Site Visit
An in-person inspection of a potential event venue to evaluate its suitability for a specific event.
Definition
A site visit is an in-person walkthrough of a venue being considered for an event. During the visit, event planners assess the space's layout, capacity, infrastructure, accessibility, acoustics, lighting, loading dock access, kitchen facilities, and overall suitability for the planned event. Site visits often include meetings with venue management to discuss availability, policies, and pricing.
Thorough site visits involve photographing the space from multiple angles, measuring key dimensions, testing WiFi and cellular connectivity, and identifying potential challenges that would not be apparent from floor plans or virtual tours alone.
Why It Matters
Site visits prevent costly surprises. Floor plans and photos can be misleading — a room that looks spacious in marketing materials may feel cramped with the intended setup, or a venue's loading dock may be too small for production equipment.
For event planners, site visits also build relationships with venue contacts and demonstrate professionalism to clients. Bringing clients to a site visit helps them visualize the event and accelerates decision-making.
Examples in Practice
During a site visit, an event planner discovers that the ballroom ceiling is too low for the planned projection mapping, avoiding a $20,000 mistake that would have been irreversible at load-in.
A corporate event team conducts site visits at three competing hotels, bringing their AV partner to assess technical infrastructure, and selects the venue with the strongest WiFi for their technology-dependent conference.
An event planner's site visit reveals that the venue's outdoor terrace has a 10 PM noise ordinance, prompting a redesign of the program schedule to move the after-party indoors.