The run-of-show line after coffee reads live plenary, house PA, twelve minutes.
Agencies and corporate buyers come for that kind of slot, not for a welcome speech and a cold buffet. The morning is a hosted familiarization visit. The IAPCO business-events dictionary calls a fam trip a hosted trip to assess facilities, locations or services. MPI's glossary draws a second cut: a site visit inspects a space before a contract; a FAM trip helps a planner evaluate a venue or a destination, often with supplier meetings. This article covers the hosted day; the one-to-one site visit that follows a live brief is a separate subject.
A hosted day is not a pitch
Before the first invitation, write down two numbers: how many named people will leave with a spec sheet, and how many requests you will attribute to the day at six and twelve months. A fam trip does not sign a contract before lunch. It puts recommenders into a file they can open when a brief lands.
Keep the open day separate. A fam trip is invitation-only, with ten to twenty professionals chosen by name. An open day opens the door wider: local firms, partners, sometimes couples hunting a wedding date. It is useful when you launch a room or finish a renovation, but harder to follow up because the guests come for different reasons.
There is no meaningful conversion rate for a fam trip, because the lists differ and so does the follow-up. Count contacts, then requests, then confirmed value against cost. That is enough to decide whether to repeat the exercise.
Names, not a mailing list
The catering is wasted if the chairs are filled from a mailing list. Event agencies, which keep a shortlist and recommend rooms several times in a busy month: read the survival guide for working with agencies before you write. Large local accounts, through the executive assistant, communications, or procurement. Tourist boards and convention bureaux, which steer destination enquiries toward venues they have actually stood in.
Build the list by name, with each person's role, what they place and when anyone last spoke to them. A generic mailbox is not a guest. A share of confirmed names will still fail to appear; that is why the list is longer than the chairs. The invitation is the natural next step of outbound prospecting, a reason to call someone you already meant to call.
Invite these three profiles and no one else.
- The person who will file your spec sheet, not a junior sent to collect a bag.
- A buyer who already runs off-sites within reach of your postcode.
- A bureau contact who writes destination proposals, not the general tourist inbox.
The invitation that can be answered
The mail should come from the host who will walk the rooms, and it should name the other people in the building that morning. Two hours, in order. One sentence on why this building fits the events that person already organises. A calendar hold with no programme is easy to decline.
From what we see, agency diaries fill early. Six weeks is a working notice for agencies and large accounts. Three weeks can hold for an assistants' breakfast. A phone call ten days out to the silent names is ordinary hygiene, not a trick. Under three weeks the chairs stay empty, however good the rooms.
A condensed off-site, then the file
Guests judge what they experience. Serve coffee where clients wait, spend twenty minutes in the main room on the real sound system, run a short breakout in a side room, and plate lunch or a standing tasting as you would for a paying group, with a two-minute introduction from the person who will answer their next email. Then questions: access, capacities, timings, what sits in the hire and what is extra.
Length sits between ninety minutes and a half day. Past that, agencies stop sending anyone. Pick a Tuesday to Thursday, either 9:30 to 12:30 or a late afternoon with a drink. Photograph the rooms while they are dressed. Those files belong in the venue photos set you already show planners. A recognisable face on the homepage is a different file, and a different yes.
| Format | Length | Who is in the room | What the day is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency morning | 2 h to half a day | 10 to 20 planners | A place on a shortlist they already keep |
| Local corporate | 90 min to 2 h | 8 to 15 assistants, comms, procurement | A first off-site conversation |
| Assistants' breakfast | 90 min | 10 to 25 | A name and a direct line |
| B2B open day | Half a day | A wider mixed public | Local awareness after an opening or a renovation |
| Bureau visit | 2 h | 3 to 8 | A listing in the proposals they write |
The table is a menu. Pick one format. Mixing agency buyers with wedding couples in the same hour wastes both.
What the day actually costs
Food is the line that moves. A seated lunch adds up. A standing tasting of the caterer who already works your rooms shows the same kitchen for less. The AV house and the florist sometimes split the food bill, because they meet the same buyers. Take twenty guests and a tasting: the cash outlay often sits below one confirmed midweek off-site. Time is the part people skip: several afternoons over two months for the list, the calls and the run of show, then the follow-up nobody put in the diary.
If you host in the UK, put VAT on the worksheet. HMRC VAT Notice 700/65 blocks recovery of input tax on free business entertainment provided to UK business contacts: hospitality of any kind, with food and drink listed. Ask your accountant before you assume the VAT comes back. Price the day in pounds, not in a hoped-for close rate.
A light leaving piece is enough: the spec sheet in a folder they can file, plus a floor plan. A local product that fits in a bag, if you have one. A heavy gift does not replace a room that was actually set.
Forty-eight hours, then twelve months
The day is cheaper than the silence after it. Within forty-eight hours, one personal note per guest, answering the question they asked in the corridor. Attach capacities, plan, access, indicative rates. That is what an agency files. Log every guest with a source you can still read in June: fam trip, date, host. An event CRM such as Joinways keeps that source on the contact if you write it the same day, not three months later from memory.
At a month, offer a meeting or a date they mentioned. At three months, write only if you have news: a room freed, a new layout, a client review from an off-site that just ran. For guests who later book, retaining clients starts at the first event, not at a second fam trip.
At six months, and again at twelve, count who replied at least once. Then the requests that came from them, or from someone they sent. Then the confirmed events and their value. Ask each new enquiry how they heard of the building. Write the answer down. For corporate events the brief often sits for months. Do not call the day a failure in week six. An organizer already compares several venues in parallel. The point of the morning is to be in that pile with a memory attached.
When a request does arrive from someone who ate in your room, answer it quickly, in business hours. It is ordinary sales hygiene after a costly morning.
A photographer in the room is useful. Publishing a recognisable face on the website is not automatic. The ICO's marketing guidance treats photographs of customers or staff used in a marketing campaign as a further use of personal data: you pick a lawful basis, and their example walks through consent when the original purpose was not marketing. Ask before the first shutter, keep a record of the yes, and offer a way to withdraw it.
