John Spain reveals results from a key readership survey

This month I’m pleased to be able to reveal the results of a survey that venues.org.uk has recently conducted among its growing readership and customer base.

I think you’ll agree that the findings paint a very healthy picture of how useful a venue-finding tool the service is for our readers and how effective a marketing channel it is for the venues that can be found within.

Well over a thousand people took the time to respond to the questionnaire and we are grateful to them for making the effort.

The first question asked our readers what sort of influence they have in the decision-making that leads to the booking of a venue. An extraordinary 70 percent indicated that they were involved in this process. When coupled with the fact that 50 per cent of respondents book venues at least once a month it becomes clear that venues.org.uk is rapidly becoming a key tool in a significant number of people’s events organising.

This fact is borne out in another section which shows, if anyone needed telling, that the internet is playing an increasingly influential role in buying patterns. We asked what sort of media people used to source their venues and were pleased to find that well over 60 per cent now use online directories and search engines as their major venue-finding tool. This figure is made all the more important with the fact that of our respondents, only 10 per cent still use magazines.

Once the client has made the initial enquiry the survey reveals that the traditional concerns of location, price and space are the usual facts that govern the final booking decision. Although certain aspects such as catering and staff experience do have a reasonable influence, the fact still remains that the majority of buyers are looking for ideally situated venues that suit the event at a fair price.

The reach of venues.org.uk has also been shown to extend to the full range of event organisers. Roughly a third of respondents hold meetings for up to 50 people while another third stage events for 50-150 while the other third are in the 150-400 area.

We at venues.org.uk are obviously delighted with these findings but you can rest assured that we are not resting on laurels. The survey gave people an opportunity to tell us how they would us to make the service we provide even better and based on this information we will be introducing new ideas as time goes on.

Contact our team