Why Oh Why does a venue cost so much?

Touring venue after venue and you think they all seem so expensive! The public seems to be baffled by the cost of a venue rental. Let me break this down for you in very basic terms…. It’s an extremely expensive business to run. I have run lots of businesses in all kinds of different industries. The venue business is unlike anything I’ve ever done. Here are a few reasons why the cost seems like it’s a lot when, as a biz owner, I see it’s not usually enough. Biggest reason: weddings and events are seasonal. As hard as I’ve tried in my 13yrs in the event industry to change the habits of people who plan these things, one things holds solid, every event seems to happen all on one day. Not really but kinda. We are still ramping back to semi-normal from covid and for 2022 I had 4 proms on one night. And there were LOTS more local proms on that night, that’s just what I serviced with my photobooth and flipbook business. Then break it down a little further, people don’t want to have weddings, for the most part, on days other than Saturdays. So now we’ve gone from 365 days a year worth of business to just 52. Then remove any holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween. So now you’re down to 45 Saturdays. Then you have to work around things like Oklahoma weather, it is not sunny and 75 here ever, except maybe right before a tornado so now you’ve eliminated another 2 months worth of Saturdays. If a bride wants warm weather but not too hot, you now have narrowed the field to about 2 months out of the year. One of those months has a holiday. So you went from 9 Saturdays to 8. To make all your money for the entire year. And expenses for anything business is higher. Loan rates, electricity, water, gas, any kind of repair or, God forbid equipment, it’s ALL more expensive when running commercial business. It’s like the utility companies are sharks smelling blood in the water if they find out you’re a business. It doesn’t matter how big or small, there are extra fees. Let’s not even talk about the cost of tables and chairs because I was a dummy on this one. I thought I would replace what I have for brand new and I had to scrape myself up off the floor when I saw what they cost. Oh, wait, and mowing. Just the farm sized mower a venue needs to mow its grounds in a reasonable time is crazy expensive and that’s before gas. That also doesn’t include a sprayer or weed spray, or bug spray, gopher control, insurance, taxes (you don’t even want to know…). Can we see where I’m going with this? Have you ever seen the movie Money Pit? It was based on our venue. Not really, but no, really. THEN, then you have the issue of again, God forbid, you need help. People have lost interest in working but getting weekend help? Pffffft good luck with that. So now that we’ve narrowed the work week to basically one day and then narrowed the work year to basically 2 months minus a week maybe it seems a little more apparent why venues are so expensive. And none of these reasons includes any of the following: time and money spent on landscaping and mowing, pest control, maintenance repairs, cleaning, painting, caulking, sewer and septic upkeep, trash service, website, advertising, random little things like trash bags and toilet paper. All this stuff adds up. And it isn’t cheap. So as you’re touring, remember that venue owners do the wedding thing for pretty much one of two reasons. Either it’s a large investor group that is getting write offs on their taxes OR it’s someone who just really loves the event industry. I am the latter of those two.