Self Catering Venues Auckland

Self catering venues in Auckland are hard to come by and this shouldn’t really come as a big surprise. If you step back for a moment and think about all venues as businesses, you’ll realise that the way most venues make their money is through the catering that they provide. Sure, they may make money from other things like a venue hire fee or accommodation, if they have it, but by and large, catering – food and drink – is how venues earn a living. That’s why so many of them don’t offer self catering as an option but there are a few that do. Firstly, most community halls will allow you to self cater. They’ll have basic kitchen facilities on site that you can use and you’ll find that the venue hire costs are really reasonable as well. But the compromise is that a community hall tends to be an older building with very basic facilities and furniture. If you’re looking for a self catering venue in Auckland to create an event with style and high quality furnishings then you’ll have to look into hiring your own furniture and decorate the space to match the vision you have for the event. This is when the costs will start adding up quite quickly. You’ll have to work out if the time and effort and additional cost is worth it or if you are better off booking a venue that’s already got the look and feel you’re after where they will supply the catering.

Other places that we work with who will allow you to do your own catering are:

Hus venue in Coatesville – This is a fabulous space for a special event and there are a number of rooms/spaces available to hire. You can hire their ground floor studio space for events for up to 100 people with wonderful views and access to the outdoors via their huge barn doors. As a dry hire space you will have to bring in your own furniture. Upstairs there’s a fully furnished property where you can conference with small groups of up to 20 people. It has been stylishly furnished and you’ll get full use of the expansive deck area overlooking the beautiful landscape. You can also book to stay here overnight with 6 bedrooms, sleeping up to 11 people.

Bruce Pulman Park and Lodge – situated in Takanini, South Auckland is this vast venue, set on 65 acres. There are meeting and conference spaces in the main sports arena which can host large groups; there are conference rooms and plenty of accommodation in the Bruce Pulman Lodge; there’s a sports club with large decks overlooking the playing fields and a lot more that you can do here. It’s only limited by your imagination. You can self cater if you like but you should definitely talk to the team there about their new catering services too. They are reasonably priced and might be well worth it to save you a lot of work. But the great thing is that they are flexible.

Brick Barn – this is a small character space for meetings, workshops and photo or film shoots, tucked away down a quiet street in Grey Lynn. Self catering is totally fine here so do get in touch with them if you’re on a tight budget.

Flagship – this is a fabulous, environmentally green venue at Silo Park down at the waterfront. The space is versatile for meetings, presentations, cocktail functions and special events. And you are welcome to organise your own catering.

On Waiheke Island you’ll need to think creatively if you want to visit and do your own catering. None of the vineyards will allow self catering but there are places where it can be done.

There are some awesome private properties where you can bring your own catering or have it delivered to the property for you. This is a service that our sister company, Let Me Out, offers and we work with some fantastic local artisan food producers to deliver freshly made morning teas, lunches and afternoon teas for groups who want to meet or conference on the island for the day.
Key properties to consider are:

Moana Ave for small meetings with up to 10 people attending. Easy to get to from the ferry, this private property is yours for the day to meet and work without disturbance.

Waiheke Waterfront Lodge has a great property for up to 20 people and the owners, Andy and Pip, will take great care of you. They can arrange catering for you or you can arrange your own. You can also stay overnight in their luxury B&B including a fully designed disability suite/property.

For other private property options on Waiheke, contact our team at Let Me Out as they can package up your ferry tickets, transfers, catering and activity needs.

How To Make Life Easy For Yourself As The Meeting Organiser.

When all is said and done, there are some basic things that you should do to make life easy for yourself as a meeting organiser. Make sure you’ve got a budget from your business and think through the reality of the costs before you start your venue search. The best way to do this is to take your ball park figure and divide it by the likely number of people attending the event. For example, if you’ve got an overall budget of $700 and there are likely to be 20 people attending, that works out at $35 dollars each. Do you think that is enough for venue hire and for food? It’s probably not if you’re looking for something of a high quality so think again before you spend hours searching for the impossible!

Remember when you are contacting venues that they normally make their money from a combination of venue hire and catering. They have to make business decisions every day about whether it’s worth opening their doors and if you want to self cater then, other than those places similar to the ones mentioned above, it’s probably not worth it. Even if they do allow you to self cater, expect to pay a higher venue hire fee.

After ten years of running a corporate events business we understand that budgets can have a big impact on events. Nobody wants to be over charged but on the flip side no venue or events company wants to waste your time, their time or their partner operators’ time in trying to cobble an event together when the budget is just too low.

I urge you to do your homework and be realistic about what it’s going to cost. And also encourage you to go back to your manager, boss or business owner and talk to them at a professional level about what budget you need to book the type of event that they are imagining. By taking this approach you’ll be saving yourself and everyone else a lot of wasted time so that you can focus on things that really matter to the business.

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For more venue ideas go to our listings page or contact us for a chat.