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Events, Trips, Tours and Socials

There are a number of things to consider when planning events. Use the information on this page to get you started.

 

Event Planning

Bristol SU groups run hundreds of events across the year, from large collaborative balls to debates and film showings.

A successful event will be fun, safe, on budget and well-attended. Use the below to help with your planning:

Event Safety

Risk Assessments

For all activities and events that are not covered by your annual risk assessment, you will need to complete a seperate one-off risk assessment. 

Please read through our risk assessment training and guidance before filling out one of our templates.

Email completed risk assessments to the Student Services Team on bristolsu@bristol.ac.uk. Please note that you may be asked to re-do them if they are not suitable for your event or filled out properly.

Accidents and Incidents

Accidents do happen so it is important you know what to do if an accident or incident occurs within your group.

At the time of the accident or incident please report it to the appropriate officials e.g. sports venue staff, event organisers etc.

Please report the accident/incident to the Student Services Team within 24 hours or as soon as is practicable using the form found on this webpage

Contracts with external venues

A big part of event planning is agreeing contracts with any external venues or providers. Find below our top tips.

  1. A contract is a written document based on the agreed partnership between 2 or more parties, the key word is “partnership”.
  2. Make sure you read the whole contract and you understand everything that is being requested and agreed to.  
  3. Make sure you can deliver on everything that is being asked of you.  
  4. If there’s anything you’re unsure of or want to add, make sure to ask the question; don’t feel pressured to sign something you don’t agree with. Never assume a contract is non-negotiable!  
  5. Check that the partner is a legitimate business? An easy way to check is to look up their website on Companies House, is the business name and contact details the same?
  6. Don’t begin working with a company or pay any money until you have an agreed and signed contract in place.  
  7. It’s always good to get payment upfront, but just be clear on payment timelines (standard practice is anything from 30 to 60 days from invoice date).  
  8. Check the cancellation terms and make sure you fulfil all your obligations.  
  9. Make sure all parties have a signed copy of the contract, including yourself.  
  10. Bristol SU has standard contracts available for you to use if required. 
  11. We advise that you send your contract to us at bristolsu@bristol.ac.uk.
  12. We can only provide the sense check on the contract instead of legal advice. If you are looking for legal advice on your contract, feel free to contact University of Bristol Law Clinic.  

Please contact bristolsu@bristol.ac.uk for any questions, we are more than happy to help!

Setting up Events in UnionCloud

You can use your Dashboard to set up events on the Bristol SU Website. These events will show up on our What's On pages and be linked to your own webpage. Any money made from ticket sales will go directly to your Bristol SU bank account. You can:

  • Create events listing
  • Add multiple ticket types
  • Set ticket sale caps
  • Restrict sales to members only
  • Add an event questionnaire

For a full guide on how to set up events in UnionCloud, head to the Learning Space

External Speakers

We aim to support our affiliated student groups to deliver enriching events. For many groups this includes running talks, workshops and debates. Sometimes these events feature one or more external speakers (someone who is neither a student nor staff member at the University of Bristol, or Bristol SU).

What is an external speaker?

A person is an ‘external’ speaker if they are not a student at the University of Bristol, and not employed by the University of Bristol or the University of Bristol Students’ Union. The external speaker assessment process should be used for all external speaker events, and any other speaker events that fall under the areas of risk outlined in the Speaker Event Risk Matrix.

Speaker Request Process

For events with external speakers, we share responsibility with you for the event running safely and smoothly. We also need to make sure we stay within the law, and are meeting our obligations as a registered charity.

If you are planning to run an event with one or more external speakers present, please complete the form below as far in advance as possible (and no later than 3 weeks before the event).

Once we receive the form we'll complete our assessment of the event, and get in touch with you to let you know whether any steps are required for your event to run safely and smoothly (this is only applicable for about 5% of events).

If you would like to know more about our policy and process, please see our FAQs here.

