Venue hire near me: what hiring the room actually costs

What suppliers publish, and what they do not

How to get a venue price you can compare

1. Decide what you are hiring before you ask. Exclusive use of the whole site, one room inside it, or a dry hire of an empty space you fill yourself are three different purchases. Venues quote differently for each and a quote for one is not a quote for another.
2. Give the date, the day of the week and the guest count. Every venue prices on those three facts and none of them will quote without them. A Saturday in peak season is the most expensive version of any room, and a midweek date off season is often half of it.
3. Ask whether the number is a hire fee or a minimum spend. A hire fee is money for the room. A minimum spend is a floor on what you buy in food and drink, and hitting it can cost far more than a hire fee would have. The two are not comparable and are routinely quoted as if they were.
4. Ask what is inside the figure. Tables, chairs, linen, staff, a bar, cleaning, a wedding coordinator on the day and the hours the room is yours are each sometimes included and sometimes extra. Get the list before you compare two numbers.
5. Ask what happens outside the hours. Overrunning, an early set up on the day before, late collection of hire equipment and an extension to the bar licence all carry charges that never appear in the headline price.

The four ways a venue actually charges

The first is a flat hire fee for a period, usually a day or a set number of hours, with everything else bought separately. It is the clearest model and the easiest to compare, which is why the venues that use it are the ones most likely to publish a figure at all.

The second is a minimum spend, where the room costs nothing but you undertake to buy a stated value of food and drink. It suits venues with their own kitchen and it moves the whole negotiation onto the per head price, so the useful question becomes what the cheapest menu that meets the minimum actually is.

The third is a per head package: a price per guest that bundles the room, a set menu and usually a drinks allowance. It reads as the simplest and hides the most, because the package that looks cheap at a hundred guests is rarely the cheapest at sixty.

The fourth is dry hire, where you take an empty space and bring in caterers, bar, furniture and staff yourself. The headline number is the lowest of the four and the total is often not, because everything the other three include is now a supplier you have to find and pay.

Why so many venues will not print a price

A venue that publishes one number for a Saturday in July is publishing its highest number, and the organiser who reads it walks away before hearing that a Friday in March exists at a different price. That is the honest reason most of this trade quotes rather than prints, and it is worth knowing rather than resenting.

It has a consequence for the organiser though: it makes the first enquiry do a lot of work. Sending a date, a guest count and a clear statement of what you want hired turns a brochure request into a quote, and it is the single thing that most shortens the shopping.

Where a venue does publish, this record quotes the figure from the venue's own page and dates it. Where a venue publishes nothing, that fact is recorded rather than filled with an estimate, because an invented number is worse than an honest gap.

What changes the number most

Day of the week, then season, then guest count, in that order. Saturday is the premium and a Sunday or a weekday is frequently the same room at a materially lower figure. Peak season in both markets served here runs roughly May to September, with December added for party bookings.

After that it is the hours. A room from noon to midnight and a room from four until eleven are priced differently, and the difference is often larger than any decoration budget. Ask what the standard hours are and what an extra hour costs before you ask about anything else.

Exclusivity is the last big lever. A venue that will run two events on one day is cheaper than one that will not, and whether that matters is a question about the wedding rather than about the money.

Questions organisers ask before they book

What does dry hire mean?

You hire the space and nothing else. Catering, bar, furniture, staff, sometimes even power and toilets are yours to arrange. It is the lowest headline figure in the trade and rarely the lowest total, so price the whole build before comparing it with an inclusive venue.

What is a minimum spend?

A floor on what you buy in food and drink rather than a charge for the room. It is not comparable with a hire fee: ask what the cheapest menu and drinks package that reaches the minimum would cost for your guest count, and compare that number instead.

Why will a venue not give me a price without a date?

Because the same room is a different product on a Saturday in July and a Thursday in February. Give the date, the day and the guest count in the first message and the reply is a quote rather than a brochure.

Is a package price per head cheaper?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on your guest count. A package that bundles the room across a hundred guests can be poor value at sixty, because the room is being paid for either way. Ask for the same package priced at your real number and at ten either side of it.

How far ahead should I be looking?

Popular venues take Saturday bookings twelve to eighteen months out in both markets served here. Midweek and off season dates stay available far longer, which is also where the price flexibility is.

What this costs where you are marrying

• What a wedding costs in the UK, from published supplier prices