Using glamping to expand what a venue can hold

A furnished bell tent with a real bed is a good night’s sleep. A bare tent with a camp mat, in November, is not, and putting your junior people in one while everyone else has a room is a decision your team will remember.

Ask what is in the tent, when they are up, and what the plan is if it is cold.

Doubling sleeping capacity with tents does not double bathrooms. Find out what the tent guests use, how far it is in the dark, and whether it is lit.

Glamping works beautifully from late spring to early autumn and is a hard sell outside that. Any venue quoting tent capacity for a January event should be asked directly whether they would sleep in one that week.

If some of the group is under canvas, either let people choose, or rotate. Assigning by seniority is the fastest way to make a retreat feel like the office.