Do Event Staffing Agencies Provide Trained or Experienced Staff?

Published: July 2026 | Last updated: July 2026 | Written by Michael Parrish, Co-Founder, Cube

About the author: Michael Parrish is the co-founder of Cube, a London hospitality staffing agency established in 2009. Having run his own agency before co-founding Cube with Michal Orlowski, Michael oversees the day to day operations and finances of the business and has spent over fifteen years placing vetted hospitality staff at events across Greater London.

About Cube: Cube is a London hospitality staffing agency supplying vetted waiters, bar staff, chefs, hosts and kitchen staff for events, hotels, venues and catering companies across Greater London. Established 2009. 99% fulfilment rate. 24-hour human support available by phone, text or email. cubestaff.co.uk

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Good event staffing agencies provide a mix of both trained and experienced staff, with the ratio typically running at around 70% experienced to 30% agency-trained. But after fifteen years of running a hospitality staffing agency in London, I would argue the more important question is not trained or experienced. It is attitude. The metric that predicts whether someone will perform well at your event is not their CV. It is their client rating history.

Why This Question Matters More Than Ever in 2026

The context behind this question has never been more relevant. The hospitality sector has the highest staff turnover rate of any sector in the UK at 52%, compared to a UK average of 34%, with over a third of hospitality workers having been in their role for less than a year. Prism 7 Resourcing

Around 120,000 EU workers have left the UK hospitality sector since 2019, leaving a significant skills gap that has not been filled. At the same time, one third of hospitality businesses are reducing operating hours, one in eight is closing locations and 60% are downsizing their workforce in response to rising labour costs. Prism 7 ResourcingThe Caterer

What this means in practice is that the pool of genuinely experienced hospitality professionals available for event work in London is under more pressure than at any point in recent history. Understanding how agencies actually source, train and select the people they send to your event has never been more important.

Where Event Agency Staff Actually Come From

Staff join Cube through several routes. Advertising and interviews account for some. More often, the best people come through referrals from existing staff who have worked alongside someone at another event and can vouch directly for them.

Some people come to us with no hospitality experience at all. For those starting from scratch we run a short in-house training session covering the basics. How to open bottles properly. How to hold and carry a tray. How to clear plates correctly. How to serve canapes and manage at-table service. Once someone has that grounding we deliberately place them on their first booking at a larger event, typically a reception, where they are working alongside several experienced colleagues rather than being placed in a role alone.

This approach reflects something important about how skill actually develops in hospitality. You cannot teach someone to read a room in a classroom. The only way to build that capability is alongside people who already have it.

Why We Use Training to Assess Attitude, Not Just Skill

Our training session takes about an hour. What we are actually doing in that hour is watching how someone behaves. Their attitude. Their willingness. How they respond to feedback when something is not quite right.

Here is the belief that shapes how we hire at Cube and it is one that most agencies will not say directly in their marketing. A genuinely positive attitude can outweigh years of experience. Some people have a natural flair for hospitality. Others simply do not, regardless of how long you put them in front of guests.

Some of our best-performing staff started with zero experience and went on to become among the most requested people on our books. Some staff with years of experience on their CV have not worked out at all.

That is not a comfortable thing to admit when your marketing materials say fully trained and fully vetted. But no training system reliably filters out people who simply are not a fit for hospitality. The honest answer is that if someone does not work out, you stop booking them. What you need in the meantime is a ratings system robust enough to catch the problem quickly and a client feedback process that makes that information available to the people making the next booking.

How We Actually Match Staff to Your Event

This is where the process is more specific than most clients assume.

Clients who book regularly with us tell us which staff members they particularly liked. We prioritise rebooking those people for future events with that client. The favourites system in our platform makes this automatic. Mark someone as a favourite and they get offered your bookings first every time.

We also run an app that lets clients rate individual staff members after every event. That rating history is one of the most useful tools we have, particularly when deciding who to send to a new client or when a returning client's preferred staff are not available on a particular date.

For higher-end fine dining events specifically we select staff with a track record of working similar formal events. The skill level required for formal multi-course table service is genuinely different from a relaxed promotional shift. A waiter who excels at a branded outdoor activation may not be the right person for a silver service dinner at a Mayfair private members club. Matching based on track record rather than claimed experience is what makes the difference.

Case Study: When Attitude Carried a Promotional Event

We staffed a two-day promotional event across two London retail stores. The team were serving strawberries and cream from a cart to shoppers attending in-store activations.

The staff on this job were regulars with a consistently positive, can-do attitude. Nothing was too much trouble. They engaged with customers naturally, kept energy levels up across both full days and adapted easily when the format shifted slightly between the two locations.

The feedback from both the caterer and the end client was excellent.

Nothing about that event required advanced technical skill. What made it work was staff who showed up with genuine energy and a willingness to engage. For certain event types, attitude is not just important. It is the entire deliverable.

The Honest Ratio: Trained vs Experienced

Roughly 70% of our staff pool has genuine prior hospitality experience. The remaining 30% have been trained up from scratch through our own process.

