Introduction
The historic Drapers’ Hall situated in Throgmorton Street in the City of London dates back to 1543 when it was bought from King Henry VIII in 1543 for the sum of 1,800 marks (approximately £1,200). Since that time the building has been rebuilt several times having been destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666 and a further fire in 1772.
Today, the unrivalled grandeur and opulence of Drapers’ Hall provides a magnificent setting for every type of event – from business-related meetings, working lunches, and presentations to cocktail parties, dinners, celebrations and wedding receptions. Frequently used by film-makers (including the The King’s Speech), Drapers’ Hall is steeped in history and home to many outstanding works of art. Richly decorated, and with its own unique atmosphere and ambience, Drapers’ Hall boasts its own on-site catering team, all food is prepared and cooked in its own kitchens and has access to one of finest wine cellars in the City. The venue hosted over 160 events last year on an exclusive basis.
Key Challenge
Need to replace outdated technology that could support the growth and delivery of its high quality events
With its existing EP (Events Perfect) venue and event management system reaching end of life, Drapers’ Hall needed to upgrade to a system that could continue to support the delivery of a growing volume of high quality events.
“With Priava we have all the key information at our fingertips for managing our events”
Louisa Stirling
Head of Events
Drapers’ Hall
The Solution
A future-proofed, fully automated and professional cloud-based system that would increase efficiencies and support rising number of bookings
Head of Events at Drapers’ Hall, Louisa Stirling comments on the selection of a new system and its installation, “We knew that support and future development for our existing software, Events Perfect, was due to be discontinued, so two years ago we decided to migrate to Priava’s cloud-based system. The decision was made due to an established, good working relationship with them, plus the new system had all the functionality we required to underwrite the exceptional quality of service and food we provide across all our events.” The Hall was also seeing an increase in overall bookings and enquiries year on year. Smooth transition and easier system to use and navigate.
According to Louisa the transition to the new Priava system was absolutely fine, very smooth and just took a couple of days to complete. The Priava team assisted with moving over any necessary information, helped the venue to set up their own customised reports as well as provided full training on the system. Louisa says, “We found the system easier to use and navigate and found maintenance issues also straightforward, as any upgrades are done automatically without the need for any internal IT resource. The system is quite intuitive so needed very little training”
The Results
Time-savings, easy bookings and valuable business intelligence
By moving from Events Perfect to Priava, Drapers’ Hall has seen a number of on-going benefits including easier checking, reservation and booking of individual events, day-to-day time-savings, quick access to detailed event information for all relevant parties including Catering, and access to strategic financial information.
Easy management and administration of bookings
“On a day to day basis”, says Louisa, “Priava takes care of all our confirmed and potential bookings, so we can hold space or provisionally reserve first and second options. Once bookings are secured we can also easily make large scale changes to information using Priava’s Bulk Edit feature that saves time in changing multiple records or inputting repeat bookings.”
“Information at our fingertips”
In addition to bookings management, Priava also supports the smooth running and management of events with quick and easy access to essential data. “With Priava we have all the key information at our fingertips for managing our events” says Louisa, “The universal search feature enables the team to find the information they need easily or look at the diary chart to clearly see what is coming up in terms of deadlines and so on.” Once an event sheet is created, all the details such as room set up are stored in one place and weekly event reports are distributed to all relevant personnel as necessary.
Intelligence for catering team
Weekly event sheets and reports are generated using Priava and sent to the catering staff, so they are fully briefed. The venue can also instantly see what beverages have been consumed at an individual function, by viewing the opening and closing stock figures, which in turn are used for billing purposes.
Financial reporting identifies revenue sources
“Not least”, says Louisa “are the ‘Financial Revenue Summaries’ within Priava that are crucial to help the venue understand where our events business is coming from.”
Summary
The benefits that Drapers’ Hall has achieved through the use of the Priava cloud-based venue management solution so far include:
- Supports high quality service for clients with fully automated and professional system with access to checklists and deadlines;
- Easy to use and navigate system saves time and minimises level of training required;
- Financial Revenue Summaries identify sources of business;
- Quick access to information using ‘universal search’ function;
- Easier maintenance of system with all updates done remotely, no need for internal IT resources;
- Increased efficiencies compared with previous system;
- Time-savings through features such as ‘Bulk Edit’;
- Supports catering team with event lists, weekly reports;
- Ability to support increasing volume of events year on year;
- Visibility of beverage consumption per event;
- Enhanced client communication with event reports.
Final comment from Louisa
“The level of support from the team is good and if we ever have a problem then it is quickly resolved.”
Future
In partnership, Priava and Drapers’ Hall are currently working together to fully integrate its stock system with the venue and events management solution.
Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how you can introduce live availability and instant bookings at your venue using Priava.
