The debate over event
organizers on what is the right venue for a conference or exhibition is a very
important issue.
Choosing the right venue for
your business event spells the difference between success and failure. Success
here means generating the right impression for the attendees and clients.
Success can also mean profitability because the event organizer chooses the
right venue.
On the other hand, choosing
the wrong venue can spell failure that can sometimes make or break the event
organizer.
So here are my humble
recommendations as an 11 year old business event organizer.
1.
Choose Hotels for your Conferences
The attendees would love to
be in hotels. The learning ambiance is great. As an event organizer, I love to
hold conferences in hotels because hotels charge the food of the delegates and
not the venue.
However, be mindful of the
minimum guaranteed requirement of people imposed by hotels because this is
where your project bottom line might turn red.
For example, I have one
event organizer who agreed to the hotel’s minimum guaranteed requirement of 500
people at P2, 500.00 foods per delegate. Sadly, only 300 delegates turned-out
during the actual day of the event.
The event organizer incurred
the lost. So, again be conservative when committing to the hotels when it comes
to minimum guaranteed delegates.
2.
Choose Convention Centres for your Exhibition and
Congress
If you have trade shows or
expos then Convention or Exhibition centers are the best venue for you.
The ease of access of the
exhibitors and visitors in convention and exhibition centers make it ideal to
conduct B2B and B2C transactions. Besides this, the loading capacity of the
venue just in case heavy machines will be displayed is never a problem.
However, the charging of the
venue usually is per square meter or per square feet. Also, you pay for the
ingress and egress, unlike in hotels where ingress and egress is waived.
3.
CLRS
Each of the letters in CLRS
is important and demands your laser like focus. I grouped them into an acronym
that sounds like CLEARS. Why? Because if you focus and take each letters into
consideration then your business event is a clear winner (pun intended)! So
here it goes:
C is for Client
or Delegates. What does your client needs and wants? If you can capture it then
the event is already 50% successful. I have an event that was held in Ortigas.
It was successful but in the event survey a lot of delegates are requesting
that the event be held in Makati in its next run.
If we only knew this data in
advance, we could have maximized to the fullest the event’s success.
L is for Location. Is
it accessible? Are public transportations readily available? Is the location
strategic because of the presence of other important establishments? Are
peripheral promotions possible?
I always attend this
conference in June. However, during this month typhoons always struck the
country. Flooding usually happens nearby the conference venue. Even if the
content of the conference is great, images of floods and difficulty in going
home are associated to the conference. Thank God the organizer of the
conference decided to shift to a better venue that started last year.
R is for Reputation. The
venue is run by a team. Is the venue team experts? Can this venue team help you
on different event situations that may arise?
In one hotel where we staged
our event, we normally depend on the staff of the venue. The staffs in this
venue are very dependable. In fact, the staff efficiency contributed in our
event’s success. In another venue where we held our event, the staffs are
lacking in numbers and are not well trained because of this situation we
encountered a lot of difficulties. Not only that, we got customer complaints
due to the ill equipped staffs that we worked with in the venue.
S is for Safety and Security. Is the venue you selected gives you peace of mind on the
safety and security of the attendees, delegates or visitors?
Although I have no recollection
of venues that we used that posed risks to delegates or visitors, for me this
is the most critical of all.
Before we think about
achieving the vision or the profit of the event we always have to take special
considerations on the safety and security of the visitors and delegates.
Accident is the best way to damage your company’s
reputation. Most especially if the accident is the result of irresponsible event
manager or event organizer.
There you have it. I hope
that when you are assigned to be the event organizer or event manager of your
corporate event you will remember my tips.
- Monday, April 29, 2013
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