Last Thursday I was given the opportunity to go on my first venue visit at the Cambridge Belfry Hotel. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect; perhaps we would be whisked around by a sombre lot of moustachioed men with clipboards. But when the time came to brave the hustle and bustle of Liverpool Street Station, the mystery made the prospect all the more exciting. This was only marginally dampened on seeing the never-ending list of stations we would be stopping at on the way, most of whose names I am certain had just been made up.

Despite being at the venue only a fraction of the time we spent on the train, I still managed to learn a great deal. Not least what on Earth a poser table is, how to hide a room behind another room, and the intricacies of front versus rear projection in different sized areas. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to coincide our visit with meeting the client, but it was a wholly valuable trip nonetheless.

I was amazed at how much difference seeing a venue makes to the planning and general conception of the event. The whole process feels far more practical now that I can picture the end result in my head, even though the conference room was set up for a wedding reception at the time. In terms of troubleshooting, too, it is invaluable; we were able to sort out all sorts of size, spacing, furniture and signage issues in a short space of time and the lovely ladies at the venue were happy to note down and get back to us on any queries they couldn’t answer right away.

The only downside of the visit was that Claire lacked any utensils to eat her salad with, so had to go hungry on the train home.