Cape Town's best workshop venues

Success in business is a result of the set of choices it's leaders select.

The actions that end up being selected from the infinite array of options available to any team are critical.

If not thoroughly considered and critically interrogated for relevance, time and money could be wasted...along with a real shot at success.

Action starts with the mental processing of options, so logically the relevance of these choices very much depends of the quality of the thinking that goes into making them.

Interrogation of options

Because the specific set of choices a business makes is so critical to its success - there is an immeasurable amount of value in the process of properly crafting those choices.

An important part of this process is exploration through robust dialogue. Prodding the issue from multiple perspectives is a vital steps here, which is often best enabled by hosting a workshop.

Workshops - and other strategic gatherings that involve people whose time is expensive - need to deliver a significantly valuable outcome if they are to be justified.

The last thing you want when taking such expensive resources away from directly productive activities, is mental stasis - or worse... relational regression.

There are multiple obvious factors that collectively contribute to a good workshop outcome, but one that we find is usually overlooked is the venue for the gathering.

An inspiring, open, light, professional, enabling venue (that isn't depressing) is often the difference between a group mindset that is creative and innovative; versus one that gets a little too suck in the reeds.

Part of what we search for are locations that are (a) contained enough to allow for distraction-free group work, but at the same time (b) deftly showcase the natural beauty of the landscape that you are lucky enough to be situated in, which in our experience, somehow aids to facilitate higher-order open thinking too.

Because of this, we are always on the lookout for inspiring locations to host these thinking sessions for our clients, which is obviously a growing and dynamic list.

BTW - if you think there's a venue that's obviously missing from our selection , please comment on the post so that we can check it out and potentially include it on future lists.

Here's our current, short Cape Town 2025 list of preferred venues:

The Twelve Apostles

Blending acceptable views of the Atlantic Ocean with ol' The Twelve Apostles mountain range behind you (and nestled within an undulating landscape of Cape Fynbos), this visually arresting venue is close enough to the city to be technically-labeled as 'in the CBD', but removed enough from the madness to allow for a completely immersive nature-experience. We can't think of too many venues in the world that would be able to deliver all of this at the same time like this.

The Twelve Apostle hotel offers a variety of rooms sizes and options depending on requirements. If you're looking for a 5-star experience that's almost guaranteed to supercharge the quality of thinking coming from your team...then this is your place.

The Wisdom Room at The Silo Hotel

As the name suggests, The Wisdom Room is an awe inspiring setting to host an executive team needing to do some deep thinking and honest contemplating. Our theory is that if you skimp on the budget assigned to help generate clear thinking - then logically a clear thinking outcome will elude you. The Wisdom Room is designed to solve that problem rather successfully.

Located at the V&A Waterfront and perched on top of a world-class art gallery, The Silo Hotel is one of Africa's premier properties and an ideal location to explore possibilities for the future. Not only is the interior space beautifully designed, the views of Cape Town harbour and Table Mountain from this elevated position offer a unique perspective on the city that may just be the right catalyst to spark a flurry of wild ideas from which to create something remarkable.

VISTA | the venue on Table Mountain

Overlooking the city bowl, VISTA is a sneaking little venue that's located at the base of the Table Mountain Cableway (Africa's #1 tourist attraction). The expansive space is the antithesis of those standard, dark, confined conference spaces that tend to be the staple of every average hotel.

What you are really getting from this venue is a unique, spectacular elevated perspective over the city. VISTA is not as luxurious as the first two suggestions, but the 'distraction-free + bleeding into nature' location is odd enough to make a booking still worthwhile.

Kirstenbosch Gardens

Yes, believe it or not, in a secluded part of one of the world's most stunning botanical gardens is a quant workshop venue that's a perfect oasis for some decompressed creative energy.

Management at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens are notoriously poor at marketing themselves very effectively when it comes to offering these kind of side-line services; so don't expect flashy brochures of the place, or caviar as a part of the clipboard tick sheet. But Kirstenbosch itself has got a certain kind of specialness to it that makes this pick a good one if you are hoping to imprint some remark-ability into your session.

Perhaps arrange to bring your own presentation / note-taking paraphernalia to the venue (it's understandably touch-and-go as to how a government agency would credibly interpret this brief...chalk boards and quill pens fashioned from the feathers of a roadkill-Guineafowl don't count).

In summary

Considering the strict criteria we're trying to apply here, what is rather surprising in the process of attempting to compile this list is just how few decent workshop venues there are in the city.

Sure there are massive conference centres and lots of dingy meeting rooms in one of countless shared office spaces (baie is bitter kak...jammer), but inspirational locations that set the imagination free...there are not many.

This isn't to say that good thinking can only be done in one of these off-sites, but important occasions sometimes require a different setting to allow thinking which isn't comfortably embedded in the operational status quo.

New futures are often birthed in new places that allow you to see the world from a different angle.