eVenues Blog

Season's Greetings 2008!

My blog is still seldom read, but I keep posting...hopefully they will come. For this post, I couldn't help but catch some interesting news out of New York City about the trends in community work-spaces that are popping up all over the place. Interesting read, which could make some aggressive co-working landlords rich - http://www.observer.com/mobile/article/80324.

However, it made me want to comment. With the recent market downturn and massive layoffs, we could soon see more entrepreneurs jamming the Starbucks that we may never get to sit down again. Co-working facilities are a nice solution. You can pay a medium sum per month and get a desk and chair, wifi, cup of jo', and hopefully some good company and/or new friends. You supply your phone and laptop. If there was ever a time where this shared work space concept might work, it's now...as we entrepreneurs all need to stick together. We will be watching this trend closely in the New Year. Here's to a successful 2009!

Good luck to all...and to all a good night!

Team eVenues

One of the unique things about eVenues is that it's one of the first and only online services that enables *YOU* to price or set your price for your venue. Yup, go ahead...pick a number, any number. Depending on the venue, you might get it, but eVenues encourages "discount." We often compare ourselves to the guys down the street at Half-Price Books. Consumers bring in their already read or used books to resell to the general public for discount. So, they're effectively priced to move. Hey, what a concept?

Now, let's replace books for rooms. We've all got rooms, spaces, cubbies, garages, driveways, closets, etc. Most of the spaces sit vacant over 50% of the time. Wouldn't it be cool if we could rent it for an hour or so and make a cool $50 bucks!  Hey, that's a team lunch. One of those each week and we're now talking about paying for the utilities for a month. Eight of those over the course of a month and one on a Saturday and now we're talking FREE revenue.

But, its only going to happen if you price your venue to move. Discount it. Come up with an attractive number for 1 hr, half-day or full-day worth testing. You can develop some head-y math around the number of square feet 'x' the price per foot in your neighborhood, etc., but we feel that's a little ways off. We feel you should jump in while the crowd is small and establish a beachhead...then, grow with us!

Another good blog post by Max Kalehoff, writer for OnlineSpin, who lays out a good argument for including customers for planning any offsite meeting.

"Bottom line: customers are required to execute the most meaningful and effective management offsite meetings. They are the lifeblood of your business, so be sure to include them and make them central." - Max Kalehoff

Now, we just inspire management to come up with an effective venue!

http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/spin/?p=1376

Below is a short but great piece by Max Kalehoff, VP at Clickable, on how to plan for a great conference or event. Because of the mass of information now available on the internet, there's an argument we should all be trying to physically get together more. Hmmm, go figure. <g> The artcile covers the basics, but also gets into the importance around planning the goals and purpose of your event, which are often overlooked, such as these:

4. Enforce points of view - otherwise known as manage your speakers; make sure they present with a theme that's related to your objectives;

6. Showcase more new smart faces - bring some new people and ideas to the stage other than the regular Dilberts;

8. Serve good food - change it up from regular grub; try BBQ ribs and get messy!

However, Max eliminates one very important tip - that which I will pronouce Tip #11 in this blog - being 'Pick a great venue!' Picking the right venue can be the difference between a good piece of news or being labeled a dud. Now, we don't want that if we are a planner. So, why not make it an experience!

We at eVenues like to hear all this as many of us are trying to find or plan the next best conference. More importantly, many of us just might be sitting in a venue worth renting out!

http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1306

Aside from planning traditional meetings, you might be trying to come up with a unique venue for a corporate or family event. The below article titled "A Dinner Served" is featured in the September 2008 edition of Coastal Living Magazine and proves you don't need a traditional dining room to hold a large event.

For those of you with an available open corn-field or barn available, why not get it up on eVenues.com - it just might make the next great party venue! 

http://www.coastalliving.com/coastal/food/entertaining/article/0,14587,1829918,00.html

Happy Planning!

Photo Copyright 2008, Coastal Living.

Introducing eVenues - the easiest and fastest way to list or rent a venue for anything!  We're happy to have you.  Please watch our blog for informative news and content that will help you locate, manage, and promote your venue at eVenues and other services.

Please spend some time going through the site and trying the service.  Post a venue - any venue - and see how it works.  Give us some feedback by sending us mail from Contact Us.

So, go ahead, what are you waiting for...!

Team eVenues