Wedding,party venue

Mrs_Huggett

Are there any ex publicans out there that could give me an idea of the type of pitfalls of buying a closed down pub and re opening it for the exclusive use of small wedding parties and other small celebrations, and possibly a monthly craft/vintage traders sale? I am hoping to do something along these lines and have started looking at hotels, barn conversions etc, but thought maybe the right pub could work? It doesn't need to earn a lot if in the right place (ie Hubby can still do his day job) but I need it to at least be able to pay for my eldest Son to earn a living wage, we are in our late 50's now, so needing to sort some stuff out for him so we can leave him comfortably off with his own little place (It's complicated). I'm a bit worried that council business rates may be a bit much? But I appreciate they will differ with each property and council, swings and roundabouts eh?

00ec25

bit of a finger in the air question?

does your son want to run a weddings business?
is he any good at it? Your question implies he may not be able to look after himself?

the rateable value of a building is a matter of fact. If you have the finances in place to purchase a building in the first place, then it running costs, whilst obviously important to long term viability, are hardly the first consideration.

Mrs_Huggett

Thanks for your response, It would be a case of once we become too old to cope with it we would sell it on, and buy something small then share out some money between the kids, depending on what tax laws are like by then of course, eldest Son would still have his own little place and hopefully he will be able to get something else or receive some unemployment benefits. I guess we won't know until we try will we?

lincroft1710

The purpose of this venture appears to be to provide a living for your eldest son. But who is actually going to run the business?

Disused out of town centre pubs with land/parking tend to be demolished and housing built on the site or converted into restaurants or supermarkets. Town centre ones converted to apartments or retail/service outlets. So you would be competing against developers for anywhere decent.

Have you done any market research regarding both types of business you would envisage running? Craft fairs do not seem to be as popular as they were a few years ago.

Savvy_Sue

Another obvious point but I'll say it anyway: both weddings and craft fairs tend to be more popular at weekends. Yes, there is a market for weekday weddings, especially if you offer better prices then, but I suspect you'd need to be prepared to work weekends. All weekends. All year.

I'm still unclear whether you're trying to increase your capital so that you can leave your children a larger legacy, or find a suitable home for your eldest, or give your eldest a business opportunity. What you've said doesn't necessarily make me think a pub turned into a wedding venue would meet any of the requirements. It has the possibility of losing a lot of money to my (admittedly generally pessimistic) mind.

And you don't have to explain anything, and it's good that you're thinking ahead, but if your son is currently living with you but will always need supported accommodation, then that is the issue I'd address head-on, now, completely separately from anything else.

Mrs_Huggett

I sometimes work within the field of weddings etc anyway so I'm aware of the fact that weekends are going to be the key time, however I would like to do more in the way of creating a bespoke day for couples in the first instance, revolving around the vintage scene that I work in, but not to the exclusion of others tastes obviously, Eldest would really just be there to help lift and shift, enough to give him a part time job, he lives in his own place and has a volunteer job where he is valued. And he's not going to be left a whole huge business to run when we've gone lol (the others would be miffed at that). This is more a way of using the money we have in our house now, selling that for a place that can be somewhere for us to live and for me to start this business and give eldest a little bit of money for a part time job. Funnily enough I spotted somewhere online last night and will investigate more, unless Brexit gets cancelled, and we lose our marbles completely and clear off to France hahaha!!