8th December 2021: Make Venues is experiencing a buoyant return to business across its three UK venues, with trading between September, October and November bouncing back to 2019 levels.
The Make Venues team has been investing in both people and product in anticipation of welcoming back larger meetings, conferences, training and hybrid events in recent months and work with clients to ensure they feel supported and confident in their return to face-to-face meetings.
“These figures demonstrate the confidence and trust that our customers place in us,” commented David Vaughton, Managing Director, Make Venues. “We have spent the past year preparing for the revival of our industry. Once lockdown began, we got to work, using the downtime to re-invest and strengthen our product by exploring leading-edge hybrid technology and converting dormant office space to further meeting room stock.
David continues, “Keeping the sales and marketing machine running during lockdowns allowed us to proactively maintain engagement with clients and let them know that we were here whenever they were ready.”
The venues’ business growth is set to build as the team enter 2022 too, with forward bookings for the year currently on a par with 2019 - and they expect more. The team predict a surge of bookings in 2022 as businesses who had chosen to pause their event programme begin to return.
Across the three venues, which are located in London, Bristol and Leamington Spa, there has been a marked change in the type of events taking place. It’s a mix of both face-to-face meetings and hybrid events that fill the calendar now, as more and more customers embrace the benefits of including virtual attendees.
“Customers are increasingly realising that this ‘user-friendly’ technology is not something to fear but instead can be used to help them reach their objectives,” added Vaughton. “We’re making the transition easy for them and stimulating event more demand for both live and face to face meetings.”