The standard process for corporate event planning is a bit of a mess. It starts with locking down a venue, then scrambling to figure out what goes inside it. This approach is all about playing nice with suppliers, but it tends to result in events where the furniture is sort of an afterthought, something that gets chosen rather than carefully curated.
The Sneaky Problem That Oozes In Before You’ve Even Booked the Venue
You see, venue-supplied furniture is all about playing it safe. It’s functional, fairly generic and not exactly memorable. But if you’re trying to put on a corporate event that’s going to impress, you need something with a bit more personality. A company with a specific look or feel to it, maybe one with a high-end or edgy vibe, is not exactly going to want to be stuck with bland, out-of-the-box furniture.
Now, the furniture arrangement determines a lot of how an event goes. You’ve got to think about how your guests are going to flow through the room, where they’ll be able to see the speaker or presentation, and what kind of vibe they’ll pick up from the space. A venue will give you some basics, walls, lighting and catering access, but the furniture is what makes the room come alive. And by the time you’ve booked a venue, you’re already playing a game of Tetris trying to fit your event into their equipment and layout rather than getting to design the space you really want.
What if you were to reverse the order of things, though? What if you came up with the perfect furniture and hire plan, then went looking for a venue that could accommodate it? That would give you a lot more control over what your event looked like, and it would mean you could really choose a venue that suited your needs rather than being forced to settle for something that didn’t quite fit.
What Corporate Event Furniture Needs to Do That Wedding Furniture Doesn’t?
Corporates tend to have a lot more going on than just a single event, after all. You might have a morning networking session, followed by a sit-down lunch and then a cocktail reception, all of which require different furniture arrangements. Event planners often rely on flexible suppliers such as socoeventhire.com.au to help create adaptable setups that can transition smoothly between each stage. And on top of that, you need to make sure that everything can be easily changed out between each segment without having to tear the whole room apart and start over, which means you need furniture that can adapt to multiple formats.
And then there’s the branding thing. If your furniture is all over the place, it sends a pretty clear message that you’re not really paying attention to the details. And that’s a message to your clients and top-level people that they’ll pick up on even if they don’t quite put their finger on it.
The Stuff You Don’t Even Think to Hire Until the Service Begins
Sometimes it seems like catering and event planning are two different languages. The caterer assumes you’ve got the service equipment covered, while you assume they’ve got a great chafing dish and some decent display risers. And then suddenly, the morning of the event, you’re stuck with a big mess.
What if you just took five minutes at the start to write out exactly what you needed from each supplier, and then confirmed it with them in writing? That would save you a whole lot of trouble in the long run, let alone just the immediate chaos on the day. So, it’s worth taking the time to have the conversation and sort it out upfront, yeah?
South Coast & Southern Highlands NSW: Venue Logistics That Will Affect Your Hire Quote
Away days and corporate retreats that take place in the Southern Highlands, the South Coast or regional NSW necessitate hire companies that offer proper coverage in those areas – not metropolitan Sydney hire companies that have an extra delivery option available. Lead time for delivery, minimum spend threshold and venue access times will vary considerably from CBD venues to regional venues. Hiring furniture locally at a regional event poses an increasing uncertainty regarding quality and availability as the event day draws near.
Hiring from companies that supply events in regional NSW venues solves both the cost premium and coordination headache associated with attempting to piece together a hire solution from locally sourced pieces. Event and festival coverage means proper logistics in regional NSW; suppliers that operate on that scale will have figured out how to deal with the issues that crop up with regard to delivery of a hire order.
When planning an off-site corporate event, making sure the venue you are choosing has coverage from your preferred hire supplier beforehand ensures you don’t have a booked venue that the supplier cannot cater for.
Writing the Furniture Brief Properly Right from the Start
A well-written furniture brief specifies the number of guests, flow of the event, accessibility requirements, brand or aesthetic considerations and catering logistics. It should be done before the venue is chosen and it should be provided to hire companies in the initial stages of the enquiry process.
It doesn’t have to specify every individual item in detail, but it has to be detailed enough that the hire company can assess what can and cannot be done with it.
