The Return of the Essential Conference
Economic times are tough, and a strong strategic mindset is necessary to stage winning events in the future.
By Jeannette Cooperman
The days of pampering attendees are over. Remember back when conferences plucked people from their routines and set them down in faraway and exotic locales, ensconcing them in hotels where the bars were open, the shrimp were cold and the towels were changed as soon as they got damp. Everywhere there was a sense of abundance, a wink-and-nod temporary indulgence—and it was enough to reconcile attendees to predictable, lackluster sessions and a few swaps of the ol' business card.
But with escalating fuel prices and surcharges, rising hotel rates and food costs, shrinking budgets, the exacting etiquette of sustainability, new passport regulations and intensely inconvenient flight schedules on no-frills carriers, conferences can't rely on that old sense of largesse anymore. In the future, more than ever before, conferences must be essential.
A Quick Plummet
The Convention Industry Council reports that every year, more than 1 million meetings, conventions and exhibitions are held in the U.S. alone—and the number has been increasing steadily, with a roughly $250 billion annual impact on the U.S. economy.
But looking ahead, the waters appear a bit choppy.
Norbert Walker, chief economist of Deutsche Bank Group, predicts the U.S. dollar will be weak for the next five years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average keeps plunging—by hundreds of points at a time. Smith Travel Research reports that hotel occupancy is down and hotel rates are up. And three major North American airlines have all reduced flights, planes and personnel, with domestic capacity down 11 percent to 15 percent since January. Not only are the honey-roasted peanuts gone, but the remaining planes are smaller, and we're paying the price of a filet mignon dinner just to check a bag.
It's all happening in the everyday world, too: We're begging for bread and water at fine restaurants, and downsizing is back vengefully at major companies.
Francis Friedman, president of Time & Place Strategies, notes that "the pocket issues are affecting companies, and companies are cutting all the way back. Cash is king." And cash categories—such as travel and education and motivational dollars—are usually the first hacked out of the budget.
Suppliers are seeing the effects. Joel Lippman, events manager for the Metreon complex in downtown San Francisco, says employee parties are a little quieter and conference clients are planning events with less time out.
"It's just hard. We have 400 hotels—all types—in the U.S. and Europe and Asia, and they are all getting worried," said Elaine Macy, a former meeting planner who now directs global incentive sales for Preferred Hotel Group. "Conferences are smaller in size and with much shorter-term planning, and huge pieces of business are getting cancelled.
"I'm hearing that we're maybe 15 percent down in North America, which isn't too bad yet," she continues. "We're working with properties to make sure they're prepared and don't need to lay off staff, so the service level doesn't suffer."
Global Arena, Contained Panic
Sky-high fuel costs are near universal, but there's a sharper edge of panic in North America, because the dollar has lost buying power.
"Economic uncertainty hasn't touched us very severely yet in Scandinavia or Northern Europe," said Vilma Väisänen, project director for Management Events Studio Ltd. in Helsinki, Finland. Her exception: international companies based in the U.S. Their reduced marketing budgets are affecting future events, not ongoing projects.
"Independent planner companies and suppliers are not experiencing a lot of difficulties; rather, the opposite," Väisänen said. "The economic wheel is spinning full speed, and labor shortage is the challenge."
Pierre Oudine, business development director for LSO International, a destination management company headquartered in France, says economic signs are contradictory. The globe's so interconnected; anything that happens in North America affects France.
"We have fewer Americans coming, and even those who come on cruises spend more time on the boat and less in our restaurants," Oudine said. "The volume of American requests is less, and the planning time is shorter. We try to be more flexible about prices. Off season, in February and March, is when we can play with the budget and the Americans can benefit."
In Europe, budget worries might be more circumspect, but not for budget airlines. Planners are learning to check Web sites such as www.flycheapo.com to find out what new routes are on the horizon, news.cheapflights.co.uk/flights to compare deals and www.whichbudget.com to search by destination, departure airport and airline.
James Koh, CMP, leader of the special events overseas group for Amway Japan Limited, says airfare costs will moderately affect his company's choice of destinations for future incentive programs.
"We will select destinations that are closer to Japan rather than holding incentive programs in the U.S.," Koh said, adding the caveat that, "as Japanese love and repeatedly vacation in Hawaii, we will continue to hold incentive programs there."
Indeed, he's planning one for 3,600 guests in Honolulu in 2010.
"Fortunately, the current strong yen does help cushion the blow," he said.
Another forward-thinking strategy: get more creative.
"We've been working on creative solutions to save costs, working with our U.S. colleagues to try to consolidate and leverage our volume purchasing," Koh said.
By booking hotel rooms at the same hotel for conferences at different times of the year, the Japanese and U.S. Amways share a discounted rate ("a win-win situation for both sides)." They have also begun booking reservations directly.
"We think the cost savings may well outweigh the cost of staff increase," Koh said.
Practical Budgeting
"Excessive investments on decoration and staging are ever harder to justify," Väisänen said. And so are cocktail-shrimp platters on silver trays.
"I'm watching meetings where we are getting more veggie platters, less shrimp, and the platters are out a shorter length of time," Friedman said.
The key is offering just enough food so people don't feel deprived or woozy but also don't see any lavish extra expense or waste.
