
You have probably heard the saying, “Hope for the best but plan for the worst.” While many meeting and event professionals work hard to anticipate problems which might arise during their meeting and event, the reality is that often the biggest challenges are those which cannot be anticipated or planned for in advance of the meeting. What can planners do to plan for the unexpected challenges? Following are four true stories of challenges faced by meeting and event professionals, how they were resolved and what could have been done to avoid or minimize the problems which ensued.
No Rooms at the Inn
Just three weeks before its annual meeting, the meeting planner for a professional society learns that the luxury brand hotel scheduled to host her group’s meeting will be undergoing exterior renovations and as a result, the hotel will not be able to provide sleeping rooms to the group. The hotel proposes to the planner that since it can host the function space, it transport attendees to and from the hotel by bus to a nearby limited service hotel. Knowing that the hotel’s proposal was unacceptable, the planner worked to secure rooms and function space in another luxury brand hotel. Meanwhile, the group advised the original hotel that due to its inability to provide sleeping rooms as required by the contract, it was in breach of its contract and thus all obligations were terminated and the hotel would be legally responsible for all monetary damages incurred by the group to move its meeting.
Once the alternate hotel was secured, the original hotel was advised of the summary of the monetary damages incurred by the group as a result of the hotel’s breach. Those damages included the diƯerence in room rates between the original and the alternate hotel, the difference in food and beverage prices between the original and the alternate hotel, costs to notify the attendees of the change in location, costs to update the website, and attorneys fees to review the contract for the alternate hotel. Documentation of such charges was also provided. Following review and discussion of the damages, the original hotel accepted the summary and made a payment to the group for its damages.
Use Contract Template Whenever Possible
Template contracts – on any side – foster uniformity and consistency which, in large organizations, is critical. Exceptions can and will hurt you. That’s something that many of you have, unfortunately, experienced in your own organizations. And no one wants to be the person that they are talking about later – “can you believe they signed that contract….accepted those terms” etc. So start with clauses that you know…that you are comfortable with….that your organization’s “legal eagles” have drafted/endorsed….that are “battle-tested”. Then, if there are revisions oƯered to the template language, you are comfortable discussing knowing that you are coming from a place of strength.
Although this story has a happy ending, the group could have put itself in a stronger position with the original hotel by including a provision in the contract which addressed the possibility of the hotel’s cancellation. That provision would include a detailed listing of those categories of items and costs for which the hotel would need to pay monetary damages if it could not provide the rooms or function space required by the contract.
The Speaker and The Scandal
Yes I understand that many think that there is no way that “this thing or that thing” will happen therefore why spend precious bandwidth in a contract to negotiate the contingency language. Yet we have all lived the situation of something that no one ever thought would happen does, in fact, happen. So address it now; don’t leave any contingencies to chance.
While the group was pleased that the speaker bureau understood its concerns and addressed them regardless of what the contract said, the key take away from this story is that it is important to have strong language in the speaker contract regarding the group’s right to cancel for issues or concerns involving the speaker. Typically in speaker contracts, there is a broad right for the speaker to cancel for reasons such as illness, death of a family member and even “overriding professional obligations” but this right is one-sided. By converting these provisions to mutual rights, the group will be in a better position to protect its interests with this important investment.
“Under-departed” and The Snowstorm
How does a snowstorm in the northeast aƯect a meeting in Florida? When the attendees from the meeting before are unable to travel back home to the northeast. That’s just what happened to one group a few years ago. When it and its attendees arrived in Florida for their meeting, they learned that the hotel was not able to provide their sleeping rooms or function space because the group before did not check out of the hotel as scheduled because they were unable to travel home to the northeast.
Once alerted to the problem, the hotel worked to secure sleeping rooms at a neighboring hotel. The hotel was also able to provide function space to the group. Ultimately, the holdovers were able to travel home and the group was able to move its sleeping rooms back to the hotel.
This issue of being oversold – or, as one hotelier put it to me, “underdeparted” – can be a major disruption to a group’s meeting. And yet despite eƯorts to put strong language into the hotel contracts, these “underdeparted” situations will still arise from time to time and therefore need to be managed from a practical standpoint outside of the contract.
Party of Two for the Ballroom?
Just two weeks before its annual sales meeting, a corporate meeting planner discovered the that ballroom reserved for her company’s general session programs was now reserved to another group and would not be available for her company’s use. Although the contract did not state that the hotel could move the group’s function space, the hotel made such change anyway. When challenged on this change, the hotel stated that the change was due to the fact that the group would not be using its minimum room block and therefore the hotel found another group who would replace revenue at the hotel. The alternate space being oƯered by the hotel was inferior space in terms of size, location and amenities. While the group continued to challenge the hotel’s right to move its function space, it contacted its decorator about the alternate space and whether it could be made to work for the general sessions. Following such discussions, the group determined that the alternate space would work for the group. Now began the negotiations over what the group would receive from the hotel as a result of this change. In addition to paying the group’s additional costs to move the general session (including decor, lighting, signage), the hotel agreed to waive more than $20,000 in room block attrition fees the group would have been responsible to pay under the terms of the contract. So in the end, while not happy about the alternate space, the meeting went from a financial failure to a financial success due in part to the hotel’s change in function space.
There are really two key learning points from this story. First, make sure that hotel and convention center agreements include language which requires the hotel or center to obtain the group’s prior consent to any function space reassignments. Second, when any challenge such as the double-booking of function space occurs, remember that sometimes that challenge can be a good thing. Often, it gives the group leverage to negotiate concessions which will be financially beneficial to the group.
So the next time you hear a story from a meeting professional about something going wrong at their meeting, don’t just think that the same thing can’t happen to you – think of what you would do to make sure the problem never arises in the first place.