This year, Bien Venue celebrates its 25th anniversary of providing exceptional service.
The event management specialist can look back proudly at remarkable growth throughout the years, with the many milestones in its history of shaping the events and hospitality industry marked with numerous high-level accomplishments.
Having provided outstanding services over the last few decades, Bien Venue is an event management company offering a range of event services designed to meet a wide variety of business needs, including last-minute meeting rooms, full-scale conferences, team-building days, accommodation, event management and corporate entertainment. Their personal and bespoke approach towards their clients has resulted in exceptional client retention. Indeed, Bien Venue’s longest-standing client has stayed with them ever since they began operating.
Taking a venture down memory lane, the Bien Venue story goes back 25 years to 1996, when the business was first established. Even though it started at a small scale with only two desktops to work with that had to be shared among a total number of four active employees, their humble beginnings did not hinder their determination and drive to create an event management company like no other.
Bien Venue based their company culture on one simple yet very effective idea: that every business is unique. Standing out from competitors even then, Bien Venue began offering unique and bespoke services to their very first clients. They slowly started changing the world of venue sourcing, event management and team building with their dynamic approach and personal touches in every service they provide.
Alongside Bien Venue’s start, 1996 was the year of:
- The Spice Girls - their hit debut single ‘Wannabe’ was number one across the charts.
- World Changing Event: Dolly, the cloned sheep, was born on 5 July 1996. She was named after busty singer Dolly Parton because her DNA came from a mammary gland cell.
- Boyband Take That split up.
- The UK driving theory test was introduced as a written exam.
- Subway opened its first British store in Brighton.
- In 1996, hardly anyone had a mobile phone – let alone a smartphone.
Five years later, when Bien Venue opened its doors to corporate business in 2001, the company slowly began to flourish. Additional staff were employed to take on the demand and help further meet the exceptional service that Bien Venue guarantees.
In retrospect, Bien Venue’s very first clients started by only booking three meeting rooms, but have remained as a long-standing client to this day – with their worth at its peak in excess of £2.5 million.
International bookings were also one of the new services introduced at Bien Venue in 2001. This allowed the company to offer an even more excellent service to clients, which was not only exciting but also enabled them to work with companies outside the pond.
Globally, some of the main events in 2001 included:
- The release of the iPod.
- The first Harry Potter film: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was released.
- Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, was launched.
- The first Xbox was released in America; the European release was in the following year.
- Black Hawk Down, Bridget Jones' Diary, Monsters Inc. and Shrek were released.
- NASA launched the Genesis spacecraft in August of 2001.
In 2006, Bien Venue’s next major milestone came with the relocation of its offices from Macclesfield, Cheshire to neighbouring Poynton. This year was quite significant for Bien Venue, as its leadership opted to move from where they were initially based. By doing so, more growth for the company was achieved.
Bien Venue’s client base subsequently expanded, meaning more staff were brought on board to meet demand. Their portfolio extended with services such as team building activities, incentives, and corporate hospitality and entertainment, all collectively providing consistent value to their clients and helping Bien Venue finally gain their real identity.
2006 was not short of making history either:
- The World Cup was held in Germany and ended with the notorious Zinedine Zidane headbutt.
- The bestselling single was Gnarls Barkley, Crazy.
- Twitter was launched this year. The very first tweet, from the founder Jack Dorsey, is still there: it said, "just setting up my twittr". The 'e' was added to its name later.
- A whale is discovered swimming in the River Thames in London.
- Nintendo releases Wii gaming console.
Five years on, the year 2011 consisted of some of the company’s most significant milestones, starting with their online accommodation booking portal ‘Bvine’ being freshly introduced, giving complete control to clients to browse and book the most suitable accommodation by themselves. Alternatively, Bien Venue could book large groups and corporate rates as well as provide bespoke booking links for large events on behalf of their clients.
In 2011, Bien Venue also acquired one of their largest clients within the food and beverage industry, which is still using their services today. The office’s headcount further grew, and the year ended with over 30,000 delegates in 1,600 locations booked worldwide, one of Bien Venue's most significant accomplishments at the time.
The second year of the decade saw:
- Chromebooks on sale for the very first time.
- Game of Thrones made its premiere with Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen and Kit Harington as Jon Snow.
- Snapchat was first launched.
- Steve Jobs resigned as Apple chief executive
A further five years on, the year 2016 was all about high numbers. The start-up team, which started with only four employees, is now a team of highly motivated experts passionate about the meetings and event industry and providing an exceptional A* service to Bien Venue clients.
In the year 2016, Bien Venue had serviced over 70,000 delegates in 3,000 locations worldwide. A remarkable amount of bed nights were also booked, which totalled in excess of 25,000 altogether.
Last but not least, 2016 was also the year Bien Venue won a tender opportunity within the education sector – giving them a better position within the industry and opening new doors and further opportunities.
2016 had some memorable moments as well:
- The 2016 Summer Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the first time in South America.
- Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an Oscar!
- Beyoncé broke the internet by releasing her album Lemonade.
Each year since 2016, Bien Venue has continued to grow its business and develop and enhance services to ensure that its clients receive the first-class A* service they deserve.
2019 was the year Bien Venue were invited to be a best practice representative in The Parliamentary Review. It was also the year that the company introduced virtual and hybrid events and their bespoke hampers were first sent out to employees.
As a surprise to many, the following two years were filled with hurdles concerning the Covid-19 pandemic. And yet, Bien Venue bounced back more determined than ever in 2021, ready to provide an exceptional service to their existing clients as well as work with new ones.
Kerry Edwards, Bien Venue managing director, comments: “Although there are many factors which have contributed to our success, underlying them all is an unwavering commitment to providing an A* service of excellence to our clients.
“I would also like to thank our employees, clients and supplier partners because without them Bien Venue wouldn’t be who they are today. I am so proud of what we have achieved over the past 25 years and look forward to the future that lies ahead.”
As Bien Venue looks to the future, its tailored approach towards each of its clients will continue to emphasise their business's unmatched skills and value - as they move forward from the pandemic and prepare for yet another 25 years of outstanding event services.
Bien Venue are a boutique creative agency who specialise in a free UK venue finding service. This does not just consist of services for workshops, training, conferences, or off-site meetings, but also away days, residential training events, awards ceremonies, networking, roadshows, hybrid events, summer parties, Christmas celebrations, private dining, team building, incentives, employee engagement hampers and virtual activities. The company can also offer accommodation booking platforms for both corporate bookers and event specific allocations of bedrooms
Bien Venue’s re-identified strapline alongside ‘Our Team is Your Team’ is ‘Event Management – Professional, Pro Active with a personal touch’. Bien Venue sees event management as any part of the planning process from conception to delivery. It is not just the onsite event management Bien Venue specialises in, but also the pre-planning and logistics as well as the post-event. Bien Venue’s flexible approach means clients can pick and choose which services they would like to use or simply use Bien Venue’s free UK venue finding service.
