Should event venues publish their prices online? The case for and against

Many venues keep a printed rate card in the sales drawer while the public room page acts as if it did not exist.

When the format repeats, a range on the page earns its keep. When every event is built from a brief, a single average fits nobody, and the first email becomes an argument about that average. This article does not cover how to set a seminar hire rate, only what belongs on the website, and what only the quote should carry.

What UK law actually asks, and what it does not

The Competition and Markets Authority's price transparency summary (CMA209) sits under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. It is written for anyone who advertises, markets, sells or otherwise promotes a product to consumers. A page that names a product and a price is normally an invitation to purchase, even if nobody can book from that page. When that happens, the total must include mandatory charges, or the trader must give the information the customer needs to work the total out. A from-price is allowed if it includes those charges and does not mislead.

That regime only covers consumers.

A corporate day hire falls under different rules.

The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, as Business Companion summarises them, prohibit advertising that would deceive another trader on the price or the manner in which the price is calculated. They do not force a number onto the homepage, so silence is legal, but a decorative floor price that the quote later contradicts is not.

Weddings and private parties sit on the consumer side. Seminar days sold to companies sit on the B2B side. Mixing the two pages without saying so is how a venue ends up with a from-price written for one audience and invoiced to the other.

What a planner does with a silent page

A company booker typically looks at three to five rooms in parallel.

They check date, headcount and budget band, then narrow the list.

Nielsen Norman Group was writing about B2B sites in general. In Show Prices for Common Scenarios, Jakob Nielsen wrote that the lack of prices on many B2B sites was the number one web design mistake of 2002, and that a table of sample prices for typical orders beats a calculator that asks for every variable. At this stage the planner only wants an order of magnitude, so the room survives the shortlist.

A silent page does not protect the offer; it only invites a guess.

Some planners walk away and others send a request the venue will have to refuse, which still costs a first reply.

On organized venues, about 15 to 25 percent of well-framed inquiries turn into a signed booking. Off-budget traffic pulls that share down because it costs the same handling time as a serious one. When you work out what an inquiry actually costs, a range is one of the cheaper filters. The next step is to sort each request as it arrives, before the first call.

Price is one fact among several. Capacity, format, photos, access, how fast someone answers: the website as an inquiry path already covers that list. Hide the figure and the photos still have to do the same work.

When a published figure earns its place

A from-price, a grid or a package can sit on the page when the product repeats.

A from-price per format

Meeting day, evening reception, dry hire. The floor is the figure you actually invoice on the simplest version of that format, with the headcount it applies to. The CMA summary treats photography advertised from a given amount as a legitimate from-price, provided mandatory charges sit inside that figure and the reader is not misled about what it covers. Invent a lower hook and the quote has to walk it back, which is an awkward conversation to have.

A grid by format and headcount

A readable grid by headcount (twenty, forty, eighty) and by half or full day cuts the first-level questions, but only if the method behind the numbers is already clean; otherwise the page advertises the inconsistency. Building that method is a separate piece of work.

A package per person

Room, breaks, lunch, kit. Planners compare those fastest, because the lines are already bundled. Venues that have structured packaged offers often find the published package starts the conversation instead of ending it.

What does not hold up is a floor chosen for the brochure and then abandoned on the proposal, after the planner has already told their boss a number they read on your site.

When the honest page stays quiet

A country house that builds each wedding from a brief cannot publish one number without publishing an average that fits nobody. A conference hotel whose rate moves with season, weekday and occupancy cannot freeze a June Saturday into a January grid. Those are good reasons to stay discreet, but not to publish nothing at all.

Capacities per set-up still belong on the page. So do accepted formats, what a base hire includes, and how fast you answer. A sentence such as "most of our events fall between this and that" gives a range without setting a tariff: the planner can place themselves and you have not locked a rate.

The document that follows has to match whatever they read. A proposal that quietly doubles the website figure teaches the booker not to trust the next one. Ready-to-send quotes in Joinways keep the page and the PDF on the same number.

Four levels, pick the one that matches the invoice

Publishing prices is not all or nothing, and venues already sit somewhere on a scale. Pick the rung that matches what you invoice on a typical confirmed event. Move up later if the quotes stay honest.

The right level is not necessarily the highest: if the grid only holds for one event in two, step down. Moving up later is easy, whereas moving down is visible.

Whatever the level, the inquiry form should not be the first place a planner meets a budget field if the room page gave them nothing to write. And when a "too expensive" reply arrives anyway, defend the quote without dropping the number.

Notes that must sit next to any figure

Put a number on the page with no notes and the planner invents the rest. That invented version is what they bring to the first call. Write these next to the figure:

• The basis: per person, per day, per half day, or per event.
• The minimum and maximum headcount the figure applies to.
• What is included: room, furniture, projection, connectivity, welcome coffee.
• What is not: catering, extra staff, cleaning, hours beyond the booked slot.
• Weekday or weekend, and the seasons you actually name, not a vague high season.
• VAT included or excluded. Say which.
• The final quote prevails, and how long the published figure is meant to last.
• Hold and deposit conditions, or a link to the page that details them.

The notes look fussy, and they still earn their space, because they stop the planner who already put your website figure in a budget sheet, defended it to a manager, and then opens a proposal that covers barely half the event they actually want to run.