11.05.2020

When Make Venues took the difficult, but decisive, action to close its venues back in March, our senior management closed with one promise to its clients, staff and stakeholders; we would not rest on our laurels during the shutdown. 

We've won many awards for customer service, quality and management of our three venues, based in London, Bristol and Leamington Spa; we’ve received these awards because of our approach to business; proactive, productive, and customer centric. This approach has been consistent for the last decade but has been especially important over the last few months.  

Since then, the biggest pivot for the business was to demonstrate our ability to be agile in the face of massive change in our marketplace. Like many others, this is about staying in contact with customers, and putting research at the center of every decision. But it’s also about making sure we’re innovative in our solutions, and dynamic in the way we execute them. It’s in this spirit that a new Make Venues business will emerge as we return. 

While the speed of this return to ‘normalcy’ is not set in stone, we believe we now have a strategy for return that will not only protect delegates and customers, but support them as they look to create events in a very different world. 

This strategy is divided into different areas, and over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing the details of each of these areas, and how they’ll affect the experience of both event organisers and their delegates. They include:

Duty of care and social distancing

Make Venues understands that social distancing is going to be part of the ‘new normal’ of event management and we’re bringing in innovations that offer the best protection for delegates and more confidence for businesses. These will include; social distanced meeting rooms, innovation in food service, and variations in opening times of the venues. 

In addition to this, the important of ‘super clean’ environments will be essential in giving delegates and organisers confidence. Expectations where will be heightened beyond just cleanliness, to protection, and we’ve developed our own guidelines around the cleanliness and hygiene of each venue. 

Digital event support

Over the last few weeks, Make Venues has invested its resources in research that helps to imagine what the meeting room of the future will look like, and how the existing product could be adapted. Simply, it is the overwhelming opinion amongst our customers that more events will need to reach audiences digitally, either by reaching out from the meeting room to different locations, or by broadcasting from one room to many others within the same venue. 

Equally, at the core of every meeting is the value placed on face to face communication. Again, one of the biggest things to come out of the shutdown is the basic human yearning to meet face to face, and how we do this in a more hybrid way is one of the big opportunities for venues and their clients. This is why Make Venues has taken the opportunity of the shutdown to research and invest in the technology that will make this possible.

Agency and customer support packages

As part of Make Venues’ strategy for the coming 24 months, senior management quickly understood that the role of agencies will be pivotal. The company has been a strong supporter of event agencies, many of whom have suffered greatly during the pandemic. We’ve therefore developed a number of innovative partnership initiatives that can support loyal agency customers at a time when everyone needs to work together.

Food and food service

One of the big questions for Make Venues will be around its return to business. Three questions need to be answered positively before it does; is it safe for the delegate, the organiser and Make Venues staff; can it offer the best customer service, and; can it ensure its food meets its historically high standards. 

Our plan for food involves not just making sure everyone has a delicious meal, but addressing the need to come up with new and innovative food service ideas that support social distanced eating. 

A new shop window

Lastly, the company has taken the opportunity of the shutdown to review its digital presence and will be launching a new Make Venues website soon, created so that event organisers can get the information they need quickly, and guests can find out more about the venues, and how to find them, in an easy and friendly way.

Make Venues has been working with customers, agency partners, and within its teams to research how the pandemic will affect behaviours of individuals and businesses in the months and years to come. We’re a business that has built success through an unflinching loyalty to first principled thinking; great service, great food, great people. 

In the wake of the shutdown, we've also showed decisiveness, putting security in an insecure marketplace, and allowing customers to do likewise. Now, we’re pushing proactivity again, working with customers to create products that help them achieve their objectives in a new meetings and events world.

We’re looking forward to sharing more of all of the above with you over the coming weeks. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes and have developed strategy alongside our customers and through the insight of our excellent award-wining leadership teams.

In the meantime, stay safe and we look forward to welcoming you soon.