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This paper aims to identify the key quality attributes a museum or art gallery should possess and enhance to become an attractive business event venue.

The research adopted a two-stage case-study methodology. Firstly, three museums were selected in Manchester, UK, to explore the venues’ approaches to hosting business events. These were the Lowry Art Centre, Salford Museum and Manchester Art Gallery. Secondly, a business event at another museum in the city, Science and Industry Museum, was accessed to explore the audiences’ perceptions and industry requirements regarding the organisation of events in museums. In total, 21 qualitative semi-structured and structured interviews were conducted with the event delegates, event planners and museums’ management.

Thematic analysis was applied to identify three key attributes: venue character, memorability and functionality and feasibility. Venue character refers to the overall appeal of a venue, including its history, status and interior design. Memorability refers to the authenticity and uniqueness of the attendee experience at a corporate event organised in a museum. Finally, functionality and feasibility deals with the availability of functional facilities, space flexibility and diverse venue regulations.

The findings of the research provide valuable insights to both museums and event companies. The research reveals the main benefits and drawbacks of using a museum or an art gallery as a venue for business events and suggests key aspects to consider while staging a business event in a cultural institution. Museums could apply the findings in marketing to emphasise their uniqueness, authenticity and flexibility.

The aim of this paper is to report the findings from a survey of UK conference and event managers, which highlights the benefits that can accrue from supplier management within this sector.

A survey of venue managers covering a cross‐section of venue types was used.

A significant proportion of venue managers report having long‐term supplier relationships, placing considerable value on the non‐financial benefits that can accrue from long‐term supplier relations featuring mutual trust and good working relationships. These include consistency, responsiveness and flexibility in service delivery. Additionally, the familiarity of regular suppliers with the venue and its procedures, can lead to seamless service delivery to the customer and free‐up venue managers time.

The research design provides a one‐sided view of supplier relationships.

Attention is drawn to the performance benefits arising from building supplier relationships and offers guidance as to how these can be sustained by avoiding the pitfalls on long‐term relationships. In doing so, the findings legitimise the importance of taking non‐financial considerations into account when awarding or renewing supply contracts.

This paper applies lessons emerging from research on supplier relationships to a growing, but under‐researched, sector of the hospitality industry.

Hosting business events is no longer the preserve of hotels and purpose-built conference and exhibition centres. Today, visitor attractions, theatres, museums, universities and sporting complexes also compete for their share of the lucrative business events sector. However, few of these venues were originally designed and built to accommodate events but are now multipurpose in function and marketed to the events industry to secure a secondary source of income. This paper aims to evaluate the supply and design of venues for business events from both a historical and contemporary viewpoint.

As business events have specific venue requirements, ranging from extensive, accessible space for exhibitions to numerous rooms for plenary and syndicate conference sessions, choosing an appropriate venue from those available has become a considerable task. A review of key moments in history demonstrates how different types of venues have emerged and developed.

This study reveals how venues that have a similar background typically share features such as architectural design and layout. The paper discusses the characteristics of unusual, academic and sporting venues as well as hotels and purpose-built space to include factors such as availability, cost and location.

This paper provides an insight into the benefits and drawbacks of using different types of venues for business events and the advantages and challenges that these present to organisers. Case studies are embedded within this paper, illustrating the range of venues that are used to successfully host business events today. As there is limited literature that explores venue development for events, or commonalities of venue characteristics by type, the synthesis of these two important elements of event management makes this study an original and valuable contribution to the developing literature.

Events that are designed around the needs of children are particularly challenging to plan and thus choosing the right venue to stage such an event is a substantial task. Venue considerations for such events includes location, access and nearby amenities, capacity and flow, facilities, catering, decor as well as safeguarding. Given that event managers can now choose from purpose-built event spaces, hotels, academic, sporting and unique venues, the decision is even more complex. This chapter provides a comprehensive assessment of key venue considerations for event managers when planning child-centric events and outlines the typical characteristics of a range of venues, as relevant to organising events for family audiences.

Events venues are incredibly diverse and yet a coherent typology fails to be apparent in the mainstream literature. Indeed, the focus of research has predominately been on the demand as opposed to the supply side of events venues. The article attempts to ameliorate this gap in knowledge and reviews the literature on current methods of classifying events venues.

