Interview with Steve Wilock: Part 2 – Event Venue

 Q: Why do you think this is such a successful venue for corporate events?

A: The trouble with a lot of corporate venues is that they have a single dynamic. They have a nice room, a bar, and some food. They have a lovely facility, but that’s it. Here we’ve got a nice bar. We’ve got a lovely conference suite facility. We’ve got a kitchen capable of catering and we’ve got outside beautiful patio areas. We’ve got 2 80-inch television screens for presentations and we’ve got AV set-up all around the place for both projection screens. Everything you need.

We have a projection screen, we have TVs, and we have great PA systems in both the corporate suite and the main room. So there’s nothing that the hotel can offer that we can’t offer and do very, very well and quite often at a fraction of the price. However, here there is that additional dynamic if you want to introduce some fun to the day. After your sales conference, you can have a Team Building Exercise. Go have a game of football. Or have a Frisbee competition or, you know, have a 5-A-side game or whatever. There are lots of different activities you can do, and that changes the whole day. We have all the equipment here for different things. And not just with sport. If you don’t want an ordinary meal, have a BBQ! There’s an Aussie Rules Football team – the Manchester Mosquitoes – who come here twice a year for a proper Australian BBQ!”

Q: So you get corporate events because of the extras you offer?

A: I’ll give you an example of a corporate party. Albert Schloss, the people who run the Albert Schloss bar in Manchester bring their staff here every year. And you know, they’ve got the best facilities on the planet in their bar. Yet they bring their entire staff here for their corporate party and they set up outside bars and they put on some live music and they will do a barbecue and all that kind of stuff. They come every year here because we can offer that bit extra. If there’s something in particular you want we can work with third party companies to bring them in too. You want clay pigeon shooting, we have the space and will bring in an outside company to provide it for you.

Q: Flexibility seems key

A: This facility has many faces depending upon what you want. If it’s outdoor activities you want, we’ve got outdoor space; if it’s indoor where you want tight group training, we can secure the Grundy Suite in there and feed you breakfast. Come in at 8:30 in the morning, and sit down and have a full English breakfast, then get into the work day until lunchtime. We’ll feed you a light lunch and then when it all breaks down, everybody can have a drink and relax, play something like Footgolf. You know that kind of day is extremely popular.

Q: What other types of events do you have here?

A: At the other end of the spectrum are funerals. We have almost by accident become the destination place for larger wakes and funerals. Funerals have changed. They are less religious these days, and if someone is well-loved not everyone can fit into the crematorium. Then you have the problem of moving 200 people into a different location. Here we set up the marquee and have the main ceremony, not a religious one, in there with the immediate family, and the rest of the people are on the patio or in the club rooms watching it on the TVs. So it can all happen in one place. We do the catering and we’ve had live music. Some of the members who have died have requested their funeral here and I had the honour of being the celebrant. There is a really strong sense of community in that. This is the perfect place to have a funeral that is a celebration of someone’s life. We have the space for parking so it’s easy to get to. It’s a big way of reaching out to our local community that is not necessarily directly involved with the rugby club and providing them with a venue that is well-proven and unique.

Q: And you do weddings too?

A: We do weddings, christenings, private parties. We have a marquee permanently set up by the patio and if you want something really big, we can use the huge marquee. That doesn’t get left up so it doesn’t damage the pitch. We used to have the Manchester Show here, with about 5000 people, but that would damage our new pitches now, so we limit numbers to around 600.”

Q: So how do you see the club moving into the future?

A: We remain unique and probably for one reason. We own all our assets. Other clubs have brought in other sports like football and squash, but those other sports get an equal say in the running of the club, and it ends up with the tail wagging the dog. We own all the infrastructure. We own the 4G, we own the pitches, we own the marquee. Everything feeds back into supporting the rugby. And we have developed a very sustainable site here. We have solar panels and heat pumps. We recognise things are changing, and we are changing with it. And when we recognise those changes and react to them in ways that can benefit both the club and the communities we serve.

Funerals changed so we adapted the facility to meet that change. Golf diminished, so we brought in footgolf. We recognised that change. We have an asset and we try and recognise how to develop it to benefit our community locally and beyond. Right from 1936 when Bill Varley and his cohorts were setting up the club, the founding principles always had one eye on the commercial side. Too many good clubs have gone to the wall for not running properly as a business and that won’t happen to us.

 The corporate world has changed too. There used to be a ton of money that was spent on corporate entertainment, but those days have gone. But by stopping these things the mental health and camaraderie of your staff has suffered. If you don’t do anything, you lose the community of your corporate business.  Facilities like this can offer smaller-scale events that help preserve it.  You can have 200 or 300 people here for a family day for all your staff, like Edge Worldwide Logistics do, and that day is a relationship building day with your staff, suppliers, and customers. And we can offer this as a relatively low-cost option. The corporate world has had a rethink about how to keep their staff happy, and we are the frontline of providing that.”

So if you are looking for a venue for your event  in South Manchester, from funeral, to milestone party, to corporate team-building, with easy accessibility and very competitive pricing, then I suggest you check out Burnage Rugby Football club.