organiser realise that this creates horrible scenario’s for an event venue? And even harder, do you understand that with this you are keeping your own pains and frustrations alive?

When I explained this to the corporate event manager she replied with:

'Aa culture change needs to take place to improve this’

We couldn’t agree more!

Current market challenges

Nowadays for many venues there is a humongous pressure that lies with event booking teams. Especially because of the big staff shortage and tight budgets, but on top of that, after 2+ years of lockdowns and closings, the request cycle is sky-rocketing. Many of those events are covid-revenge-events. So pressure is on! The industry is exploding but more than we can handle. And so teams are now focussing more on trying to get to the bottom of their email inboxes instead of creating amazing quality offers for amazing leads that fits their actual business needs.

How to solve this? There is light at the end of the tunnel. By automating the process of request and venue matching with the right tech. And it's just around the corner. An independent online marketplace for venue finding. Sounds good right?

Let’s get it together

We, me and my co-founders, truly believe in an equal and fair eco-system where both the organiser and venue are shoulder-to-shoulder with creating amazing events. Events that tick off all KPI boxes for both. Happy delegates, the right impact and results, positive financial results in conversion and revenues and repeating colabs between the both. This all starts with a better way of venue finding. And to do so, both sides have to make some (big) compromises.

Some for example are:

• Speak te same language, don’t use your own jargon;
• Don’t waste each others time;
• Understand the other person's process;
• Respect each others deadlines;
• Focus on quality details for both, not just a quick fix or shortcut.

Digital hospitality

With Wice we are building that eco-system. Wice “forces” and educates an organiser to think about actual needs by asking the right questions. And Wice only allows venues to reply with offers when there is a significant match score (based on data). If not, there is just no need of doing anything. Plus, integrated in the smart request form, we can advise the organiser already with smart data to make the right decisions before clicking ‘send request’.

Think of features like:

• Destination based rates cycles from external data sources;
• Rate predictions;
• Feasibility warnings;
• Pre-filled data;
• Benchmarking event business;
• Pre-qualified leads;
• Two-way reviews;
• 'Venue Tinder' (doesn't that sound awesome?)

This is what we call: ‘Digital hospitality’. Giving the service a hotel guest expects in a luxury 5 star service but then digitally. Ooh and when the event program or even destination changes, just easily adjust.

Let's make it visual:

Early adaptors program. we need you!

Do you as a meetings & events professional, or better said as an event organiser or venue director or owner, feel the urge of cracking this nut together with us? Do you believe in such a solution to disrupt venue sourcing and make it a fair, honest, effici?nt and valuable process again? Then get on board!

Get in touch and we'll tell you all that is possible and we'll keep you posted along the way of this amazing journey.

Meanwhile, please do already implement some of the tips I mentioned. Because in the end, we need each other so badly.

Cheers!

Bart

Co-Founder at Wice

wice.co