To provide a context for the analysis and evaluation of events venues, it is necessary to explore the evolution of events venues classifications. Then, the paper offers a series of different criteria that can be used to explore the concept and scope of events venues.

The main aim of developing a new typology of events venues must be to produce a more effective and efficient classification of this sector. At the same time, the new typology needs to address various criteria that might further differentiate venues in terms of those factors which are outlined in the paper. Indeed, it should be noted that the discussed criteria could act as a foundation for how they can be classified into different types.

The proposed criteria provide a context that will guide academics and practitioners current and/or future classifications of events venues. A number of conclusions and recommendations for developing a new typology of events venues are then discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate how the strategic decisions a visitor attraction (VA) makes in relation to how it handles weddings or corporate functions on site will have a direct affect on what “work process knowledge” (WPK) an employee will need.

The qualitative research design was comparative case studies of the work processes and knowledge within six Scottish VAs, based on a social constructivist framework. Data were gathered using the methods of key informant interviews and shadowing.

“Rich and thick” description illustrates the issues arising from using a VA as a wedding or function venue, highlighting the WPK workers require to convert the site between the two functions.

Although cross‐site commonalities of the six cases validate the findings, a broader survey of a greater number of VAs would be beneficial, as would a review of how WPK has subsequently evolved in VAs, especially in relation to events.

WPK is an attitude, commitment and understanding at an overview level, incorporating a strong element of strategy as well as individual tasks. The event organiser is shown how developing WPK in staff can contribute to success.

To date this is the first study of WPK in relation to VAs and certainly in relation to events. To academics, it represents an original contribution to the theory of WPK and for practitioners enhances management understanding for improving event delivery.

The paper aims to provide an overview of how UK conference centres have incorporated Web 2.0 applications, such as Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter, into their marketing communications strategies.

Following an analysis of the impacts of Web 2.0 applications on purchase decision‐making processes in general, the market environment within which conference centres promote themselves was examined. The results of a questionnaire‐based survey of UK conference centres' marketing communications strategies were then analysed.

The paper's findings suggest that while some UK conference centres have comprehensively adopted Web 2.0 applications into their marketing communications programmes, others have yet to harness the potential of these new promotional tools. A few serious barriers to wider adoption remain.

The extent to which the results may be generalised beyond the geographical parameters of this study may be limited, therefore further research is required, to test the findings across a broader range of locations. In addition, the insights provided by this study need to be complemented by research into the use of Web 2.0 applications by those who are responsible for selecting venues.

The paper considers the consequences of venues using Web 2.0 applications in their marketing communications strategies. These include potential loss of control of the venues' marketing messages, resource issues and the need to evaluate the effectiveness of these tools.

This study therefore takes a first step towards achieving an understanding of how venues are using the opportunities and dealing with the challenges created by the availability of Web 2.0 applications as potential and actual elements in their marketing communications programmes.

Finding and booking facilities for a course or conference can be a nightmare in terms of time consumed and results achieved. This article aims to show training managers how to use external resources to resolve their problems in this area.

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the relations of work-related practices of local managers of live music events in Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) and barriers and needs of vulnerable customers (VC) in order to explore possibilities to increase cultural participation of VC.

This article explores work-related practices of managers of live music events in OWL and asks if and to what extent these practices have an influence on the cultural participation of “vulnerable customers” (VC). It combines the findings of two studies: a) an explorative investigation on the work-related self-conceptions of managers of live music events in OWL (Study 1), and b) a sub-project on cultural participation of VC, which is part of the research project “kulturPreis. Increasing cultural participation through innovative and economically sustainable pricing concepts”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Study 2).

It can be stated that there is an imbalance of knowledge: while VC tend to have a clear understanding of which barriers are the responsibility of managers of live music events, managers tend to lack knowledge regarding the needs of VC, and regarding the interrelationships between financial and social barriers facing them. Whether this knowledge and understanding can be developed in the future depends on the possibilities of exchanges between managers of live music events, cultural institutions, welfare organisations, political institutions and not least VC.

Based on these studies, this article combines different approaches by linking work-related practices of managers of live music events with cultural participation of VC.