Away days · 5 min read
What to look for in a team away day venue
Most away days are judged on the afternoon, not the morning. Here is what tends to decide how the afternoon goes.
Travel time, counted door to door
A venue an hour out of London costs you two hours of the day and arrives with people already tired. We are five minutes from Hoxton and Haggerston Overground and two stops from Liverpool Street, which means a 9:30 start is a 9:30 start.
Can the room change shape?
A day that is one long meeting in one arrangement is a day people stop contributing to. Our tables have legs at two heights — 70cm to work at, 30cm to sit around on cushions — so a session can go from presentation to small groups to something informal without leaving the building.
Somewhere to go that is not the main room
People need to take a call, have a conversation that is not for everyone, or just stop being in a group for ten minutes. There is a lounge, a library, a separate meeting room and a courtyard. Away days at venues with one room and a corridor tend to end early.
Daylight
The main room is double-height with a run of warehouse windows down one side. This sounds like a detail until you have spent six hours under strip lighting in a windowless basement.
Exclusive hire
When you book, the building is yours. No other event running alongside, nobody walking through, no shared kitchen. It changes how freely people talk.
What to ask any venue
- Is it exclusive, or are we sharing?
- Can we move the furniture ourselves?
- Where do people go for a break?
- Can we bring our own food, or are we tied to your caterer?
- What happens if we overrun by half an hour?
For what it is worth, our answer to the last one is that there is a fifteen-minute grace period and then we charge, because there may be a booking behind yours.
Written by the House of Transformation team.