Venuefinder

What Venuefinder does

Venuefinder, operated by Assemble Media Group and headquartered in Wanstead, London (with a second office in Chester), is an independent UK-based online marketplace founded in 1978 that helps event organisers discover and compare venues for weddings, corporate events, conferences and parties. The platform hosts 16,517 venues, 681 venue groups and chains, 2,127 suppliers across 40+ categories, and 168 destination pages covering 60+ countries. Event planners use the site free of charge via Quick Search, Advanced Search (with structured filters for location, style, capacity, facilities, price, group size and proximity to London tube stations, railway stations, airports and motorway junctions) and an AI-powered natural-language search, with authenticated workspaces for favourites, shortlists, saved searches and personal notes. The technology stack combines a web-based directory with AI search, embedded third-party virtual tour players (Matterport, Krpano), and media hosted on DigitalOcean Spaces CDN.

The company makes money exclusively from the venue/supplier side through a mix of premium listings and subscription packages, display/banner advertising (e.g., Park Plaza London Riverbank display ad), supplier directory listings, and destination marketing partnerships with convention bureaux and DMCs; an emerging layer of agency commission programmes (12.5–15%) signals a move toward performance-style revenue. Distribution is self-serve web for planners, paired with an inside sales function (Group Sales Manager) selling advertising packages to venue groups, plus group-level channel partnerships with major hotel chains such as Accor (29 venues), Aimbridge EMEA (22 venues), Park Plaza and Active Hospitality. A 137+ article editorial hub and recurring Venue of the Month features drive ongoing SEO-led demand generation. There is no public listing, no disclosed funding, no app, no public API, and the small team operates from within Assemble Media Group, with named team including Vicki Peerless (Group Sales Manager), Alex Fellows (Accountant) and Oliver Betts (Content and Social Media Lead).

Name

Venuefinder

Legal name

Assemble Media Group

Website

https://venuefinder.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1978

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Venuefinder is a UK-based online marketplace that helps event planners discover and compare 16,500+ venues, 2,100+ suppliers and 168 destinations globally, generating revenue through venue and supplier advertising, premium listings, banner ads and destination partnerships.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Event Venue Marketplace

NAICS

Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events with Facilities (71131), Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events with Facilities (711310), Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events without Facilities (711320), Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events without Facilities (71132)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900), Services-Miscellaneous Amusement & Recreation (7990)

akta.pro primary industry

Party Venue Sourcing & Booking Services (HSACACAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Venue Sourcing & Site Coordination (HSACAAAD), Venue Sourcing & Site Selection (HSACADAC)

Keywords

• Event venue marketplace
• Venue directory platform
• Meeting room booking
• Event planning search
• Hospitality advertising network

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Free venue search for event planners: The core user-facing product (quick, advanced and AI search across 16,517 venues) is provided free of charge to event planners; revenue is generated downstream from venues and suppliers rather than from planners.
2. Display / banner advertising: Banner and GIF ad placements on venue search result pages (e.g., Park Plaza London Riverbank ad creative) sold to venue advertisers seeking visibility.
3. Premium venue listings & advertising packages: Venues pay to list, manage enhanced profiles (media gallery, event spaces, special offers, news) and access advertiser statistics via the advertiser portal, generating subscription/listing revenue.
4. Supplier directory listings: 2,127 event suppliers (audio-visual, catering, marquees, team building, etc.) are listed across 40+ service categories; supplier self-registration implies paid or freemium directory listings.
5. Destination marketing partnerships: Convention bureaux, tourism boards and DMCs (168 destinations globally) are represented, indicating partnership/listing arrangements with destination marketing organisations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Venuefinder is a free online marketplace and directory where event planners search 16,517 UK and international venues using Quick, Advanced or AI Search, and where venues, venue groups, suppliers and destination marketing organisations pay for listings, banner advertising and promotional placements. Revenue is generated on the supply side from premium venue listings, display advertising, supplier directory listings and destination marketing partnerships, while planners access search, favourites, shortlists, virtual tours and editorial content free of charge.

