Last week, our Brand & Marketing Event Assistant, Connie Sue, swapped the office for the Suffolk countryside, joining our partners at Eventprofslive for a FAM trip to Wilderness Reserve.
For an event planner, a venue visit is about much more than looking around and taking a few photos. It’s about asking: Could this actually work for our clients?
How does the guest journey work? What could we do with the space? What happens between activities? How flexible is the programme? And, importantly, does the venue offer enough to keep a group engaged without making the itinerary feel relentless?
So, Connie went to find out.
A venue that can do more than one type of event
Wilderness Reserve is an interesting proposition because it combines accommodation, event spaces, activities and outdoor space across one estate.
From an event planning perspective, that opens up plenty of possibilities.
It could lend itself to a team away day, a leadership retreat, an incentive or a residential event – but the important thing is that the experience can be built around the group rather than simply choosing a room and filling it with a programme.
For planners, that flexibility is valuable. It means there’s potential to create different experiences across the same stay, rather than having delegates spend the entire event in one space.
The best way to understand activities? Try them.
Connie and the group got involved in some of the activities available at the estate, including axe throwing and clay pigeon shooting.
And this is exactly why we like FAM trips.
Seeing “40+ activities available” on a venue specification is one thing. Actually trying them is another.
As event planners, we want to know what an activity is really like. Is it genuinely engaging? How competitive is it? Who would enjoy it? Could you run it for a large group? And where would it sit within the wider event schedule?
Those are the details that help us make better recommendations to clients.
Building a programme with different energy levels
One of the things that stood out was the variety.
There are activities for groups looking for something more adventurous, but there are also opportunities to slow things down and incorporate more relaxed experiences.
That matters when you’re building an event programme.
You don’t necessarily want every activity to be high energy. A strong itinerary needs a rhythm, moments that bring people together, moments that get them involved and moments where they can simply take a breath.
Wellbeing doesn’t have to look like wellness
As part of the trip, the group took part in a mindful floristry workshop with Antidote London.
From a planning perspective, it was a useful reminder that wellbeing can be much broader than the usual event staples.
Creative workshops, mindfulness and slower-paced activities can give delegates a completely different type of experience, particularly when they’re being combined with more energetic team activities.
The trick is making sure it feels relevant to the audience rather than adding wellbeing to the agenda simply because it’s a trend.
Don’t underestimate the value of downtime
This was probably one of the biggest planning takeaways from the trip.
Wilderness Reserve has spaces and facilities that encourage guests to slow down, including a swimming pool, sauna and hot tub. It can be tempting when planning a residential event to fill every available hour. But from a guest experience perspective, downtime has a purpose.
It’s when people have informal conversations, catch up with colleagues, enjoy the setting and actually switch off from work.
So when we’re building an itinerary, we’re not just asking “What can we fit in?” We’re also asking “What should we leave space for?”
The practical side matters too
A venue can look incredible, but the event planner questions don’t stop at aesthetics.
We’re also looking at how people move around the site, how activities can fit together, where meals sit within the schedule and how the accommodation, event spaces and experiences connect.
Having so many elements in one estate can make the guest journey feel much more cohesive, particularly for residential events.
And experiencing that journey ourselves gives us a much better understanding of how it could work in practice.
So, would we recommend it?
Rather than simply saying a venue is “good”, we think about which briefs it could be right for.
For us, Wilderness Reserve is particularly interesting for clients looking to get people away from the usual corporate environment and create more of an experience around their event.
The combination of accommodation, activities, outdoor space, food and downtime gives planners plenty to work with, while the variety means the itinerary doesn’t have to feel like one long team-building exercise.
That’s the value of a FAM trip.
We don’t just visit a venue. We experience it, ask the planner questions, test the activities and think about how we’d use it for a real brief.
And when a client comes to us looking for something different, we can give them advice based on experience rather than a venue brochure.
Thinking about your next team away day, incentive or residential event?
Our venue finding service is completely free, and we’ll help you find somewhere that fits your brief, your audience and the experience you want to create.
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