5 steps to choosing the perfect Christmas party venue
Finding the right Melbourne venues for a Christmas function, can sometimes be daunting and time consuming. To make your job a little easier, Christmas Party Venues have developed a 5 Step guide to help you when reviewing your Christmas Party Venues options.
The first thing that you need to do though is to discuss your Christmas Party details with your work colleagues or work Christmas party committee. The points that you need to discuss will include:
What is the budget?
Whether or not partners are going to be invited?
What is your preferred date(s)?
How many people will be attending?
Do you want a sit-down or cocktail party?
Christmas Lunch or Christmas Dinner?
Do you want a private / exclusive room or are you happy with just a sectioned off-area? Some people like to have their private room in a busy bar or nightclub so that when their Christmas Party is over they can join in with the general public.
What style of venue do you want for your Christmas party? There are a number of different types of Christmas party Venues: Bar
Function Room
Club
Courtyard
Lounge – Classy
Pub
Locations of Melbourne Venues for your Christmas Party?
1) Source Christmas Party Venues
The easiest was to find suitable venues for Christmas parties is to fill out the Christmas Party form page on the Christmas Party Venues website.
2) Create a Shortlist of Venues
Once you complete the Christmas Party form, Christmas Party Venues will email you a tailored list of Melbourne Christmas Party Venues within 1-24 hours (usually only a couple of hours) that will contain:
Venue Details including name and address
Function Manager's Contact Details
Capacities
Venue Photos
Website Links
We will only send you venue's that are within the locations that you requested and meet your budget requirements so it will be important to have a look at the venue photo's and websites and short list the venues that "feel" right – in other words make sure the style suits what would suit your company and work colleagues.
We will normally send you about 12 function venues that meet the requirements of your Christmas function as per the information you provide in Step 1 – the Christmas Party Melbourne Form. We recommend that you shortlist about 3-6 venues.
3) Contact the Melbourne Christmas Party Venues
Once you have shortlisted some Christmas Party venues the time has come to contact the venues. We believe the best method is via email so that you can send the same email to all the venues so you will be comparing apples with apples.
A big part of the decision which venues to visit will be based on a "feel" of the venue however you want to make sure you ask enough questions so that you remove from the shortlist the venues that are not appropriate or are not available.
4) Visit the Venues
Now that you have received specific information from your shortlisted venues, it is time to arrange a site visit to inspect the most suitable venues for your Christmas party.
We advise that you make an appointment with the person that we have listed in the tailored list of Christmas Party Venues that we will send you after you fill out the Christmas Party form.
There are a few benefits in making an appointment with the contact that we provide you:
They will generally be the function manager or venue manager so they can answer all your questions without needing to check with anyone else
Some venues have limited trading hours so you cannot simply "drop" in on the venue as they may not be open
At the site inspection / appointment make sure that you bring the list of questions and the answers so that you can confirm everything. Also make sure that you confirm the room and the boundaries of the function room – just so that you know exactly the function space that you would have for your Christmas Party.
5) Book your Perfect Christmas Party Venue!
You have gone through all the steps so it is now time to book your perfect (or near enough!) Christmas Party Venue!
A lot of people get to this step and then procrastinate about paying a deposit to the venue of their choice. We have seen these people miss out their their preferred venue many times by delaying paying the deposit. If you are happy with a venue then please pay the deposit so you don't miss out on the perfect venue for your Christmas Party.
Some function manager's may take a tentative booking (they say they will call you if they get another enquiry for that date). However, the biggest concern about tentative bookings is that they usually expire after 7 days. It is too easy to forget that the 7 days is up and when you go to pay the deposit the venue has booked the function room. We advise our venues against taking tentative bookings as we find too often they lead to problems.
We have recommended venues to hundreds of people for Christmas parties. Even if it is a corporate party or an office party. Please take our advice, if you want the venue then don't muck around – pay the deposit. December (or whenever you plan to have your office party or corporate party) will come around much more quickly than you realise and if you leave it too late you will miss out on your preferred venue and you may even have to settle for your 3rd or 4th choice (or even have trouble finding Christmas venues in Melbourne available!). We have over 160 Christmas Party function rooms so it is unlikely that we wont be able to find you a venue no matter how late you leave it however the earlier you book, the higher up your list of preferred venues will be available.
When you do pay the deposit make sure that there is some sort of an agreement (even if this is just an email from you confirming what you have agreed). We have taken a lot of time to carefully choose the venues that we recommend however this does not mean that misunderstandings don't occur. So it is best to get a few dot points in writing so that there are no misunderstandings. Some Christmas Party venues ask you to sign a booking form and we highly recommend that you do this as you can include everything that was agreed between the two parties on this form.
For more information on this subject, check out Christmas Party Venues Melbourne.
Jeremy Huggins is internet marketer living in Melbourne, Australia. This article was written for PartyHelp, leading free service for Melbourne Venues, Melbourne Function Rooms and Christmas Party Venues.
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