How to source a venue from your event

This overview explains how venue sourcing runs from the event record and what to have in place before you source. The guides in this series, mapped below, walk through the flow step by step.

They explain searching the connected sourcing partner's network and choosing between instant booking and a venue RFP.

They also take you through comparing bids and awarding the winner, contracting, group accommodation, and the venue rules your organization enforces.

Venue and supplier sourcing runs on an integrated sourcing engine connected to the sourcing partner network.

The network includes the suppliers this flow sources: meeting venues, and the hotel groups behind group accommodation. Audio-visual and other event-services suppliers are managed outside it.

As of August 2026, the connected sourcing partner reports more than 400,000 venue spaces across 124 countries, with multilingual and regional booking support. Its direct API network connects more than 10,000 hotels.

Completed hotel-group routing integrations include Marriott International, IHG, Radisson Hotels, and NH Hotel Group. The partner reports that these routing APIs reduce RFP response times by 85%.

Coverage still varies by market. During implementation, run a country-by-country gap analysis for priority markets, including China. Live availability and rates are shown when instant-book or API inventory is connected.

Elsewhere, the venue confirms availability in a timestamped RFP response. This avoids treating static or scraped availability as current, but it also means that real-time availability is not universal across the network.

Overview

Sourcing runs from the Sourcing module on the event record in Onomi 360. The module's actions require the Sourcing role, assigned in Onomi 360 > Policies > Users and roles with a scope.

The connected search shows the comparable venue information, availability source, rates, and organization flags used to build the shortlist.

A planner who holds the role runs sourcing directly. At agency-served accounts, the agency of record has it and runs sourcing on your behalf.

Without the role the module is read-only, showing the sourcing status and the award.

A Sourcing assignment opens the event records inside its scope, and no list of its own. The events to source are reached two ways.

One is a direct link to the event record, sent by the event's finance owner or by the planner handing sourcing over.

The other is the event's workspace, if the holder is a member of one. Every procedure in this series therefore starts at the event record.

The steps in every guide are identical in both models, and so is the outcome.

Every award, status change, and cost is recorded back on the same event record. Who does the sourcing does not change what your organization can see and audit.

Instant booking and the RFP flow

There are two ways to book. You can book a small, simple meeting instantly at the live rate shown in search.

Everything else runs as a venue RFP, which moves through four sourcing statuses: RFP draft, RFP active, Bids received, and RFP awarded.

Every status change and cost is recorded on the same record for reporting and audit.

An event's sourcing status is shown on the event record's Sourcing module. A venue is confirmed as secured there before execution starts (Start execution).

The Sourcing module opens read-only to two groups: any strategic meetings management assignment with the event in its scope, and the planners of the event's workspace.

An Approver, a Compliance reviewer, or a Program lead assignment with the event in its scope therefore sees the sourcing status and the awarded venue, and can change nothing.

A Program lead opens the event record from the portfolio calendar or its List view (see How to use Onomi 360: the portfolio calendar, engagement view, and reports).

Note: Venue sourcing is enabled per organization. To activate it for your events, please contact your SpotMe Account Manager.

Before you start

Check the following before you source your first venue:

• The Sourcing role. The actions in the Sourcing module require the Sourcing role.

  The role is assigned in Onomi 360 > Policies > Users and roles with a scope, so its holder works the events inside that scope.

  Give it to the planners who source, or to the agency of record at agency-served accounts.

  Their staff have it on top of the Guest organization role and the per-workspace containment their access is built on. Without the role the module is read-only.

  The role reference is documented in Onomi 360 roles, permissions, and scope, and the scope model in Agency access and strategic meetings management scope.

• Sourcing enabled for your organization. If you see no Sourcing module on the event record in Onomi 360, sourcing is not yet enabled; please contact your SpotMe Account Manager.
• Venue rules configured. Your organization's venue rules are set once by an organization administrator, per market, in Onomi 360 > Policies, on the Venue rules tab.

  The tab has six settings: the approved venue list, Require listed venues, preferred venues, venue-type and entertainment restrictions, meal caps, and Centralized selection.

  They act when a venue reaches the event record, and again when an award returns to it. They also act on the meeting request itself.