Speaker Request Form

Using Bristol SU Community Spaces

Student groups can host events in a number of SU spaces which can be booked through the SU Spaces Booking Request Form.

The Balloon Bar is generally available for student group takeovers every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 6pm - 10:45pm during term time. Balloon Bar karaoke slots are available to book on Fridays between 8pm - 10.45pm. This space is suitable for various evening events such as quizzes, karaoke, bingo and gigs. We're also keen to book in themed takeovers for key dates in the year such as national, international, and religious holidays and key campaign months.

The Living Rooms and The Loft are quieter spaces suitable for events such as crafts, small-scale activities and film screenings.

SU Space Takeovers

Fill out the form below to enquire about booking an area within one of our Bristol SU Spaces: The SU Living Room, The SU Loft, The Balloon Bar, or a stall in the ground floor foyer of The Richmond Building.

These spaces are never booked out exclusively - your event or activity should be appropriate to take place in an open community venue. Bookings should focus on giving students an opportunity to meet new people, try a new thing, or spend time together as a community.

Bookings that work well in the Bristol SU Spaces include bake sales, pub quizzes, paint parties, film screenings, karaoke, board game meet ups, charity pop-ups, crafts, drop in sessions and more! We're also keen to book in themed takeovers for key dates in the year such as national, international, and religious holidays and key campaign months.

Spaces Booking Request Form

Spaces Booking Guide

Spaces Booking Guide

Balloon Bar Terms of Booking

Balloon Bar Terms of Booking

Film Screenings

Bristol SU has a licence for student group film screenings. Please follow this guidance if your group is planning to show films within the Richmond Building and SU spaces at Senate House to ensure that we are operating within the parameters of our licence.

What it covers

  • Screenings inside the Richmond Building and SU spaces at Senate House. 
  • Films in DVD or Blu-ray format. 
  • Feature films, not TV shows or music programmes.

Please do

  • Advertise your screening to members of your Student Group or students of the University of Bristol. 
  • Report every film screening on this form within 5 working days of the screening. 
  • Ensure that your film was released by one of the participating Studios and Distributors (see list below).

Please don't

  • Charge for entry (either directly or indirectly).  
  • Charge above standard rate for merchandise or refreshments to make up for the lack of an entry fee. 
  • Cut, edit or copy the film. 
  • Advertise the screening to non-students. 
  • Advertise the screening externally e.g. on any public facing website/noticeboard. 
  • Stream films for your screening. 
  • Show a film listed on the excluded list on the FilmBank website. 

Participating studios and distributors
Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Entertainment Film, Icon Film, Pathe, StudioCanal, Eros International, 20th Century Fox (inc. DreamWorks), Disney, MGM, Miramax, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures.

Special Events

Special Events run at Bristol SU are intended to be successful, safe, impactful, and fun. The primary criteria all Special Events must meet are:

  • Will take place in the Anson Rooms in The Richmond Building
  • Are for at least 200 attendees
  • Appeal to a wide variety of students and are inclusive
  • Are likely to sell out
  • Make a positive impact on student life at Bristol
How to Apply

Applications to host a Special Event this academic year (24/25) have now closed. Applications to host a Special Event in the next academic year (25/26) will open in June 2025.

For any Special Event related enquiries, you can contact Rosa Digby, or book a meeting.

Deadlines

The deadline for submitting an application to host an event is 10am Monday 5th August 2024 for TB1 events, and 10am Monday 7th October 2024 for TB2 events.

Applications for TB1 events will still be accepted and considered after this deadline on an ad hoc basis if there are still available slots. Please do not start planning until your event slot has been confirmed by a member of the SU Events team.

Further Information

See further information about Putting on a Special Event.

