Choosing a venue for a 300–1,000 guest event in Da Nang: indoor arena, hotel ballroom or beach?

For an event of 300–1,000 guests, the venue decides most of what the script is allowed to do. Clear height sets the size of screen you can hang; floor loading sets where the stage can stand; the power already on site decides whether you also pay for a generator. This article compares the three spaces used most often in Da Nang in the order a site survey should work through them — not by which one looks the most impressive.

Three kinds of space, three kinds of programme#

Indoor arenas give volume, high ceilings and a continuous flat floor: suited to dance battles, music shows and large conferences that need raked seating or several functional zones. The trade-off is acoustics — hard surfaces, big volume, a long reverberation tail — and decor has to be built almost from scratch, because the space brings no finish of its own.

Hotel ballrooms and banquet restaurants come with the finish already in place, plus air conditioning, catering logistics and washrooms to standard: suited to galas, year-end parties, signing ceremonies and customer conferences. The limits are low ceilings and few rigging points — many ballrooms allow no load hung from the structure at all, so screens and lighting have to move onto ground-support towers, and those towers stand on the floor and eat into the guest area.

Beaches, riverfronts and open ground give a setting nothing else replaces: suited to grand openings, festivals, music nights and any item staged on the water. In return you take on the whole weather risk and build almost everything from zero — power, washrooms and walkways included. Risks and contingency plans in detail: seven weather risks for coastal events.

Ten things to measure on the site survey#

1. Ceiling: clear height and obstructions#

Measure to the real lowest point — beams, air-conditioning ducts, the house lighting rig — not the figure printed in the brochure. Clear height decides the size of the LED screen and whether a truss can cross above the stage at all. A low ballroom with an oversized screen blocks the view from the back tables, and that only shows up once the tables are actually set.

2. Rigging points and permitted loads#

Three questions to put in writing: what may be rigged from, how much load each point takes, and who confirms it. With no rigging points at all, the whole lighting rig and all the screens move onto stands or a ground-support tower — more floor space taken, more cost added. Both consequences belong in the quotation, not in a discovery made on build day.

3. Floor: loading, level and surface protection#

Sprung sports floors and stone ballroom floors usually come with protection conditions: matting laid first, forklifts restricted, no drilling. On sand, go back to the ground load spreading section in the weather article. This is another line item that regularly gets left out of a budget.

4. Power on site#

There are three things to pin down here: the total capacity available on site, the position of the distribution board, and the type of termination waiting on it. An event with a large LED screen, stage lighting and a service kitchen can exceed a ballroom’s allowance and force a generator — bringing with it a place to stand it, noise control and a cable run. A backup generator is compulsory for any programme with a ceremony that cannot be interrupted.

5. Acoustics and noise limits#

Indoors: clap once in the empty room and judge the tail, then ask what the house PA covers so you know what to add. Outdoors: ask for the noise limit and the hours amplified sound is permitted — sites near housing, or a hotel with guests in residence, usually have a hard cut-off, and it sets the time your programme has to end.

6. Access for heavy loads#

Measure the door widths and the basement clearance, ask whether there is a goods lift, and pace out the distance from the truck bay to the stage. A beautiful ballroom where the truck has to park 150 metres away adds half a day to the build and puts more crew on load-in. For anything with an LED screen, agree in advance which route the gear comes in on, and the hours access is allowed.

7. Backstage and artist green rooms#

You need enough room for the technical crew, a changing area with mirrors and power sockets, and a route out to the stage that does not cut across the guest area. A programme with many performance items and a cramped backstage produces slow scene changes all by itself — the fault an audience sees most clearly.

8. Real capacity for your own table layout#

The capacity a venue publishes is normally counted theatre-style, in rows of chairs facing the stage. In the same room, a round-table banquet can lose 35–45% of that capacity once you subtract circulation, the stage, the check-in desk and the service area. Ask for a floor plan drawn for your own format, with the real number of tables on it.

9. Washrooms, parking and fire exits#

Count the washrooms against the guest numbers and the expected male/female split; count the parking spaces for guests and, separately, for technical vehicles; and check that no piece of decor is standing in front of a fire exit. The last one is a safety condition, not an aesthetic point open to negotiation.

10. Contract terms and hidden costs#

Get these on paper: the hour you may start building and the hour the space must be handed back; the charge for overtime; the charge for power; any obligation to use the venue’s own catering or technical supplier; and the terms for cancellation and compensation. Many venues price an overnight build separately — if the programme needs a full day to build, that single figure moves the whole budget.

At a glance#

A faster way to choose#

Start from the item in the programme that cannot be compromised, not from a list of venues. If the centrepiece is a big screen and layered stage numbers, ceiling and rigging points go to the top. If the centrepiece is the banquet and a formal ceremony, logistics and finish go to the top. If the centrepiece is the setting and an item on the water, accept the spend on a contingency plan in the very first estimate.

We run site surveys and arrange venues programme by programme — indoor arenas, hotel ballrooms, restaurants, beaches — together with staging, sound, lighting, LED screens and marquees hired to the brief. See the venue and equipment rental group or send a site survey request with your guest numbers and target date.