Thomas Licata, CEO of Creative Endeavors in Las Vegas, sees companies holding joint conferences with partners and associates—which makes for a much more intense program—or consolidating training sessions. He also sees more team and outdoor activities, simple fun with the benefit of building teamwork before possible layoffs.
Kathy Mitchell plans meetings for the American Library Association. Her audience is a group of "academics and state librarians and private consultants, techies and brainiacs. Flashy? Absolutely not. But they also tend to be picky."
Mitchell's advice for today's planner? Cut corners everywhere.
"Audiovisual costs can be astronomical at hotels," Mitchell said. "Our office purchases some of the equipment, and it's small and portable enough that we will just take it with us. The hotel fee is a lot less than the rental fee."
Otherssend their equipment ahead of time.
"We encourage people to do all their Internet research at home before they travel; we will not reimburse for in-room Internet use," Mitchell said. "We try to find hotels that offer free Wi-Fi, and we make sure we do presentations that don't require Internet use. Gas is the No. 1 complaint, so we try to pick locations that are going to be affordable. Everybody loves to go to downtown Chicago, but we had our recent meeting at one of the airport hotels, where people could go for a really inexpensive dinner."
Days of the open bar at the welcoming reception are just about over—but guests still roll their eyes at the all-cash bar.
"We might give out free drink tickets and say, ‘Your first drink is free.' Usually that goes over well," Mitchell said.
Trendwatching.com calls the U.S. "an expectation economy," with critical skills honed by years of hyperconsumption. But the new emphasis is on experiences rather than objects; participation rather than passive absorption; snack-sized bits of information that are amusing, easy to digest—and surprising. Susan Friedmann, CSP, who's known as The Tradeshow Coach, says that meshes perfectly with Gen X and Gen Y. "They like hands-on; they like to be in charge."
Her favorite idea for shaving money off the priciest line item of all, entertainment, is a good old-fashioned variety show.
"You've got so many talented people from different fields attending a conference," she said. "Put together a band of musicians or have people do acts, even stand-up comedy. It makes for fun, light entertainment that works across all age groups, which is hugely important when you have four generations in the workplace. And it's cheap."
What Not to Skimp On
The only thing more important than where to trim is where not to trim.
"Expertise, No. 1," Friedman said. "Even if you have to break your budget, make sure the experience is good. Give them real tools; don't bring a speaker in who's going to talk about generalities."
Technology, too, will only grow in importance in the future.
Väisänen relies on widescreen, video, teleconference, Internet and mobile/RFID technology to convey an event's core message, collect delegate data and feedback and give her real-time information. Then webcasts extend the event's life. The International Association of Conference Centers recently webcast an interactive town hall meeting, with people on stage answering questions from live and virtual audiences. Planners say blogs are changing the dynamics of a conference altogether, making it more interactive and keeping speakers on their toes.
Knowing that virtual conferencing and online conversations loom on the near horizon, planners are using them to create a sense of community, warming people up for conference interaction and then continuing session impact afterward with forums and webinars.
"Consider paring down your attendee list and broadcasting to your broader potential audience," said Lynn Randall, a strategic meetings consultant for Maritz Travel in St. Louis, when faced with large numbers of people who can no longer afford to attend a conference. "Work with event strategists who are versed in when, with whom and what messages should be conveyed virtually versus live."
In short, the rule is to spend money on what engages the audience, making its experience compelling, irreplaceable and easy to justify to the CEO.
"You have to understand the drivers in people's work lives," Friedman said. "You may have to drop some of the tracks you've been working on for 14 months and substitute courses like ‘How do you survive with no cash in your company?' The programming has to move to where the contraction is and provide how-to for the pain. That means we have to get out of our comfort zones and understand the hardcore issues of the industry and where people really live emotionally. We also have to offer hope—not smarmy hope, pragmatic hope. You don't want people walking out of your meeting feeling like they've just been to a funeral."
In his blog, marketing guru Seth Godin writes, "Here's what a speaker owes an audience that travels to engage in person: more than they could get by just reading the transcript. Here's what a conference organizer owes the attendees: surprise, juxtaposition, drama, engagement, souvenirs and, just possibly, excitement."
In his blog, "How to Run a Useless Conference," Godin waves aside the old approach to panels and presentations.
"Stories and irrational impulses are what change behavior, not facts or bullet points," he writes. "Figure out how to do the atypical, how to change the interactions that people have with each other, how to change what they talk about in the elevator and how to create an environment where people walk in ready to learn and change and challenge, as opposed to getting that, ‘Hey we're in the Bahamas let's get drunk and then sit through a session with the CEO' glazed look."
Dr. Rodolfo Musco, CMP, CMM, says emotion's the key.
"Adults do not change their behaviour without a psychological anchorage of the new knowledge, and this does not happen without emotions," Musco said.
President of Motivation & Events in Milan, Italy, he's part theater director, part neighborhood organizer and part psychoanalyst.
"At the center of our activity are individuals bearing needs to exchange knowledge—people with different psychological domains," Musco said. "And one has to understand those individual domains without stereotyping. Then you write the meeting's screenplay, managing the language, the space and the movement of the event."
After all, he adds, "meetings attain to festivity, not to everyday life."
JEANETTE COOPERMAN is a freelance writer based in Waterloo, Ill.