If you just watched a movie and you liked it, would you stop watching other movies, just to watch the same one every day? Certainly not!

One of the most common mistakes that I still hear event planners say is “Everything went well! We are happy going to the same venue”. But still, they complain about lack of attendee engagement and declining signup numbers.

Event attendees leave their workplace to be inspired. They go to meetings and events to be creative and to take advantage of face-to-face networking. Only changing food menus and audio-visuals from one program to the next will not do the trick. That would be like watching the same movie every day on a different screen with a different flavour of popcorn. Still boring!

With the rise of technology and social media, event attendees have become more demanding. They expect the extraordinary, the amazing, and the never-done-before. Especially, the never-done-before. Attendees don’t want the same event over and over, they want a better and different one. Even if the previous one was good!

Meeting and exceeding the expectations of your attendees is just one of your challenges. As an event planner, you are expected to deliver extraordinary programs with minimum input.

In numerous occasions you will have tight budgets, and yet, you will have to take value for money to the next level. Very tricky right? Not to mention that you also need to make your team and boss proud with the quality of your program.

I’ve prepared 8 steps that will help you get organized for your program. If you follow these steps religiously, you will always have a killer meeting or event!

(1)   Choose the Right Content for Your Program: What are the goals of your program?

Before starting with the planning phase, it is important that event goals are well defined. What do you want to achieve with this program? Once you’ve answered this question with your team, walk through what you have learned from your prior programs. What worked in the past? What could have been better?

Write a list of themes (or ‘concepts’) for your program. The theme will have to correspond to the goals. This will put you on the right track to choose the right content; whether you should stick with team-building content, sustainability practices, you name it!

Also keep in mind the profile of the attendees that will join the meeting or event. Decide with your team if the program should be held locally or abroad.

Some planners tend to skip this step. This often results in loss of time, effort, AND money.

(2)   Budget Smart: It’s not all about how much you spend, but what you get for what you paid!

Staying within budget is one thing. But obtaining the most value for your money makes planning more challenging.

When making choices for your upcoming meeting or event, you should be able to compare the offers that you obtained vs. what you got for a prior program. Your new program has to be better and different than prior ones.

When budgeting, your selection has to focus on items that will help you to achieve your event goals. Always make sure that you have a good handful of offers where to choose from. Otherwise, how will you know that you have selected the best hotel or venue that was available out there?

You will never know if you have the best venue and the best offer if you have checked availability with 1-2 hotels only.

(3)   Select the Right Destination: Integrate the local culture into your program.

The destination selection criteria known to most of us takes into account factors like: safety measures, airport with direct flights, language, weather, technology, impact of currency exchange on your budget, and local culture.

It is essential to consider all these factors when selecting your host destination. However, I have seen that culture tends to be neglected by some planners.

Selecting a destination whose culture is a good match for your program can help you to achieve your goals.

For example, if your attendees are used to very attentive and friendly customer service, a destination like Dublin would work great.

People in Dublin are very welcoming and accommodating, whether your program activities are taking place at an upscale or informal venue, Dubliners will be very attentive to your group needs. The local culture will help you succeed. There are other destinations where it will cost you more to achieve that level of attentive service.

(4)   Request Proposals from Hotels and Venues: Set a reasonable timeline and ask for help!

Checking availability and requesting proposals are just a few clicks away. Today’s technology gives you the advantage to access information and communicate like never before.

Although technology has brought you closer to venues and reduces planning time, knowing key contact persons at hotels and venues ‘in real life’ is essential to succeed at checking availability and gathering offers.

You need to find a best buddy who has a great network with hotels and event venues. Someone outside your organization that is armed with the right technological tools, and also, the right key contacts that will save you time and money. Your best ally would be an event management agency. 

You should only host a face-to-face meeting if there is significant added value to meet in person instead of virtual conferencing. With the covid-19 pandemic, we have seen that many meetings could have been an email. 

Once face-to-face meetings are back, the most important events will be face-to-face. Also trainings that require high levels of attendee concentration for their learning. Less important meetings and events may potentially continue to take place through video conferencing.

For programs of 9 or less attendees with simple audio-visual and food and beverage requirements, it is recommended that you host your meeting or event at your own office building, instead of off-site.

For programs of 10 or more participants with complex audio-visual and food and beverage requirements, it is recommended that you host your program off-site.

If you will need hotel accommodation requiring 10 rooms or more, your event agent will provide you with great hotel options (anywhere in the world) where to choose from. The options will match the specific criteria that you set for the ideal hotel.

In order to obtain the best venues and hotels, and with the best budget, it is recommended that you talk to your event agency as early as possible.

