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Who this is for: the events team (sales, coordinators) and branch
managers. Menus: Venues (events.view), Events & catering
(events.view; booking needs events.manage), Events setup → Venues
(events.manage). Exceptions (booking above capacity or outside the
opening hours, releasing a confirmed venue, refunding or keeping a
deposit) need events.approve. Guests, the bar and the banquet event
order: Events: guests, bar & BEOs. Enquiries, quotes, deposits and
the final invoice work as in Catering: enquiries & quotes.
A private hire is a function (Events & catering) held at one of our venues: weddings, birthdays, meetings, conferences, corporate dinners, launches, engagements, graduations, private parties or a custom event.
1. The venues (Events setup → Venues)
New venue — a code (HALL) and a name; the kind (Grand Hall, Private
Dining Room, Rooftop, Garden, Conference Room, VIP Lounge, Poolside,
Terrace, Whole Restaurant, custom); a description.
- Capacity: overall, seated, standing, and per set-up (banquet rounds, theatre, classroom, cabaret, boardroom, U-shape, cocktail, standing). A booking uses the set-up’s capacity, else seated (standing for cocktail / standing), else the overall capacity.
- Hire: per hour; a half day (and how many hours it covers); a full day (and its hours — hours beyond are charged at the hourly price).
- Minimum spend on food and drink; security and damage deposits (refundable); cleaning fee.
- Set-up and clear-down minutes: the venue is taken that long before and after the event.
- Opening hours by day (none ticked: any time; a closing time before the opening time means after midnight).
- Part of: the Terrace is part of the Rooftop — booking one blocks the other. The Whole Restaurant blocks every venue of the branch.
- Photos (JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12) once the venue is saved.
- For hire off hides the venue from bookings; Archive removes it (refused while bookings are to come).
Venue holds last (Events setup → Settings, 72 hours by default): how long an unconfirmed hold keeps a venue.
2. The venue calendar (Venues)
Each venue by day: bookings with their event times and venue taken (the set-up and clear-down included), amber = on hold, green = confirmed, and closures. When the set-up starts the day before or the clear-down runs past midnight, that day shows a dashed Set-up from … / Clear-down until … entry. Click a booking to open its function. Arrows move a week; choose the branch at the top.
Find a free venue — date, from, until, guests and set-up: every venue is listed as Free or Not free with the reason (booked — by which function —, closed, too small in that set-up, outside its opening hours) and its price for those hours (the best of the hourly, half-day and full-day rates) and minimum spend.
Close a venue (or the whole branch) for maintenance, a private closure or a holiday: no booking can be made over a closure.
3. Booking a venue for a function
Function → Venues & timeline → Book a venue: from, until, guests, set-up — the free venues are listed with their prices; choose one. Then the hire rate (best rate, hourly, half day, full day, an agreed amount, or no charge), set-up and clear-down if different from the venue’s, layout, AV and décor notes. Hold the venue.
- Before the client accepts, the booking is a hold: the venue is blocked for others until the hold expires (72 hours, or the set-up start if sooner). Extend hold keeps it three more days. An expired hold frees the venue — if someone else then books it, the client’s quote can no longer be accepted until another venue is found.
- When the client accepts the quote, every hold is checked again and becomes confirmed. A function already accepted books straight to confirmed.
- Double bookings are refused: if anyone holds or has booked the venue, a part of it or the whole restaurant over those hours (set-up and clear-down included), you are told which function has it. Nobody can override a clash.
- Above the capacity or outside the opening hours: a manager can tick Book anyway.
- Change moves or resizes a booking (checked again). Release gives the venue back (a confirmed venue: a manager). A lost or cancelled function releases its venues.
The function’s venue name follows its bookings, and its refundable deposit is the sum of the venues’ security and damage deposits.
4. The quote and the account
While the quote is a draft, it carries the venues automatically: a hire line per venue (with the rate and hours) and the cleaning fee; the bar package per guest when the bar is priced that way. They are shown under Venue hire and the bar — change them by changing the booking or the bar, not in the quote. A sent quote stays as sent; start a new revision to pick up a change.
Minimum spend: when food and drink come to less than the venues’ minimum spend, the difference is added as a Minimum spend top-up.
Once the client has accepted, the account (the function’s order) follows the venues the same way: moving or extending a booking changes its hire line; the final invoice charges the bar package for the guests charged and recomputes the minimum spend on what was really charged.
Payments & account shows the account by category — venue, food, beverage, equipment, service (with the service charge), staff, transport and other charges — quoted against charged, what guests paid at the bar and any damage charged.
5. The refundable security & damage deposit
Asked = the venues’ deposits. It is not part of the account total: it is held as the client’s credit.
- Take the deposit (
payments.take): amount and method; cash goes into the open till. The client gets a credit code. - After the event, Refund (a manager): all or part, in cash from the open till or by the method it came.
- Keep for damage (a manager): what was damaged and the amount — a damage charge is raised on the function and paid from the deposit; refund the rest.
6. Prints
The quotation lists the venues (times, set-up, guests), the minimum spend and whether it is met, the bar and its terms, the charges by category and the refundable deposit (outside the total).