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How to take much of the risk out of organising your next conference / exhibition or seminar.

It might not seem like it but the conference and meeting industry is evolving, this evolution is deepening the options available to conference organisers when it comes to de-risking their event. Here are a few ideas as to how.

Choose your venue wisely:

• Venues terms when it comes to cancellations have never varied more. Many venues have tightened their terms so that they will not have to return deposits etc in the event of another lockdown. Maybe think about using event insurance, event better use a venue who will include covid insurance in their costs, see HERE.
• Ensure your chosen venue is covid safe, there are a mass of covid safe accreditation schemes out there. Some given out fairly freely without verification some much more thorough, see HERE.
• Ensure you are getting good value for money. Since advent of pandemic venue rates have divulged hugely. Many meeting and conference venues have raised prices in an attempt to recoup past losses, others are discounting in an effort to win business. We believe that using a specialist venue finding agency may well save you money.
  • They are paid by venues, normally 8-10% of the event cost. Venues who are signed up to the HBAA code of practise, have committed to not charging more to clients booking via an agent.
  • They should be able to leverage their combined buying power to secure the best possible rates.
  • They should be able to leverage their intimate knowledge of the market to securing the best possible rates.
  • We would recommend you use an agent who is based near yourselves, there is a better chance they will actually have visited the spaces you are interested in. We would also recommend using a voice broker rather than a computer or listing site.

Outsource:

• There is an ever growing eco system of providers to the conference and meetings industry. This specialisation gives the organiser the opportunity to use a plethora of highly efficient sub-contractors. The Delegate Wrangler, maintains a huge list, see HERE. Specifically we are thinking of areas like:
  • Production Management: Working with yourself to understand what you are trying to achieve and then making this a reality i.e. sourcing speakers, liaising with Audio – Visual teams / set designers etc, managing the marketing of the event, the invites etc etc.
  • Delegate Management, essentially managing the event on the day, name badges, speakers etc etc.
  • Hybrid or Virtual Options, this is an enormous topic of itself, but an earlier blog of our might give you a flavour of what is or isn’t possible, see HERE
  • Technology in general. Many venues / production houses will try to steer you to their solution. This is a very fast growing area, where huge amounts of money can be spent, be wary.