A Yarra Valley retreat is roughly 90 minutes from Melbourne by car, close enough that nobody needs a flight and far enough that nobody goes back to the office at lunchtime. Here is how to put one together.
Most corporate retreats fail for the same two reasons: the venue was booked before the purpose was agreed, and the schedule left no gaps. Both are avoidable, and neither has anything to do with budget.
Decide what the retreat is for, in one sentence
Write it down before you look at a single venue. It is usually one of four things: planning the next period of work, resetting a team that has had a hard year, integrating people who have never met in person, or rewarding a result.
The sentence determines everything downstream. A planning offsite needs a room, a screen and quiet. A team reset needs food, activities and unstructured time. Booking the same package for both is how you end up with a whiteboard session in a place nobody wanted to leave.
Pick dates before you pick a venue
Midweek is cheaper and quieter than a weekend everywhere in the valley, and it does not eat into people's own time. Tuesday to Thursday is the sweet spot. Avoid the fortnight before Christmas and the school holiday weeks unless you want to compete with tourist demand.
Work out the room count honestly
Ask two questions: how many people are attending, and how many of them will share. For most corporate groups the answer to the second is nobody, which means rooms equals headcount.
De'Vine Escape has 22 rooms on a 10-acre property in Dixons Creek: 3 Queen, 3 King Spa and 16 Twin. For a team of up to about twenty, taking the whole property means you are not sharing the place with other guests, which changes the feel of the evening considerably.
Separate the three things you are buying
A retreat is usually three separate bookings, and treating them as one package is where the cost gets away from people.
- Stay. Accommodation and parking. This is the fixed part and the easiest to quote.
- Meet and dine. Meeting space and catering. We work with Fergusson Winery and DiVino Ristorante nearby. Capacity, equipment and pricing are set by the venue and subject to confirmation with them.
- Experience. One activity. Yarra Valley X run team-building and e-bike days, and Global Ballooning fly private group flights at sunrise.
Quote all three separately. It makes it obvious where the money is going and which part to trim if you need to.
Schedule less than you want to
The most common mistake is filling every hour. A two-day retreat realistically holds one substantial working session per day, one activity, and two meals. Everything else is travel, coffee and the conversations that are the actual reason you left the office.
Confirm the boring things early
- Wi-Fi and whether you need a screen or projector, and who supplies it
- Dietary requirements, collected once and passed to catering in writing
- Who is driving and whether there is wine at dinner
- Arrival times, since people will leave the city at different hours
- What happens if it rains, for anything planned outdoors
Getting a quote
Send us your dates, headcount and rough room count and we will quote the accommodation and introduce you to the partners for the rest. No deposit or contract is needed to get a quote. Use the form on our Corporate Retreats page.
Stay in the middle of the valley
De'Vine Escape has 22 rooms on ten acres in Dixons Creek, about a five minute walk from Fergusson Winery and an hour from Melbourne.