The larger your group, the earlier you should talk to your event agency. The following is a good time indication for this:

PARTICIPANTS	CONTACT YOUR EVENT AGENCY
75 attendees or less	3 months prior
76 to 150 attendes	4 to 6 months prior
151 to 300 attendees	6 to 9 months prior
301 to 500 attendees	9 to 12 months prior
500+ attendees	12+ months prior

Always ensure that you inform your event agency if: (a) you have contacted any venues already and/or (b) someone else is already helping you to find a venue. This practice will spare you from miscommunication and confusion with venues and hotels.

During this phase, also walk through the logistics of your program with your event management agent. If your group is traveling to a destination where transport is not easy, you might also want to consider to have a Destination Management Company (DMC). The DMC would take care of transfers and guiding your group at the host destination. Also, use a DMC if you have VIP attendees with special requirements.

If you feel that your group will need a DMC, your event agent is the best person to put you in contact with the right DMC choice at the host country.

(5)   Choose the Right Food & Beverage (F&B) Menus: Would a child eat it?

When it comes to event planning, F&B menus is one of the topics most talked about. Items like healthy food options and environment friendly foods are trendy today.

Is following trends all you need to succeed at planning your F&B? No, only following trends will not work, unless these trends suit your program’s objectives and the taste of your attendees.

Taste and quality are still hands-down the most important factors when it comes to F&B selection. However, in my experience, I’ve realised that great F&B options need to be complemented by the right serving style. With this I mean: the right portion size, presentation, lay-out of food/beverage display, serving area, overall room setting, and interaction between servers and attendees.

I still see event professionals very focused on healthy items, but making a poor F&B selection. Or using the wrong serving style. The result, lots of F&B not consumed.

In most cases, the reason for lots of F&B left overs is not that attendees were not hungry or thirsty. They just did not like those bright green F&B’s that were served. Or they just found it too difficult to take the food because of how it was served.

I’ll give you a tip that has worked great with my clients when selecting menus. Ask yourself: “would a child eat/drink this?” If the answer to that is yes, then you are good to go. If the answer is no, you know the drill (yes, request a menu change).

If you have the opportunity to have an F&B tasting at the venue, that is a perfect moment for you to ask yourself that question. Would a child eat/drink this?

Feedback from your attendees is very important. You should always ask them what they thought about the F&B selection. However, only hearing their feedback is not enough. You need to check if they actually consumed the F&B.

If they only said that they liked it, and yet you had more than 50% of F&B left overs, then the problem could be that the ‘serving style’ was not adequate for the type of activity that your group was doing.

I have been to interactive sessions where I was hungry, but I didn’t touch the food because it was not served ‘grab and go’ style. It was not handy for me to take the food and continue working.

What about food allergies and dietary restrictions? You should always provide the venue with these in advance. This will give the chef enough time to prepare something delicious for your guests with dietary restrictions.

Menus should always be different from program to program, especially if you have repeat attendees participating in your events. It would only be okay to use similar (or the same) menus if all of your attendees are new from program to program.

Remember, better meeting and event also means better F&B choices. New choices!

(6)   Plan your Audio-Visuals (AV) and Event Technology: Request Cost Estimates from the Beginning to Avoid Ugly Surprises

Contracting Audio-visuals

The cost of AV’s for events differ a lot from country to country. In several European destinations and the Middle East, hotels and event venues may include standard AV on a complimentary basis. While in countries like USA, AV’s can be quite expensive. Even standard AV!

I often see event requests that do not mention AV requirements from an early planning stage. This often results in considerably high AV prices, especially if AV requirements are determined after the venue contract had been signed. Again, this differs from country to country.

If you don’t know the AV requirements of your event from an early planning stage, I highly recommend you to discuss with your team and your event agency ‘what kind of AV you might potentially need’ for your program.

If you have to sign contract with the hotel (or event venue) as soon as possible to secure availability for your program, you should ‘at least’ request a proposal for the AV’s that you will eventually need. When you have reached the stage of contracting AV’s, the proposal that you had requested will spare you from surprises 💰

Contracting AV can be tricky, writing all my explanations on ‘why things are the way they are’ could take over my whole post. If you want to learn more about contracting AV, feel free to post your questions by commenting or just private message us.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

These event technologies are talked about a lot lately, I know you were expecting me to mention them. Virtual reality and augmented reality are trendy today. They could have been great for covid-19. However, they are still not very affordable yet. Do you need them? Actually, the real question here is, will they ‘add value’ to your program?

If the main reason of your program is learning through simulations of reality, then investing on virtual reality and/or augmented reality may be worthwhile.

For example, if you will teach beginner aviation students how to fly a Boeing 747-8, an experience with augmented reality can be beneficial. 

If simulations of reality are not of added value to your program, then you should just stick with ‘real life’ experiences.

