15 February 2022

The Rise Of Collaboration

There is no denying that the pandemic was pretty brutal for a lot of us, and most definitely for the events industry. However, one of the good things to emerge from it is the sense of camaraderie and community from both businesses and customers. For many of us, it meant we got to know our fellow businesses in our vicinity and what was there under our noses that perhaps we hadn’t taken notice of before. This is certainly true for me when I launched the wine and cheese packages, as it allowed me to work with some exceptional local partners and get to know their businesses and, I’m happy to say, I still work with them today.

From a customer perspective, lockdown gave us the opportunity to get to know the businesses that were super local to us, rather than our go-to ones when we jumped in the car. Many of these businesses went above and beyond to ensure we were looked after by sourcing stock, selling much-needed items and meeting the demand that many of the bigger names just couldn’t do. And this hasn’t been forgotten.

With this is mind, one of the wonderful trends to emerge already this year is the way venues in the same location are working together to collaborate and offer people something extra special. Many businesses who complement each other are joining forces to offer fantastic 360 events packages allowing clients some incredible multi-layered events.

A great example of this are the businesses near the beautiful Mayfair Townhouse in London. This is a gorgeous building stooped in history and offers a fabulous bar as well as meeting rooms and bedrooms. However, only a stone’s throw away is the Curzon cinema, so by these two businesses working together, they can offer clients a very tantalising private screening event with dinner and drinks and somewhere to stay all in one. This is hugely appealing for brands who perhaps have a product launch or a film to show as every aspect has been catered for. As an events planner, we can step in and add extra layers too when needed, such as booking a great restaurant for dinner, all in the same area and all in the same ilk as the client’s brief and budget.

For those venues that maybe aren’t buddying up yet, there is a desire to do so and we are helping a lot with that. As events professionals, we make it our business to get to know the many great venues and their offerings. It is getting increasingly rare that one venue can cater for all a clients’ requirements as many are so complex, so it is up to us to find more than one venue that will seamlessly transition to make the event as magical as possible. This could be finding a great space to host meetings or presentations during the day, but then afterwards finding that perfect private dining room for guests to enjoy dinner and drinks, followed by a boutique hotel for a nightcap and to stay.

Often, it can be left to team members to source venues and this can often be overwhelming, especially if they don’t know an area. We take all that stress away and build a perfect package in line with your brief and budget.

I really hope the emergence of collaboration between venues keeps growing and many more like-minded businesses collaborate and showcase each other’s services to their customer base. Support and championing are definitely the order of the day!