Why human relationships are venue sourcing’s most underrated asset

The brief arrives in my inbox at 4.30pm on a Thursday. New York City, high-end modern venue with Manhattan style, 200 guests with food truck catering. I stare at it, for a moment, and then head into the office kitchen, where I’d just seen my colleague, Abigail, boiling the kettle.

I run the project past her, feeling the familiar thrill of a challenge, but she, as our resident expert on venues in New York, is perfectly calm. ‘I can think of a couple,’ she muses, mashing her teabag. ‘Let me call Isabelle at Lavan Midtown. It’s very slick and cool, and their events team can make anything happen.’

By 9am the next day, she’s sent me three great options, all of which we can secure with rates the suppliers offer to Trinity because of our existing relationships. It’s easy to underestimate the value of human connection and chemistry, as everyone rushes to capitalise on the rise of agentic and generative AI, but in venue sourcing, relationships are something you can’t fake. Our relationships, and the investment we proactively make in maintaining them, are the reason we can deliver, and deliver deals that are genuinely exclusive to our clients.

Trinity managing director Tracy Winsworth

"We make use of technology to streamline our work and automate administrative tasks, but there is no replacement for human knowledge. "

Trinity has been in business for 20 years, this year, and we’re launching a fresh new look to celebrate, but the main thing I’ve been reflecting on lately is how the core of what we do hasn’t changed. Our ‘little black book’ is digital now, and we make use of technology to streamline our work and automate administrative tasks, but there is no replacement for human knowledge.

We made the decision years ago to invest in our staff to promote their destination insights, rather than their sector expertise. We created the Trinity Academy, a training and development programme that provides a structured and progressive learning journey and offers a clear pathway to expertise and advancement. It has led to staff who stay with us through their careers, building mastery and acting as internal ‘destination champions’. Any one of them can work with insight in any sector, responding to client needs with precision and creativity, but their knowledge of ‘their’ destination, its suppliers, venues and unique personality is unmatched.

This is what AI cannot fake. A familiar voice on the phone, asking after your kids and asking for insight or a small favour. There is a level of charisma necessary in our industry to make things happen for our clients on tight schedules, tight budgets and, occasionally, deliver a on venue brief that feels too ambitious or complex to pull off.

A lot has been said in recent months about the value of live experiences as the digital world becomes crowded, dilute with misinformation and hard-to-connect-with. I fully agree; in my experience, events have a unique power to drive transformation and help businesses who need to succeed on their mission: engaging audiences, creating communities, and driving brand excitement. A factor often overlooked, though, is the essential work that goes into sourcing venues that provide the foundation to that experience. A spectacular event can be let down by bad acoustics, tech issues, loud construction work or any number of other flaws that AI can’t perceive from the ether.

We’re very proud to still have human-led, collaborative venue sourcing at the core of what we do. It takes us beyond the global expertise we’re known for, and allows us to leverage relationships to provide venue outcomes that are exclusive, built on something real and bespoke to our clients’ needs. Technology has transformed our industry, but it’s trust that closes the deal. Here’s to 20 more years of human connection.

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