Plan in advance
Event managers are more than just party planners. In fact, those words are like nails on a chalkboard to many in the industry. Event managers aim to feature your message and work with you to help you reach your goals for each event. They are able to save you significant amounts of money and time, measure the returns on your investment, and, of course, coordinate an event that will be effective and leave your employees and clients talking.
“A lot of it is really thinking out of the box,” Kann says. “You sit down with a client, and they say, ‘Tom, we did this last year, but we can’t do it this year. Come up with some new ideas on how we can present our ideas to our membership or to our employees.’”
Just look at those Midwest executives, for example. During the 24 hours after they called the event management firm, the firm started to contact all guests to relay the parking situation, then paid parking lot fees to ensure there would be available spaces somewhere within the city limits, hired buses and created a route to the building. All of that would have taken weeks if an internal employee with little event management experience had handled the task. It took the firm a couple of days. On the morning of the event, those thousands of guests parked at remote lots and were shuttled a couple of miles on city roads. It was hardly ideal, but it worked.
It also cost the company an extra $20,000.
“Meeting planning is very time-consuming,” says Marsha S. Reynolds, president and owner, Reynolds Meeting & Event Management. “You have to plan months and years in advance, and people who don’t have departments that do that are taking away valuable time and resources to do things like this. Instead of using internal resources, this is helping them by having an outside person handle this.”
Many firms also have considerable influence at hotels and venues and with vendors. Because they direct so much business and so many sales to those outlets, event management firms often receive a discount somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, which they normally pass along directly to you. Their knowledge of your city — and the state, nation and world, for that matter — allows them to track down the lowest prices in a matter of hours or minutes, as opposed to days or weeks.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I pretty much know every hotel in the United States — and many outside the United States, too,” Reynolds says. “If somebody tells me what they need, I can immediately come up with ideas.”
There are four primary reasons to work with an event management firm. First, you will save a little more money in the end, even if you spend a little more at the beginning. Second, many businesses no longer have the internal resources necessary to handle events. Third, companies often need fresh ideas for old events, and an objective pair of eyes can provide those new thoughts. And fourth, it does simplify your work.