Trips & Tours

Whilst planning your trip, please think about the following:

  • Plan your itinerary and book your transport, accommodation etc well in advance
  • Nominate a Trip Organiser
  • Keep members informed
  • Create a budget and remember to include transport, accommodation, entrance fees, food and any other expenses.  Ensure what you charge covers all your costs and don't assume you'll sell all the trip places
  • Manage the risks – carry out risk assessments for the trip.  Remember, the trip includes the journey to and from the place you're visiting
  • Ensure you have the names and contact details of all the trip participants 
  • Ensure you have the emergency contact details of all the trip participants
  • Know what to do in case of an emergency (see below)
  • Seek advice from Bristol SU if you need it
Risk Assessment

Ensure you are doing all you can to keep your members safe by risk assessing each trip. We have a useful one off risk assessment template which you can add identified hazards and mitigations to. Once you’ve completed your risk assessment send it to the Student Services Team who will review it and provide any necessary feedback.

Trip Registration

All groups must register Trips & Tours with Bristol SU. It is important you let the SU know about your trip or tour (using the form in the trip registration section below), as this has an impact on things like insurance cover, safeguarding of under 18s, and reaching emergency contacts. We also want to make sure that committees have thought about anything that could go wrong, as you have a responsibility for taking reasonable steps to ensure your activities are safe for all members.

Typically trips and tours may involve some or all of the following:  

  • Staying overnight or for multiple nights
  • Travelling outside the Bristol area  
  • Travelling outside of the UK  
  • Activities other than your main regular activity

 

Exceptions for completing this form include  
 

  • Travelling somewhere with the sole purpose of fulfilling a sports fixture arranged by S.E.H  
  • Where your main premises or location for your group activity is outside of Bristol (as travel to and from this location should feature on your annual risk assessment)

 


 

Accident Reporting

Accidents happen, and when they do it’s important you know what to do. If an accident, incident or near miss happens during your groups activities you should firstly report it to the appropriate officials at the venue e.g. sports venue staff, event organisers etc.

Once this has been done you will need to report the incident, accidents and/or near miss to Bristol SU using this form.

Don’t forget to tell us about near misses. This is any situation where an accident nearly occurred. Near miss recording is essential in helping both you and your members learn lessons without things getting to a point where someone is injured. 

Insurance

Students benefit from the university personal accident policy in some instances. Information can be found on the university webpages here.

If your student group is going abroad, please ensure your members are aware that Bristol SU does not provide travel insurance. If your members do not already have cover in place (for example, as part of a family policy) they will need to arrange this themselves.

Conduct

When you are away with your group, you are a representative of Bristol SU and the University of Bristol. As such, certain expectations relating to conduct and behaviour must be adhered to. Student Groups and their members are expected to abide by the Bristol SU Student Group Code of Conduct

We would expect all members to: 

  • Behave in a manner which does not endanger or is anti-social towards other individuals and to abide by Bristol SU’s Health and Safety policies at all times 
  • Ensure all members feel welcome to participate in non-judgemental and non-threatening discussions, activities, services or events 
  • Act responsibly at all times when participating in activities and avoid actions which could bring the group, the Students’ Union or sponsors, funders or partners into disrepute 
  • Conduct themselves in a reasonable manner relating to language, noise and behaviour 
  • Not encourage or pressure others into acting against the Code 
  • Operate within the rules that govern the activity or the facility in which it is taking place 
  • Not carry out initiation ceremonies
  • Student leaders (i.e. student group committees) have a particular responsibility to uphold the Code of Conduct in the areas of activity that they lead

Transport Bookings

This service is temporarily paused.

We aim to support our affiliated student groups to plan and run successful trips. For some groups this includes the need to hire different types of self-driven vehicles to transport members and/or equipment to different locations around the UK. We offer this service via a local vehicle hire company.

We advise you read the below information thoroughly before requesting to hire a vehicle.

Who can hire vehicles?

All Bristol SU affiliated student groups can request to hire vehicles. We primarily use Bristol Car and Van Hire for our transport bookings.

How does it work?

We have a simple request form embedded within this web page which asks for all the information we initially need, including what type of vehicle you need, dates of hire and details of who will be driving.

