The Foundling Museum

The Challenge

The Foundling Museum is a distinctive central London venue, with beautiful rooms for entertaining and strong mid-sized conference facilities. The events product was sound and the offer attractive.

However, income from venue hire was on a downward trajectory. Despite benchmarking prices against comparable venues and generating sufficient enquiry levels, conversion rates were low and falling. The Museum needed to reverse this trend and restore events income as a meaningful contributor to its charitable mission.

Our Approach

E+M+C’s Guy Rodger was asked a clear, focused question: how can we increase income from events. The answer lay in shifting the commercial approach and the mindset of the events team. Key initiatives included:

• Clarity & Direction – Identifying that the core issue was not demand, but conversion. The Museum was competitively priced and attracting enquiries, yet the fixed venue hire model and quoting process were acting as a barrier to booking.
• Market Reach & Influence – Preserving the Museum’s positioning as a high-quality, central London venue, while reframing client conversations away from a rigid price sheet and towards a collaborative discussion about how to make events work commercially for both sides.
• Systems & Structure – Moving the team away from quoting from a fixed venue rental price list and introducing a structured approach to asking about budget, lead time, date flexibility and overall revenue potential. This created a more agile framework for securing business without discounting the brand.
• Revenue & Performance – Coaching the team to treat each enquiry as a commercial opportunity rather than a standard transaction. This included prioritising dates with higher revenue potential, flexing packages where appropriate and understanding how to maximise yield across the diary.
• People & Culture – Empowering the events team to think like entrepreneurs rather than functionaries. This cultural shift required confidence, support and reinforcement, but ultimately enabled the team to negotiate, problem-solve and close business in a more proactive and strategic manner.

The Results

The Museum’s events revenue increased significantly and returned to a positive growth trajectory. Conversion rates improved as potential clients experienced a more engaged, solutions-focused sales process, tailored to their needs and budgets while protecting the value of the venue.

The events operation is once again able to make a meaningful contribution to the charity that the Museum supports, strengthening the link between commercial activity and mission.

Impact

The Foundling Museum case shows that performance is not always about changing product or price level. In this instance, the key success factor was a shift in approach and mindset, supported by simple but powerful changes to process.

The strength of the Museum’s events team, and their willingness to adopt a different way of working, underpinned the result. E+M+C remains a trusted friend and sounding board for the team, providing informal guidance as required.

To discuss how E+M+C can help improve conversion and commercial performance at your own venue, please contact the team to arrange a consultation.