Product overview

Venuefinder (operated by Assemble Media Group) is a single unified venue-discovery marketplace rather than a platform-plus-modules architecture: a web-based directory and search portal that event planners use to find UK and international venues, while venue owners and suppliers use the same product as a self-serve listing/advertising platform. The core offering is the Venue Search experience (Quick, Advanced and AI Search over 16,517+ venues), which is supported by a set of complementary discovery modules exposed via the main navigation — Venue Styles, Destinations, Venue Groups, Suppliers, Virtual Tours, Special Offers, and the News & Insight editorial hub. Authenticated users (Event Planner accounts) get a personalisation layer consisting of Favourite Venues, Shortlists, Saved Searches and Notes; Venue and Supplier accounts unlock the Advertiser Dashboard for managing venue listings, media, special offers, event spaces, news content and statistics. The AI-Powered Venue Search is positioned as a natural-language front-end to the same catalogue.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Venuefinder Venue Styles: Browse-by-style taxonomy covering 75 venue style categories (e.g., Academic Venues, Castles & Historic Venues, Conference Venues, Convention Centres, Christmas Party Venues).
• Venuefinder Virtual Tours
• Venuefinder Destinations
• Venuefinder Suppliers
• Venuefinder Venue Groups
• Venuefinder Special Offers

Products and services

• Venue Search Primary discovery experience offering three modes — Quick Search, Advanced Search (with structured filters for location, venue style, meeting facilities, accommodation, catering & leisure, price and group) and AI Search — across 16,517+ venues in the UK and internationally. Used free of charge by event planners.
• AI-Powered Venue Search Natural-language venue matching feature available as a dedicated 'AI Search' tab within the venue search interface, allowing users to describe their event in plain text and receive recommended venues from the 16,000+ listing catalogue.
• Venue Styles Directory Taxonomy-based venue discovery across 75 styles (e.g., Academic Venues, Conference Venues, Castles & Historic Venues, Banqueting Venues, Dry Hire Venues), each with its own image and detail page.
• Destinations Directory Geographic directory of 168 destination/region entries covering UK and international locations, including convention bureaux, tourism offices and local conference organisations, filterable by country.
• Venue Groups Directory Directory of 681 venue groups and chains (e.g., Park Plaza Hotels, Active Hospitality, Accor Hotels International, Aimbridge EMEA) with links to each group's parent website and aggregated count of venues.
• Suppliers Directory Directory of 2,127 event suppliers across 40+ categories (Audio Visual, Caterer, Team Building, Photography, Marquee Hire, etc.) with location and category metadata.
• Virtual Tours Directory of 44 venue virtual tours (Matterport, Krpano, YouTube and other formats) enabling event planners to explore venues remotely before booking.
• Special Offers Promotional deals page listing 40 active venue offers (Christmas packages, summer delegate rates, agency commission boosts, etc.) filterable by country, venue name, offer type and validity date range.
• News & Insight Editorial hub with 137 articles covering industry news, venue announcements, refurbishments, awards, and feature stories (e.g., 'Venue of the Month'), available to public users and as a venue-owner publishing channel.
• Event Planner Workspace Authenticated event-planner account tools including Favourite Venues, Shortlists, Saved Searches and Notes that support the venue comparison and shortlisting workflow.
• Venue Owner / Advertiser Dashboard Self-serve backend for venue owners including Manage Venue, Media Gallery, Special Offers management, Event Spaces, News & Insight publishing and Statistics; enables venue listings, content updates and offer management.
• Supplier Advertising Supplier-side account type allowing event service providers to advertise in the Suppliers Directory and reach venues and event planners.

Quantifiable outcome

• 16,517 venues searchable in a single free directory (vs. fragmented competitor sites)
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability3 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered flagship (parent company), core (infrastructure), major and core.

