A new venue-finding agency, HeyVenues, launched last month, founded by Arctic Fox Events directors Nicky Brown, Aimee Cloona and Sarah Beall.
In this feature, we catch up with the long-time business partners to explore their journey, the thinking behind the new launch, and what comes next.
Brown and Cloona first worked together at Forum Events. As they progressed in their respective roles, conversations began about doing something of their own. Cloona explains: “We’d both hit a ceiling different roles, different frustrations. We talked about doing something ourselves and then it just happened.” This is when Arctic Fox Events was launched.
Brown adds: “We weren’t best friends. It was very much a work thing, but it worked.”
Cloona continues: “We enjoyed different things, and that balance really worked. We started Arctic Fox, and now we’ve gone again with HeyVenues.”
The concept of HeyVenues had been bubbling away for years. Cloona was the resident venue finder at Forum Events when the duo first met, meaning that she was responsible for sourcing and booking venues. She explains: “I was already using venue-finding platforms at the time. There weren’t many back then and certainly none that were particularly good so even from the very beginning I thought, we need our own platform.”
She continues: “I always imagined walking into the office and seeing everyone using our own system, searching for venues. We have such strong relationships with venues across the UK and overseas that it just felt like the most obvious, natural step for us.”
The pair were originally preparing to launch the agency in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to a standstill. Cloona said: “We parked it for a few years, then we steadied the ship, grew the team and last March really felt like the right time to revisit it.”
Brown added: “We were in a position with clients and venues where it felt like the right fit. We’re a small team, but we pride ourselves on relationships. Venues were really engaged during the research phase. We understand both sides, the venue and the client, which puts us in a different position to others launching these kinds of platforms. We’ve worked in events for decades. We know what we’d actually use.”
Designed with simplicity front of mind, HeyVenues allows venues to upload their details, and imagery and promote multiple spaces, with minimal friction. The platform avoids unnecessary complexity, a response to the clunky systems many venues have grown used to. HeyVenues operates on a commission-based model, remaining completely free for venues to list, with no upfront costs or contractual commitments.
For bookers, only two or three fields are mandatory and a fixed event date isn’t required, something that people often don’t know when they are initially hunting for a venue. Once an enquiry is submitted, it goes directly to the venue, with HeyVenues staying aware not in the middle. Brown explains: “Simplicity was massive for us. We had venues sign up before they’d even seen the site, they trusted us. The feedback was immediate: that was really easy. It has to be straightforward. It’s there to help.”
Cloona explains that the pairs two businesses, Arctic Fox and Hey Venues, are designed to complement, rather than compete with, one another and will sit side by side. She says: “Arctic Fox will always have clients who want full account management and hands-on, human support. But there are also plenty of people who don’t want that level of service they still need to book venues, just in a different way. Hey Venues allows us to capture that part of the market.”
She adds: “There’s a huge pot of event spend out there. Arctic Fox isn’t booking all of it, so if we can access some of that through the platform, that’s a win.”
Ahead of the launch of HeyVenues, Brown and Cloona spoke directly with all existing Arctic Fox clients to reassure them that the new platform would not change the agency’s approach or service. The response was overwhelmingly positive.
Clients requiring fully managed, hands-on support would continue to work with Arctic Fox, while those preferring a self-serve route would be directed to Hey Venues, ensuring each business plays a clear, complementary role.
Looking ahead, Brown and Cloona are realistic about what success looks like. For them, it’s not rapid scale but repeat traffic, trust, and venues seeing genuine bookings come through the platform.
Cloona describes HeyVenues as a “slow burner”, designed to become people’s favourite venue-finding platform over time. Brown points to the variety of venues already signing up, including a bookshop near Birmingham and even a prison, as proof of its potential to find spaces planners may never have considered or heard of before. She says: “That’s exactly what we do at Arctic Fox, matching the right client to the right venue and that’s mirrored here.”
The launch of HeyVenues was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from across the industry. Brown and Cloona describe the first week as intense but affirming, with support coming from clients, industry colleagues, venues, friends and family, many of whom actively shared and promoted the platform across their networks.
Much of that engagement happened organically. Venues signed up independently after seeing social posts or advertisements, some without any prior relationship with Arctic Fox, while others reached out with feedback or messages of encouragement. The response also extended beyond the events industry, with people previously unfamiliar with venue-finding engaging with the platform because it offered something tangible they could explore and understand.
Reflecting on the first week, both founders say the level of goodwill was reassuring after years of development, reinforcing the trust and relationships that underpin both Hey Venues and Arctic Fox.