Experienced staff are generally prioritised first for bookings. It is harder to place an inexperienced person on their very first event and get a good outcome without careful positioning alongside more experienced colleagues.

For last-minute bookings or particularly busy periods, we are upfront with clients if a staff member has limited experience. The client can decide whether they are comfortable with that given the nature of the event. Being honest about experience levels upfront, rather than hoping it does not matter, is what avoids a poor outcome for everyone. Around 38% of temporary hospitality placements convert to permanent within four months, which tells you something important: experience is built faster in this industry than most people assume when the placement is managed properly.

What About Certifications?

Many of our staff hold formal certificates including food hygiene qualifications. These are kept on file in each person's personnel record.

In practice clients rarely require a food handling certificate for front-of-house roles at events. When a client does need a certified staff member, we can provide one. If certification is a specific requirement for your event or venue, tell us when you book and we will confirm it is covered before the team is confirmed.

Addressing the Most Common Objection: Will They Know My Venue?

This is the objection we hear most from clients considering agency staff over an in-house team. Will they know the venue? Will they care as much? Will they perform as well as our own people?

Here is the reframe that changes how most clients think about this. Agency staff who work regularly are specifically experienced at walking into a new venue and adapting quickly. It is a skill they build through repetition across dozens of different environments. A permanent in-house team member experiences a new venue exactly once.

Outside of hotels and fixed-location venues, most caterers are working new sites for every event anyway. All staff, agency or otherwise, are typically new to that specific venue on that specific day. The agency staff member has simply done it more often.

Book with the same agency regularly and you will generally get repeat faces over time. That reduces the concern about always dealing with new people and is precisely why building a favourites list through your agency matters.

Does the Type of Event Change How We Select Staff?

Not by category label. It comes down to what the event actually requires.

A wedding might involve formal dining requiring a server capable of managing multi-course silver service, or it might be a relaxed informal reception where warmth and energy matter more than technical precision. We assess the actual task demands of the event rather than making assumptions based on the label.

For promotional and brand activation events specifically we look for staff with a sunny, confident, outgoing character because direct engagement with the public is the core skill being tested, not formal service technique.

For corporate dinners at senior level we look for staff with a track record in high-formality environments where discretion and precision matter more than personality.

The event type is a starting point. The specific brief is what actually drives the selection.

The Metric That Actually Predicts Performance

A genuine flair for hospitality and a great attitude go further than a CV. At Cube we trust our client ratings system and direct feedback far more than stated experience on paper.

The real measure of whether a member of staff is trained or experienced enough is not a certificate. It is whether they consistently deliver a good experience for the clients who book them. That information lives in the rating history, not the personnel file.

Research shows that happy staff are five times more likely to stay the course. The same principle applies to agency staff in event environments. People who are well-matched to the type of work they are doing, well-briefed before they arrive and treated well when they get there perform significantly better than people who are none of those things regardless of how many years they have been in the industry.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do event staffing agencies provide trained or experienced staff?

Most reputable event staffing agencies provide a mix of both. A typical split is around 70% experienced staff to 30% agency-trained. Experienced staff are generally prioritised for bookings first, with trained staff placed carefully alongside experienced colleagues on their early shifts. The distinction that matters more than trained versus experienced is the attitude of the individual and their performance history across previous bookings.

How do event staffing agencies vet their staff?

Reputable agencies vet staff through a combination of in-person interviews, reference checks and in-house training assessments. The most useful ongoing vetting tool is a client ratings system that records how each individual performs across every booking. That rating history is a far more reliable predictor of future performance than a CV or stated experience level.

Is experienced event staff always better than trained staff?

Not necessarily. Attitude and natural aptitude for hospitality often matter more than years of experience. Some agency-trained staff with no prior background have gone on to be among the most requested professionals on an agency's books. Some experienced staff have not worked out. The difference is almost always attitude rather than experience level.

How do agencies decide which staff to send to which event?

Well-run agencies use a combination of client preference through a favourites system, individual performance ratings from past events and matching the staff member's track record to the actual demands of the specific event. Formal multi-course silver service and casual brand activation work require genuinely different types of people even if the job title on both is waiter.

Will agency event staff know my venue?

Regular agency staff are experienced at adapting quickly to new venues because this happens for almost every shift they work. Most caterers and event operators are working new venues for every event regardless of whether they use agency staff or their own team. The gap between agency and in-house in this respect is usually smaller than clients expect and reduces significantly when you book with the same agency regularly and build a pool of familiar staff.

Do event agency staff hold food hygiene certificates?

Many do, and these are kept on file. For most front-of-house event roles clients do not require formal certification. When a specific certification is needed, a reputable agency will be able to confirm it is covered before the team is confirmed for your booking.

What percentage of event agency staff are experienced versus newly trained?This varies by agency but a typical split is around 70% with genuine prior hospitality experience and 30% trained through the agency's own process. Agencies should be transparent about this ratio and willing to tell you which category a specific staff member falls into if you ask, particularly for bookings where experience level is critical to the outcome.