• Assemble Media Groupflagship (parent company)Strategic or Co-development PartnerAssemble Media Group is the corporate parent and data controller of Venuefinder. The privacy policy and terms identify Assemble Media Group, 64 High Street, London, E11 2RJ, as the operating entity and owner of the platform.
• DigitalOcean (Spaces CDN)core (infrastructure)Technology or IntegrationAll Venuefinder media assets (venue photos, logos, content article images, special offer graphics, virtual tour imagery) are served from the venuefinder.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com DigitalOcean Spaces bucket, indicating DigitalOcean as the cloud storage/CDN provider for the platform.
• Park Plaza HotelsmajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorPark Plaza Hotels operates as a venue group on Venuefinder with multiple listings (Park Plaza London Riverbank, Westminster Bridge, Victoria Amsterdam, Amsterdam Airport). Park Plaza London Riverbank runs a banner/GIF ad on the venues search results page.
• Active HospitalitymajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorActive Hospitality is listed as a venue group with five venues on Venuefinder (Easthampstead Park, Active Conference & Event Centre etc.), using the platform for group-level promotion and lead generation.
• Accor Hotels InternationalmajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorAccor is represented on Venuefinder's venue groups directory with 29 venues, with the Accor Conference Desk in Hammersmith as the UK contact point, indicating a chain-level listing relationship.
• Aimbridge EMEAmajorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorAimbridge EMEA is listed as a venue group with 22 venues and Aimbridge Hospitality separately with 1 venue, using Venuefinder to promote its managed hotel portfolio to event planners.
• Destination marketing organisations (e.g., Bath Tourism Plus, Cape Town Convention & Events Bureau, Cardiff & Co, Vienna Tourist Office)majorGTM or Marketing Partner168 destination marketing organisations, convention bureaux and DMCs are listed across 60+ countries; they co-market their destinations and venues through Venuefinder, including Bath Tourism Plus, Cape Town Convention & Events Bureau, Cardiff & Co, Manchester convention partners and the Austrian National Tourist Office UK & Ireland.
• MatterportcoreTechnology or IntegrationMatterport virtual tours are embedded into Venuefinder venue listings (e.g., Butlin's Bognor Regis, Woburn House, The Londoner, art'otel Battersea), with tours routed via my.matterport.com/show URLs, providing 3D walkthrough capability inside the platform.
• KrpanocoreTechnology or IntegrationKrpano-powered 360° virtual tours (e.g., Foxhills Country Club, Sheraton Grand London Park Lane) are embedded into Venuefinder venue listings, providing interactive panoramic venue previews.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Bizzabo: Event experience and management platform serving enterprise event teams with registration, agenda, sponsorship and engagement tooling. Broad incumbent adjacent to Venuefinder's planner audience; competes for enterprise event-planning software budgets rather than for venue inventory.
• Eventsforce: Event management software vendor with modules for registration, venue sourcing, abstract management and CRM. Broad incumbent whose venue sourcing tools overlap with Venuefinder's directory proposition for corporate event teams.
• Eventbrite: Global events marketplace and ticketing platform with adjacent venue and experience discovery functionality. Broad incumbent with a much larger consumer audience; overlaps with Venuefinder only at the consumer venue-discovery edge, not in core MICE sourcing.
• Cvent: Large-scale event management technology platform with venue sourcing (Cvent Supplier Network), registration, RFP and lead-retrieval tools. Broad incumbent operating globally with a much larger sales and engineering footprint than Venuefinder; competes head-on in venue sourcing but as part of a wider event-tech portfolio.

Direct peers

• Headbox: European venue and event-space marketplace operating across the UK and continental Europe. Direct peer with comparable two-sided marketplace model (free search for bookers, paid listings for venues) and overlapping target customer segments of corporate event planners and agencies.
• Tagvenue: Global online marketplace for booking meeting, event and party venues, with free planner search and venue-side listings. Direct peer operating a similar free-search / paid-listing venue marketplace model across multiple geographies.
• MeetingPackage: Cloud-based venue sourcing and booking platform for meetings and events, used by hotels and event venues to manage MICE inventory and by planners to compare and book. Direct peer with overlapping venue-side SaaS + marketplace model and similar planner free-search experience.
• Hire Space: UK-based venue and supplier marketplace connecting event bookers with venues, hotels and event spaces. Direct competitor with overlapping London/UK venue inventory, similar free-to-planner model and a comparable sales motion into venues and suppliers.
• VenueScanner: UK venue-finding platform offering free venue search for corporate event planners with venue-side advertising revenue. Direct peer targeting the same UK MICE market with similar directory, shortlist and enquiry-routing functionality.

Emerging players

• Caneva & Caneva Events (illustrative) — UK wedding/party venue directories: UK-focused wedding and private-party venue directories such as WeddingVenues.com / Bridebook that overlap with Venuefinder's wedding and party venue inventory. Emerging players operating in a narrower segment of Venuefinder's planner use cases, primarily competing for SEO traffic and venue-side listings in the consumer wedding market.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/venuefinder_com
• Facebookfacebook.com/venuefinder.com.searchinsightconcierge

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Venuefinder