How to make your venue's capacity, rooms and facilities clear to Google and AI

Why aren't photographs and floor plans enough?

Because Google, Bing and AI assistants read words. A photograph of the barn laid for dinner tells a visitor it seats about a hundred; it tells a search engine only what the file name and the image description say. Google's guidance on images asks for descriptive alt text for exactly this reason. A floor plan saved as an image is the same: every room name and number on it is a picture, not text.

The questions bookers ask have numbers in them. “Venue for 120 seated near Winchester”, “away-day venue with breakout rooms for 40”. A page that states those numbers can answer them. A page that only shows them cannot.

How should you write capacity on the page?

Room by room, in a simple table, with the same layout for every space. For example:

Then say it in a sentence as well, near the top of the page: “The Great Barn seats 120 for dinner and 200 for an evening reception.” Sentences like that are what assistants quote.

• Use the same numbers everywhere: website, brochure and directory listings.
• Say which spaces belong together, so “the Orangery” is clearly part of the main house.
• If numbers change with layout, give the main layouts rather than a single maximum.

Which facilities should you name in words?

Everything a booker filters by. Write each one as a plain statement, not an icon on its own.

• Accommodation: how many bedrooms and how many people they sleep.
• Parking: the number of spaces, and whether coaches can reach you.
• Accessibility: step-free routes, accessible toilets, lifts.
• Licensing and timings: whether you are licensed for ceremonies, the latest finish time, noise limits.
• Catering: in-house, approved suppliers or bring your own.
• For corporate bookings: AV, Wi-Fi, breakout rooms and room layouts.
• Exclusive use: what it includes, and when it applies.

Should each space and event type have its own page?

If they serve different bookers, yes. A wedding couple and an office manager planning an away day ask different questions, and one general “Events” page rarely answers either in enough depth. A page each for weddings, corporate events and any other genuine use, each stating the capacities that matter to that booker, gives search engines a clear page to show for each kind of search.

Separate pages for individual rooms are only worth it when the rooms are booked separately. Otherwise, one clear spaces-and-capacity page linked from every event page does the job.

What structured data should a venue use?

Schema.org has a type built for this: EventVenue, which sits under Place. It includes maximumAttendeeCapacity, amenityFeature for facilities, and containsPlace for the individual spaces. Google's local business guidance asks you to use the most specific type you can, and many venues combine EventVenue with LocalBusiness so the address, opening hours and contact details are covered too.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": ["EventVenue", "LocalBusiness"],
  "name": "Example Farm Venue",
  "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "addressLocality": "Example Village",
    "addressRegion": "Hampshire", "addressCountry": "GB" },
  "maximumAttendeeCapacity": 200,
  "amenityFeature": [
    { "@type": "LocationFeatureSpecification",
      "name": "On-site parking for 80 cars", "value": true },
    { "@type": "LocationFeatureSpecification",
      "name": "Licensed for civil ceremonies", "value": true }
  ],
  "containsPlace": [
    { "@type": "EventVenue", "name": "The Great Barn",
      "maximumAttendeeCapacity": 200 },
    { "@type": "EventVenue", "name": "The Orangery",
      "maximumAttendeeCapacity": 80 }
  ]
}

Two rules matter more than the markup itself. Google says not to add structured data about information that is not visible to the user, so every figure in it must also be on the page. And structured data does not guarantee any special display in results; it helps search engines understand the page, which is the point.

What stops Google and AI reading any of this?

Good content does nothing if the crawlers are turned away. Check three things:

1. Your robots.txt file (your web address followed by /robots.txt). OpenAI says sites that block its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.
2. Bing. Microsoft Copilot draws on Bing's index. Adding your site to Bing Webmaster Tools shows whether Bing has found your pages.
3. Google Search Console. It shows which of your pages Google has indexed and flags structured data errors.

What does it cost?

Common questions

How do I show my venue's capacity on Google?

Write each space's capacities as numbers in the text of your website, ideally in a simple table for ceremony, seated dinner and standing reception, and repeat the key figure in a sentence. Then add EventVenue structured data with the same figures.

What schema should a wedding venue use?

Schema.org's EventVenue type, often combined with LocalBusiness. It supports maximumAttendeeCapacity, amenityFeature for facilities and containsPlace for individual spaces. Every figure in it must also be visible on the page.

Does structured data get my venue into AI answers?

It helps search engines understand the page, but it isn't a guarantee of anything. AI assistants mostly quote what's written on the page, so the plain-text capacities and facilities matter most.

How much does it cost to add venue schema to a website?

Usually a small part of a developer's day. The median UK web developer contract rate is £494 a day (IT Jobs Watch). The checking tools, Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator, are free.