Event Apps

We live in the time of apps. There is an app for anything you want. Sometimes I’ve felt like “OMG, the world doesn’t need a new app!”. However, you might need an event app depending on your data analytic needs, your event type, the size of your event, the frequency in which you host large events, and last but not least… Guess what? Yes, budget. We all hate that part, budget.

The great and fancy apps are not cheap, and of course NOT for free. I have attended events that had great event apps. One of my favourite ones is the app from IMEX Las Vegas and IMEX Frankfurt.

I have also experienced using terrible event apps (the events were not mine of course). I know those event apps were expensive, even though they were so bad. I won’t mention any names 🙂

I have just mentioned positive and not so positive comments. Either way, event apps can be useful. They can also be worth the investment depending on what you need.

The following can be made simpler if you have an event app: distribution and updates of event program, floor plans, interactive features (such as chat, vote, ask and rate), information about exhibitors and sponsors.

Some apps will have a really great analytic system to measure the ROI of your event. The app will also serve as communication platform for the attendees. Some apps will allow attendees to interact with each other not only during the event, but also before and after the event.

(7)   Site Visits at Hotels and Event Venues: If you can’t make it there, there’s options to save you!

What is the importance of site visits? Understanding what your attendees will experience when they land to the host city of your program, check-in to the hotel, wake-up for breakfast, walk to the meeting or event, AND go for a walk in their free time. This is also a great opportunity to finalize the planning your audio-visuals, room décor, and room setup requirements.

Site inspections are by far, the best way of knowing if a venue and destination are right for your program. However, going on site visits can be expensive and inconvenient if your meeting or event will be hosted abroad.

If you cannot go on site visits because the venue is on the other side of the world, don’t panic! There’s ways to find the intel you need to choose the best venue and hotel. Just follow the following exercise 🙂

Virtually everything can be found online. However, you need to find recommendations and reviews that are not biased to a single brand or destination.

Check with your family, friends, and acquaintances if they have been to the destinations and hotels that you have under consideration. Ask them about their experiences in that destination. Their comments will be filled with positive and negative emotions. Think of how their experiences fit with your program.

Tell your event agency that you would like to visit the short-listed venues. Your event agent may (on several occasions) be able to find you complimentary site inspections including accommodation.

If you cannot go on site inspections yourself, your event agency will either do it for you or will gather reviews and pictures captured in-real-time by other clients and event professionals from their network.

(8)   Obtain Great Contract Terms & Conditions: Leverage Your Risk

Budget and value for money are very important. But contract terms and conditions are just as important. In many occasions, contract terms and conditions have more value than monetary savings. During the covid-19 pandemic, the contracts with the most flexible terms to cancel and re-book into a new date exceeded the value of contracts that had given more monetary discounts.

Always make sure that you determine from an ‘early stage’ which terms and conditions suit your meeting or event. Ideally, do this before checking availability with venues and before requesting offers.

To determine what contract terms and conditions suit your program, you need to answer the following questions:

• Who will pay for the meeting or event?
• Who will pay for hotel bedrooms?
• If attendees are to signup for the meeting or event, when is their deadline to finalise their registration?
• When will the count of attendees be final?
• Will you provide the hotel with a rooming list of all the guests that will stay at the hotel? Or, will each individual guest book their own bedroom by contacting the hotel(s) themselves?
• Will your organization guarantee and pay for the hotel bedrooms? Or, will the attendees book and guarantee their bedrooms with their own credit card?
• If the participants will book and pay for their own bedroom accommodations, when is their deadline to have their reservations booked and paid?
• What is your (past) experience with meetings or events in which participants had to book and pay their own accommodation?
• In prior programs, were you successful at reaching the sleeping room numbers from the hotel’s group contract?
• What were the bedroom rates of your prior programs an at which hotels?
• Which complimentary items and concessions are of ‘added-value’ for your group? (e.g. room upgrades, free parking, etc…)
• What are the minimum cancellation terms for your hotel and venue contracts?

After you have answered the questions above, discuss each one with your event management agency. Do this at the beginning phase of planning. This will allow your event agency to target venues that fit your needs and negotiate the best cancellation terms that will cover you.

In my experience as an international event management agent, I’ve seen event planners spend a lot of time coming up to a short-list of venues, only to go back to square one when at the time of contracting, the short-listed hotels would not agree to terms and conditions that fit the program.

Answering the questions above from the beginning will save you a lot of time and money. The best and most efficient way to contract your venue is to do it with the support of your event management agent. This will free up your time, and you will have more hotel options where to choose from. In the end, you will have the absolute best venue option that was available on the dates of your program.

Your event agent make you look like a hero!

I hope you liked my post. I very much enjoyed writing it. Because I love event planning and I looove being an event management agent ❤️

I know you have questions. Don’t be shy and ask away. Comment here or private message me.

Greetings from Amsterdam,

Jean Carlos