Venue Sourcing Best Practices: What Should Be Included In A Venue RFP?

A venue RFP isn’t simply a request for availability and pricing. Done well, it’s the first step in negotiating your event and what you don’t ask for at the beginning can cost you later.

For corporate meetings and events, the venue can represent one of the largest pieces of the budget and have an enormous impact on the guest experience. Yet the sourcing process often begins with a surprisingly short list of questions: Are you available? What’s the room rate? Do you have enough meeting space?

Those are important questions. They’re just not enough.

Effective venue sourcing starts with an RFP that gives potential venues a clear understanding of your program while also gathering the information you need to make a meaningful comparison. Here are some of the things we consider when developing an RFP for our clients.

1. Start With The Program, Not The Property

Before contacting hotels or venues, define what the event actually needs to accomplish. That means looking beyond dates and attendance to understand the purpose of the program, who will be attending, how guests will use the property, what the agenda may look like, and which elements are most important to the experience.

A leadership retreat for 40 executives has very different requirements than a 400-person sales meeting, even if both technically fit inside the same hotel. The better a venue understands your program, the better it can determine whether it is truly a good fit.

2. Give Venues Enough Information To Compete For Your Business

A strong RFP should provide enough detail for venues to respond accurately.

Depending on the program, that may include:

• Preferred and alternate dates

• Estimated attendance

• Guest room requirements by night

• Meeting and function space requirements

• Preliminary agenda

• Food and beverage needs

• Arrival and departure patterns

• Accessibility requirements

• Transportation considerations

• Historical program information, when appropriate

Providing good information upfront isn't just helpful to the venue. It makes the proposals you receive much easier to evaluate. If every property is making different assumptions about your program, you're not really comparing apples to apples.

3. Look Beyond The Room Rate

Room rate gets plenty of attention because it's easy to compare. The problem is that it rarely tells the whole financial story.

Two hotels may quote the same guest room rate and ultimately have very different total costs once you account for meeting room rental, food and beverage minimums, resort or destination fees, parking, internet, audiovisual requirements, service charges and other mandatory expenses.

That's why experienced hotel sourcing looks at the total value of the proposal, not simply the number at the top of the guest room section. A slightly higher room rate paired with better concessions and fewer ancillary charges can sometimes produce the stronger overall deal.

4. Put Your Concessions on the Table Early

One of the biggest missed opportunities in venue sourcing is waiting until a property has been selected to start asking for concessions.

Depending on the size and value of the program, there may be opportunities to negotiate items such as:

• Complimentary guest rooms

• Room upgrades

• Staff room rates

• Complimentary or discounted meeting space

• Wi-Fi

• Parking

• Food and beverage discounts

• Audiovisual discounts

• VIP amenities

• Early check-in or late checkout

• Hospitality or office space

Not every venue will agree to every request, of course. But if something has value to your program, it should often be part of the conversation before you make your final selection.

Think of the RFP as the first round of negotiation, not simply a request for pricing.

5. Ask the Operational Questions

Some of the most important questions in a venue RFP have very little to do with price.

• What other groups will be in-house during your event?

• Is the property planning renovations or construction?

• Are there restrictions on outside vendors?

• How easy is loading and unloading?

• Is there adequate space for registration?

• How will attendees move between guestrooms, meeting rooms, meals and activities?

• What transportation challenges might exist?

• How well does the property accommodate guests with accessibility needs?

These details can be difficult, or expensive, to fix once the contract is signed. A venue can look spectacular in photographs and still be completely wrong for the way your event needs to operate.

6. Don't Wait Until The Contract To Think About The Contract

Attrition. Cancellation. Deposits. Payment schedules. Food and beverage commitments. Meeting space. They may not be the most exciting part of choosing a venue, but they can become extremely important if attendance changes, budgets shift or circumstances outside your control affect the program.

The RFP process is an opportunity to understand a property's expectations and identify potential concerns before you've emotionally, and operationally, committed to that venue.

Once you've decided, This is the place, your negotiating position can change.

That's another reason thoughtful venue sourcing considers the business terms early in the process rather than treating the contract as an administrative step at the end.

7. Make Sure You Can Actually Compare The Proposals

Here's where things can get messy. One hotel includes Wi-Fi. Another charges for it. One waives meeting room rental based on your food and beverage commitment. Another lists it separately. One offers complimentary rooms. Another offers upgrades. Taxes and service charges vary.

Suddenly, three proposals that looked relatively similar are anything but. A good venue comparison should normalize those differences and look at the entire package: guestrooms, meeting space, food and beverage, fees, concessions, contractual terms, operational considerations and overall program fit.

The objective isn't simply to determine which venue is cheapest. It's to understand what you're getting, what you're committing to and which property provides the best overall value for your event.

The RFP Is More Than A Request For Pricing

Finding available venues isn't particularly difficult. Finding the right venue and securing it on the right terms takes a more thoughtful approach.

A well-developed venue RFP helps properties understand your program, creates a framework for meaningful comparison and establishes negotiating leverage before you've made your final decision. And perhaps most importantly, it forces you to ask the questions that are much easier to address before a contract is signed than after.

At M3, venue sourcing and site selection is a structured process that starts with understanding what your program needs to accomplish and continues through research, RFP development, proposal evaluation, site visits, negotiation and securing the venue. Because the goal isn't simply to find somewhere your event can happen. It's to find the place where it should happen.

Planning a corporate meeting or event? Start your venue search with M3.

Cheers,

Kelly