Map one event from enquiry to pack-down
On the day, your team runs an event like clockwork. The weeks before are messier. Enquiries, quotes, deposits, menus, dietary lists, suppliers, rosters, and run sheets, all handled by a few people across a few apps. We sit with you and map one event from enquiry to pack-down, then mark the steps that eat time. The service itself, and every call about food safety, stays with your team.
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What we map in a venue or catering business
Enquiry to booking
How enquiries arrive, how quotes get built, and how long couples or clients wait for an answer.
Booking to final numbers
Deposits, menu choices, dietary lists, and the reminders that live in the manager's head.
The week of the event
Supplier confirmations, rosters, run sheets, and prep lists, and who makes each one.
After the event
Final invoices, thank-yous, reviews, and the debrief that rarely happens.
The weeks before the event
Ask a venue how long a wedding takes and you’ll hear about the day. The weeks before are where the hours hide. The enquiry and quote. The site visit. The deposit. Menu tasting. Final numbers. The dietary list. Supplier confirmations. The roster. The run sheet. Most of it sits in the events manager’s head, a HubSpot record, and a stack of emails, and nobody has ever counted it.
How we map it
Mapping how you work (the industry calls it process mapping) means writing down each step of a job, who does it, which tool it happens in, and how long it really takes. For a venue or caterer, we follow one event or catering order from enquiry to pack-down. We look at your enquiry form, inbox, booking records, and how the kitchen gets its lists. Then we mark the steps that repeat, the ones that wait on a client, and the ones that only your team should do.
What mapping found in two businesses
We work with The Orchard Barn, an eight-person wedding venue in the Barossa, where the slow step was building custom quotes, which took up to 3 days. An AI helper now drafts them, and quotes go out within a day, with the events manager still calling every couple. We also work with a six-person cafe with a catering arm, where the problem was orders spread across email, phone, and forms. They now sit in one sheet with a daily prep list, and there were no missed orders in the first two months. Both were problems before the event, not on the day.
The limits of mapping
A map shows today, and it won’t fix anything on its own. It also needs the real version of your season, including the weekend with three events back to back. If it only shows a quiet month, AI gets pointed at the wrong step.
If you’re not sure where your team’s week goes, get your AI Starter Plan. It’s the quickest first map.
Related
Read about our Mapping how you work service, and how we help small teams in hospitality and events.
Common questions
We're a small team. Why map anything?
How long does it take?
Do we keep the map?
What does it cost?
Will it try to automate service?
Start with a map of one event
Talk us through your last event from enquiry to pack-down. Get your AI Starter Plan and you'll see where the time went.
Get your AI Starter Plan