Navigating The Christmas Showcase Season

Navigating The Christmas Showcase Season
April 15, 2016

Now if you know me you’ll know I’m not afraid of saying the C word, yes thats right, Christmas. Here at Crazy Cow we love Christmas and I know there is a certain elf that goes by the name of Brian who would agree with us.

Christmas party planning starts with the Christmas showcase, its an amazing way to see what venues will have to offer this Christmas.

However there can be a few pitfalls with showcases, first of all you don’t want to end up at the wrong one, where you immediately know they don’t have what you are looking for. Or the boring one, the one where you turn up to find no one else there and spend all night avoiding 10 sales people giving the hard sell from every angle.

Having not only organise, run, and attended far too many Christmas showcases to remember, I’d like to think I can pass on a few tips to make sure that not only do you go to the right showcases, but when there how to get the most out of it.

Any venue worth it’s salt will be having a showcase in the next couple of months, these early ones tend to be the best as everyone is fresh and keen, and the sales staff are not feeling under pressure to make end of year target yet so you usually avoid the hard sell.

The best showcases take you on a journey through the venue, of course sometimes they show you something you didn’t expect, like my visit last Wednesday we went to Building Six in the O2, it was one of the most memorable and fun showcases I’ve been to in a long time. They put on quite the show!

They took us on a journey around the venue, a fun journey with an interactive story. Now I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who have not been yet, as there were surprises around ever corner, but lets just say that my client and I drank our Imagination Shots, milked a cow, and I’m still finding feathers in my hair.

Oh, and my client did not expect the Gorilla!

Dancing with the Gorilla  Pillow Fight

Top Tips

  • Make sure you know a little bit about the venue before you go, theres no point turning up only to  immediately discover its not big enough for your event.
  • Take a friend with you, it is good to get someone else’s opinion (and great to share the experience).
  • Make sure you fully understand what is on offer, some venues will not give everything away for free.
  • Check out the food, everyone knows what turkey and sprouts tastes like. Use this opportunity to try dishes you wouldn’t normally eat at Christmas.
  • Come prepared with questions to ask the venue, this is after all a fact finding mission.
  • Get your timings right, some like the one we went to on Wednesday are time specific and being late could really ruin the experience for you.
  • Make sure to have booked some one on one time with the venue event manager beforehand, they can be very busy on the night and you want to find out as much as you can while you are there.
  • Reconfirm your place before the night itself, theres nothing more embarrassing than turning up only to find your name not on the list.
  • Ask how many people have confirmed for the event, it gives you the piece of mind that you aren’t turning up to an empty room.

If you want to attend the best showcases in town and get the most out of them without the hassle of the hard sell, then simply sign up for our New Letter or make an enquiry  and we’ll do all the rest.