Cheltenham event management - timing is half the brief
Anyone familiar with Cheltenham knows that the the city hosts more major festivals than almost any other UK town outside London - jazz, racing, science, music, literature, food and drink, to name a few. So when you host your event matters as much as where and the calendar shapes everything from venue availability to hotel pricing to how the town feels on the day.
We understand the ebb and flow of event planning in Cheltenham because we've been putting on events there for 25 years. We know the calendar in detail.
Talk to us about your Bath event | 01793 772999
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Award winning end-to-end event management since 2001
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30 minutes from Cheltenham along the A417
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Safe Contractor accredited
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Gateway to the Cotswolds and the Midlands
Events delivered in Cheltenham
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Multi-Activity Day at Sudeley Castle
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Executive Meetings at Ellenborough Park
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Spy team building games around Cheltenham Town and Pittville Park
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Gala dinner at the Cheltenham Racecourse
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Corporate hospitality picnic at Cheltenham Festival.
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Theme party install at Hatherley Manor
Why does the calendar run Cheltenham?
Many UK cities have one or two Aimee events that affect planning per year. Cheltenham has by our count at least seven, many of which take place in a small town centre but host most of them in the same venues.
The festival fun begins in March with the Cheltenham Festival, four days of racing built around the Gold Cup. While this is on the town effectively closes to other large events During racing week 250,000 race covers descend on the town with every hotel within 30 miles booked out and venue start stretched ultra thin. More of the same again in mid-November for the smaller November meeting.
In between the racing dates, a lot more happens. For example, Cheltenham hosts the country's best regarded Literature Festival and this takes place for about 10 days in October. Also during the window is one of the strongest Jazz festivals in Europe (early May), a major science festival (June), a music festival (July) and a food and drink festival often timed alongside science. Any one of these tends to book out the Town Hall, the Pitville Pump room, Imperial Gardens marquee space and the better hotels.
With local experience and the ability to plan around these gives you one of the best mid-sized event towns in the UK. Plan into them, or worse, plan to ignore them and your event becomes either impossible or twice the price it should be. When we speak with clients about events in Cheltenham the first conversation we have is about the calendar.
Why does the calendar run Cheltenham?
The windows that matter when you're choosing dates:
March (4 days, mid-month) - Sees the Cheltenham Festival (Gold Cup racing). The Town is pretty much closed to any other major events. Best avoided unless your event IS race-day hospitality.
End April / early May (6 days) - It’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival. The Town Hall, Pittville Pump Room and the higher quality hotels are all heavily booked. Possible to put on your event but there are constraints.
Early June (6 days) - Now it’s the Cheltenham Science Festival. A similar venue impact to Jazz, plus high media presence in the town.
June (variable dates) - Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival. Imperial Gardens and town centre venues are affected.
Early July (8 days) - The Cheltenham Music Festival kicks off. Classical music draws a different audience but venue availability is still a factor to consider.
Early October (10 days) - Brings the Cheltenham Literature Festival. This is the biggest of the non-racing festivals and Hotel availability effectively vanishes for 90 minutes' drive in any direction.
Mid-November (3 days) - November Racing. Smaller than the March festival, certainly, but the same hotel and venue effect at scale.
The quiet windows - If you're planning an event then you need to know where the quieter windows are. firstly mid-March before the festival, late May too early to, late July through early September and the second half of October through early November. These are where you'll find the best dates for a Cheltenham corporate event. Choose wisely.
What we cover
Corporate event management
Services include leadership offsites, customer hospitality days, awards dinners, partner events and conferences for clients who want a Cotswolds feel without the country-house remoteness.
Team activities
The Cotswolds offer a great opportunity for team activities and offer an environment That is often different from most cities. for example, Manor House treasure hunts are popular, vintage car rallies along the Cotswolds Way, country pub takeovers for activity-led days.
Theme parties
Regency-themed events at the Pump Room, country-house weekends at the smaller manor estates, racecourse hospitality with full theming for major brand events. Read more about Themed parties.
Venue finding
Cheltenham Town offers plenty of options across the town centre, Racecourse and Country Estates within 30 minutes drive. Picking carefully and successfully means knowing which work for which event size and timing, which we do for you.
Children and venues we know and recommend
Cheltenham tends to lend itself particularly well to events with three main characteristics:
A London audience that wants out of the city, a brief that benefits from a Regency or country feel and a date that sits cleanly between festival Windows.
For example, the Cotswold's country houses just outside town - Ellenborough Park, Hatherley Manor, Sudeley castle on the Winchcombe Road and the various smaller manor estates - work well for a two-day executive offsite and milestone client hospitality. In the town itself, consider Awards dinners and Theme Parties at Pittville Pump Room, Conferences at the Town Hall and corporate hospitality at the Racecourse outside race week dates.
Cheltenham is also a transport asset for events in the southwest. Cheltenham Spa station runs direct to London Paddington in about 2 hours 15 minutes but it also runs to Bristol in 35 minutes and Birmingham in 40. For events with a mixed Midlands and southwest audience that combination is genuinely rare.
Cheltenham venues we've managed events at
A short list of venues we work with regularly, with the kind of characteristics a website tour won't tell you:
Country venues we love near Cheltenham
Ellenborough Park
A Planet Pursuits favourite, steeped in history and boasting 90 acres of glorious grounds, the Ellenborough Park estate hotel is nestled between the Cotswolds' highest point and the gallops of Cheltenham Racecourse.
