What to Look for When Choosing a Venue for Executive Strategy Days

Executive strategy days provide a refreshing approach to the construct and atmosphere of corporate meetings, which in turn inspires creative thinking. Both business strategy days and leadership retreats provide a nice change of pace from the office environment, which supports your staff in firing new neural pathways and improving your chances of developing dynamic strategies born through multidisciplinary thinking and easy collaboration.

But in order for your executive strategy day to be as impactful as possible, you need to make sure your strategising environment is conducive for ‘outside the box’ thinking. This is why our corporate venue space here at Canvas House has been set up to provide professional teams with flexibility, adaptability, and practical features and amenities that are perfect for brainstorming, collaborating, and just generally making sure your business planning days are productive.

So what should you be looking for when finding an ideal venue for your next executive strategy day? Let our event planning experts at Canvas House illuminate you with our list of essential features and amenities for executive strategy sessions spanning from 9 to 5.

Key Features & Amenities for Executive Meeting Spaces

Central Location

Have you ever had to travel to a seminar venue on a workday? Chances are, the easiest venues to get to were those that were just a quick bus, train, or tram trip from the office. This is why venues in and around the Melbourne CBD are so popular amongst corporate event managers. Not only can your colleagues find the venue easily, but so can any third party visitors (i.e. clients, corporate partners, catering staff, etc.).

If you’ve got attendees that have travelled from other states or countries as well, booking a venue that’s centrally located will naturally also help to accommodate attendees staying at a hotel or business accommodation. This is also why so many conference venues double up as hotels or business accommodation: so that event planners can simplify booking venues for their event space and hotel rooms for any visiting guests.

Accessible Facilities

Speaking of accommodating guests, catering to attendees travelling from afar is just one half of the equation. Accessibility considerations are also a must when planning corporate parties and events.

Keep in mind too that even if your guests don’t currently have access needs (i.e. wheelchair access, ASL interpreters, etc.), it doesn’t mean that they won’t require access needs when the day of your event swings round. Injuries can result in your guests unexpectedly requiring the use of crutches and other walking aids. Thankfully, our space here at Canvas House is set up with accessible restrooms plus a stage and screen setup so you can easily have a camera on an ASL interpreter to accommodate deaf or hard of hearing attendees.

Multimedia Equipment

What’s one of the first questions you ask when booking a seminar venue? Of course it’s “what type of AV or multimedia equipment is available on-site?” This is one of the biggest logistical concerns for any type of business event, including executive strategy days, where you can anticipate groups to collaborate on a shared strategy development project.

For business planning sessions, teams generally rely on projector screens for presentations and/or watching videos. And if they’re presenting to larger groups, then you may also need to set up microphones and speaker systems to make sure all attendees can take in the presentation no matter where they’re seated in the space.

This is why we have a full AV system complete with Bluetooth connectivity at Canvas House, plus microphones, a green room, and even a portable TV, making it easier for executive strategists to curate a space that works for their activities.

Whiteboards and other meeting amenities

Most corporate events, from conferences to training or orientation meetings, will require a whiteboard, HDMI supported screens, and other meeting amenities. For teams looking to conduct conference meetings, for instance, meeting spaces also need to be quiet and self-contained to support audio quality for the remote parties.

This is why we’ve included our dedicated meeting room space here at Canvas House, complete with a conference room table and comfortable seating that supports teams during lengthy deliberations.

Flexible Furnishings

Alongside comfortable seating, executive strategy sessions naturally also require flexibility of thought. In most cases, the best way to support this is to get your blood flowing and walk around your space rather than sitting in a static position.

At Canvas House, we’ve seen time and time again that professional teams benefit greatly from working in flexible environments, where chairs and tables can be easily manoeuvred to make space for brainstorming. To meet these working demands, our team at Canvas House makes sure that our meeting spaces are easy to reorganise and reset, supporting corporate teams in working freely and staying in the zone.

Catering Amenities and Support

For all-day events, you’ll definitely want to provide catering for corporate lunches, just to make sure that your attendees have ample time to refuel and maintain their productivity across the entire day’s itinerary. So if you’re planning an executive summary day that is likely to cut through lunch and into the afternoon, then it’s well worth booking a venue that includes kitchen facilities to support food and beverage attendants.

If there are no commercial kitchen facilities, then you may be able to partner with other food service providers like food trucks. Using food trucks for event catering has risen in popularity in recent years, as it provides more interior venue space for events, and can even provide attendees with more variety in meal options.

Pro tip: ask our event planners at Canvas House for their list of local suppliers to find catering partners that offer competitive rates!

Comfortable, Airy Ambience

Finally, brainstorming requires keeping an open mind, and there’s no better way to stay present and dreaming big than by letting yourself work in an airy atmosphere. Well, have you seen our 6m high, cathedral-style vaulted ceiling? It doesn’t get any more airy than that!

And with updated heating and cooling amenities, our space here at Canvas House is sure to be the perfect selection for executive strategy days during all seasons.

Want to Book Canvas House for your Next Corporate Planning Event?

End of year is always a perfect time to schedule business strategy sessions. So if you’re looking to schedule your next corporate planning event in anticipation of Q1, now is the perfect time to get that ball rolling.

Enquire with our team at Canvas House today to book our beautiful corporate venue for your organisation’s next executive strategy day.