The Student Services Team will review your request, check your drivers are registered, and forward it to the transport hire company who will then let us know if your requested vehicles are available on the dates you require. 

If the vehicle is available, we’ll check there’s enough money in your SU account to cover the costs and send you a confirmation email including the total cost and pick up and drop off instructions.

Who can drive?

Any member of your group who holds a full driving licence and is registered on our driver database. If a driver is not listed on our database they’ll need to complete our driver declaration form before the booking can be confirmed.

When registering, drivers will need to provide photographs of the front and back of their driving licence. Submissions will not be approved without the required information.

What about insurance?

We have an insurance policy which covers our student groups when they hire vehicles that are booked through Bristol SU. This means drivers who would normally not meet the criteria set by hire companies due to their age or the length of time their licence has been held can drive these vehicles.

In the event of an accident/incident you must let us know as soon as possible so that we can tell the insurance company. You will also need to inform Bristol Car and Van Hire. If a claim needs to be made in order to fix damages, your group will be liable for the £150 policy excess fee.

The insurance costs £15 per vehicle, per day, and will be added to the total hire cost.

Hiring a minibus

If you are hiring a minibus your driver(s) will need to be MiDAS trained. MiDAS (Minibus Driving Awareness Scheme) is a nationally recognised standard for the assessment and training of minibus drivers. We recommend booking this training through Travelwest.

You will need to provide proof that your drivers are MiDAS trained before your minibus booking can be confirmed.

Can we cancel our booking?

You can cancel your booking at any time by contacting the Student Services Team at bristolsu@bristol.ac.uk. You should do this at the earliest opportunity to avoid being charged. Cancellation within 48 hours of vehicle pick up means that you will be charged the full cost of hire, but you will not be charged for insurance.

Transport Booking Form (Not currently live)

 

Hiring Technical Equipment

Are you part of a Bristol SU affiliated student society? Are you hosting an event soon and in need of some technical equipment to make your event the best it can be?

For a small fee to your group, we can provide you with a range of simple sound/lighting/AV packages. 

Further details can be found on our webpage

Running Social Events

All groups should offer a range of social opportunities to their members. Socials help to:

  • Build community within your group
  • Retain members
  • Support your core offer
  • Diversify your group

View our Running Safe and Inclusive Socials training slides here or check out our Inclusive Socials Guide

Planning your socials

It’s a good idea to plan out your social offer well in advance. Many groups set their plan over summer and use it to sell their group to new members over Welcome. By showing you have a vibrant, active social calendar, you will pique interest in your group and gain more members.

Think about the following:

1. What's the type of activity? 

  • Will it allow everyone to participate? Ensure the activity is something everyone of all backgrounds can attend. 
  • Does it involve any risks? If yes, fill out a risk assessment form.
  • Are your committee willing to help organise it? It should not be down to one person to organise the whole event, especially if it's a big scale one. Everyone involved needs to pull their weight. 

2. Budget

  • Does this activity require any money? Can you afford it?
  • Is it a fund raising social activity? e.g. Games Night, Portsmouth Monopoly Scavenger Hunt.

3. Organisation

  • Do you need to book anything in advance - venues etc?
  • Make a timeline of when events need to happen, e.g. advertising, setting up times, etc
  • Have a backup plan. Sometimes things happen e.g. people drop out, venues mix up bookings, etc - so have a contingency plan B  just in case. Think of everything that could go wrong and find a solution before it happens. 

4. Post-Event

  • After the event has happened, take some time aside with the rest of the organisers/committee to review it, was it a success? If not, why not - what could've been done differently to make it more of a success.
Variety

It is important that you show a wide variety of social engagement opportunities within the group. You need to make sure, as committee members, you work together to ensure you are providing a range of opportunities to demonstrate inclusivity within your group throughout the academic year.

For example, a social event to a sporting event that is relevant to your group's general activity might not be to everyone's taste. Attendance to a food fest, a scavenger hunt or end of year meal would demonstrate a range of activities that your members could get involved with.