Sudeley Castle
Near Winchcombe, Sudeley Castle is a unique historic, Grade I listed castle in the Cotswolds Gloucestershire. Set amid 1,200 acres of parkland, it suites an array of corporate evtns use.
Hatherley Manor
A stunning manor house set amidst 37 acres of beautiful manicured grounds, including a Walled Garden, in the heart of the Gloucestershire countryside with easy access to Chltenham.
More options!
IIf none of these would make your short list, then we can probably still help. We've also delivered events at the Pittville Pump Rooms in Central Cheltenham in the last 12 months. Give our team a call today, and we can explore venues we know well, or we will conduct a free venue search.
Pittville Pump Rooms
Famed for its eyewitness account from the 1800s recorded seeing ‘a stupendous elephant swimming in the Pittville Lake’, Pittville Pump Rooms serves as an iconic starting point for an event in historic Cheltenham.
Featured events in and around Cheltenham
Client: Ernst & Young
Murder Mystery Ellenborough Park
Perfect backdrop to our 1920s murder mystery for Ernst & Young with its dramatic interiors and stunning setting
Client: Cheltenham Borough Council
Cheltenham Festival
Various events over the last ten years supporting the Cheltenham Festival with infrastructure, stretch tents and audio-visual
Client: Profund Systems
Sudeley Castle
Various events over the years, but most memorable was a multi-activity day for Profund System at Sudeley Castle, utilising extensive grounds for clay shooting, buggy driving, archey and axe throwing
How we approach Cheltenham events
We follow broadly the same process in every city we work in-a first chat to understand the brief from you then design and then venue work. This is followed by a build phase and the event itself ending with a proper catch up and lessons learned afterwards.
Our founder Simon Maddison personally leads all initial discovery sessions and has been working in event management since 2001.
"Planet Pursuits delivered an exceptional spy game in Cheltenham for our marketing team. It included historical fact-finding mission and ended with a sumptuous picnic in the Pittville Gardens
Mark Vernon CEO, Spirax Group
Question about Cheltenham events
How does the festival calendar affect what we can do?
Goodness me, yes and in many ways. If your event date is fixed and falls inside one of the major festival windows expect compromise venue choices and highly inflated hotel costs. On the other hand, if your date’s flexible, slotting it into one of the quiet Windows (mid-March before the racing, late May to early June, late July through early September) usually saves 20 to 30% on the overall bill and gives a fuller venue choice
How is Cheltenham different from Bath as an event base?
Interestingly enough, these two locations are often shortlisted against each other and in fact they suit different briefs. In our view, Bath leans towards heritage events under 250 guests with a strong tourism-led personality and Roman/Georgian character. Cheltenham, on the other hand, has more flexibility in capacity, a stronger Cotswolds country-house dimension and significantly better access to The Midlands by rail. For events that have a national law mixed audience, we find that Cheltenham often wins on transport. For events where the venue itself is the point, Bath often wins on character.
Can you handle events that coincide with race meetings?
Yes we can and often do based on our experience of working in Cheltenham Town for clients. If the event is the racing then we deliver hospitality boxes and Theme Parties at the racecourse for clients across both the March festival and the November meeting. What we don't recommend is trying to run a separate event in town during a race week - the logistics work against you and the brief almost always leads to disappointment
What's the best way to get to Cheltenham from London and the Midlands?
Cheltenham Spa station offers direct trains to London Paddington that take about 2 hours 15 minutes end-to-end. Most delegates we’ve seen from London arrived by train. For drive-in audiences, the M5 Junction 11 is the closest motorway access. We usually recommend trains for events of any scale - Cheltenham parking is workable but not there in abundance.
Can a Cheltenham event extend to a Cotswold Country House weekend?
Absolutely and frequently. A common event outline is a daytime event in central Cheltenham (the Town Hall, Pump Room or Racecourse) followed by a residential evening at one of the country house venues about half an hour outside town. We handle both parts under a single Project and plan.
Is Cheltenham suitable for team building activities?
We don't like to say we have a favourite, but there are some venues we absolutely love working in, and one of them is Ellenborough Park. If you are looking for outside space for a multi-activity day, I would definitely give Sudeley Castle a look. If it's in central, Cheltenham, I would suggest the Pitville Pump Rooms. We use Queens Ho Mmaison and Hotel Du Vin quiet often for management away days in Cheltenham Town.
Do a favour for you in Cheltenham?
We don't like to say we have a favourite, but there are some venues we absolutely love working in, and one of them is Ellenborough Park. If you are looking for outside space for a multi-activity day, I would definitely give Sudeley Castle a look. If it's in central, Cheltenham, I would suggest the Pitville Pump Rooms. We use Queens Hotel, THe Malmaison and Hotel Du Vin quiet often for management away days in Cheltenham Town and Double Tree by Hilton just on the outskirts.
Looking for a different city?
If you're planning an event elsewhere, these are the right starting points:
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Bath events → (Link)
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Oxford events → (Link)
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Corporate events hub → (Link) - if you'd rather consider options by service than location
Drop us a line about your Cheltenham event
Phone 01793 772999 or email events@planetpursuits.com click to email us
Why not send us an outline brief or perhaps give us a call or ask for a call-back. We'll come back with date options that work with the calendar, our thoughts on a possible venue or two and a sensible budget range for your consideration. In the event your timeline crashes into a festival window then we'll say so honestly and suggest the nearest workable dates either side.