  Require listed venues blocks an off-list venue on a request's Venue field at submission. Centralized selection constrains that field as well as venue search.

  See Choosing a venue in a restricted market in Setting venue rules in Onomi 360.

  Otherwise they do not act while anyone browses. Search itself is unrestricted, unless Centralized selection is on for the market.

  When it is on, the results come from that market's approved venue list only. The meal cap is checked at request time and again at reconciliation, not on a search or an award.

  A blocking rule refuses the choice and stops there.

  Before you switch Require listed venues on for a market, that market's approved venue list needs to be complete enough for the events your teams run in it.

  The way past a refusal is a listed venue, or an organization administrator adding one. See Setting venue rules in Onomi 360 for the six settings field by field.

• The request details ready. Before going to market, have these to hand:
  • the event's dates, and how flexible they are.
  • the expected attendee count.
  • the meeting rooms you need.
  • food and beverage requirements.
  • accommodation requirements if attendees are staying over.
  • the budget.

  The more complete the request, the more comparable the proposals that come back.

Following sourcing across your events

Sourcing data is event data. An event can have more than one sourcing request, at most one per award target: one for the venue and one for the room block.

A request that includes both the meeting space and the accommodation requirements counts as the venue request. See Group accommodation and room blocks from sourcing.

The Sourcing module lists one row per request. Each row shows its own status, its own award, and the budget category that award committed to.

You can therefore check an award and the budget line it created without opening the Budget module. The request header shows the date the RFP was sent and the date the last bid arrived.

The event's sourcing status

An event shows one sourcing status. That status is the least advanced of the event's sourcing requests.

An event with its venue awarded and its room-block RFP still active therefore shows as sourcing in progress, not secured.

An event with every sourcing request at RFP awarded shows as RFP awarded. You see that status on the event record's Sourcing module.

A confirmed instant booking is read the same way. The request moves from RFP draft straight to RFP awarded, with the venue, the date, and the cost on the event record.

No RFP is sent and no bids are returned. The shortlist it was selected from remains on the awarded request.

Sourcing outcomes are read per event, not across the portfolio. The venue entries are read on the event record, in its Venue section and its Sourcing module.

Each entry shows its venue-rule result. No cross-event sourcing report or export includes them, so to check across the portfolio you open the event records one at a time.

The awarded amount is the exception. It is on the event budget as a cost line, under the category with the Sourcing award target the award needed.

Cost lines on event records are what the Costs report, the costs entity of the report builder, and the reinvoicing summaries read.

The spend is therefore visible across events, even though the venue entry behind it is not. See How to use Onomi 360: the portfolio calendar, engagement view, and reports.

Sourcing on a cancelled event

If an event is cancelled, sourcing winds down on the same record. An active RFP is closed toward the invited venues. An awarded booking moves to cancellation under the terms of the award.

Cancellation fees land in the event budget as actuals through reconciliation, so the cancelled event's sourcing story remains complete and auditable.

See From approval to execution and auditing requests for the cancellation flow, and Reconciliation, invoices, and closing the event for how the fees reconcile.

The guides in this series

The venue sourcing guides split the flow by task. Each assumes this module introduction.

• Searching for venues and choosing how to book: starting a sourcing request from the event record, searching the connected sourcing partner's network, and reading the result cards and their flags.

  It also explains shortlisting, and choosing between instant booking and the RFP flow.

• Sending the RFP, comparing bids, and contracting the venue: completing and sending the RFP, and the bid comparison.

  It also explains which system the negotiation and the acceptance of a bid happen in, and how the award returns. It ends with contracting, the award-to-budget write, and withdrawing a booking after an award.

• Group accommodation and room blocks from sourcing: the rooms-only request, the award targets, and the room block created from an award.
• Setting venue rules in Onomi 360: the six per-market settings on the Venue rules tab, and maintaining the Markets list every one of those settings is set per.

  It also explains where your organization's terms live, what a requester can do in a restricted market, and how the rules apply to events approved in your CRM.

For what the capability does and where its boundaries are, see the Venue sourcing release notes.

* Onomi 360 MeetingsEQ exclusive capabilities.