Whilst you group may have socials or events that take place every year, do ensure you are trying out new things too. The more diversity you have in your social calendar, the better.
 

Initiations

The following information forms part of the Bristol SU Code of Conduct, which lays out the expected behaviour of all affiliated student groups.

In line with the majority of universities and as a result of a number of very serious incidents at other institutions, Bristol SU and UoB do not permit “initiation ceremonies”.

For this purpose, an initiation ceremony is any event at which members of a group are expected to perform an activity as a means of gaining credibility, status or entry into that group. This peer pressure is normally (though not explicitly) exerted on first year students or new members and may involve the consumption of alcohol, eating various food stuffs, nudity and behaviour that may be deemed humiliating.

In the past, students at UoB and elsewhere have caused criminal damage, been seriously injured and, in at least three cases, died as a result of having to take part in an initiation. As well as this, initiation ceremonies are intimidating, humiliating and can amount to bullying. They do not encourage the welcoming and inclusive student groups that Bristol SU wants.

Social activities such as welcome evenings, team meals, social nights, trips away and celebration events that welcome new members and offer a positive first impression of university life are encouraged. The following rules must be followed:

  • All activities must be opt-in and have no bearing on the acceptance into the student group or team/squad selection etc
  • Peer pressure must not be exerted on individuals
  • Activities must not be humiliating, unlawful or degrading
  • Activities must not involve the forced consumption of any fluid/substance
  • Taking of alcohol to the activity/event must not be made a condition of attendance
  • If activities involve alcohol then non-alcoholic drinks must be made available
  • Activities must not bring the reputation of Bristol SU, UoB or the student group into question or disrepute

The organiser of the event, individual Club Captains or group Presidents and/or the groups as a whole may be held responsible for an “initiation ceremony” and may have University disciplinary action taken against them (including suspension or expulsion).

Alcohol-free Socials

We know, from Rate My group Feedback, that members overwhelmingly want more than just socials at the pub. Increasingly, students are drinking less and they wish to see this reflected in club and society social offers, therefore we have designed a tool to help groups find ideas for alcohol-free events.

Volunteering With Your Group

Volunteering as a group is a fantastic way to give back to the community while hosting a fun and inclusive social activity. Whether you're interested in a one-off session or ongoing volunteering, the Bristol SU Volunteering Team is happy to help you plan your activity and work towards achieving the Volunteering Accreditation criteria. They will connect your group with a local organisation and provide support to make sure your experience is both meaningful and impactful.

Send a message to bristolsu-volunteering@bristol.ac.uk

Additional Support

Stuck with any of the above?

Development Meetings

The Development Team can support you with a wide variety of things including (but not limited to):

  • Event Planning
  • Collaborations
  • Building Communities
  • Conduct Issues

Book a meeting with the Development Team or email us - bristolsu-development@bristol.ac.uk

Meet with the Events Team

If you need some help with an upcoming event, or would like to find out more about running events in Bristol SU's venues, please book a meeting with a member of our team. We're all happy to help with general enquiries but please read our bios below to select the most relevant team member.

  • Rosa - Events Coordinator - happy to help with any enquiries for SU Special Events, and for Performing Arts groups looking for information about running events in the Winston and Pegg theatres.
  • Grace - Student Community Events and Spaces Coordinator - happy to help with enquiries about community events and activities, particularly in the SU Living Rooms, SU Loft, and Balloon Bar.
  • Freya - Events Manager - happy to help with enquiries about club nights, events taking place in external venues around the city, and in university venues. 

Book a meeting with the Events Team

Running Events and Socials Whatsapp Community

Join our Running Events and Socials Whatsapp Community where you will receive updates and reminders to help you in your role

Get in touch with the Development Team

Book a meeting with the Dev Team

Book a meeting with the Events Team

Send an email to the Dev Team

Check out training on the Bristol SU Learning Space