Nobody likes lawyers until they need one.
With sincerest apologies to all of the fine attorneys out there, that sage little bit of snarky wisdom illustrates how litigious our society has become, and how important legal eagles are to surviving in it.
In this issue of Meetings East, we’re fortunate enough to have an all-star team of meetings industry lawyers who have offered to share their expertise on how you can actually avoid having to procure their services.
Hopefully, if you take our “10 Legal Pits You Can Avoid” story to heart you won’t find yourself in a bind—by sidestepping some of the top meetings legal landmines.
Staying on the theme of avoiding traps, our “Leveling the Field” story, written by Contributing Editor Ruth A. Hill, tackles the thorny problem of what government meeting planners face in today’s über-sellers’ market.
While room rates remain quite a challenge, planners can shave costs in other areas, such as food and beverage and audiovisual, without sacrificing too much of the attendee experience. Of course, second- and third-tier cities are always a good option when that per diem just doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.
There are also ways to use the system to your advantage to actually go over the per diem, in some instances, or to get creative with alternative revenue streams or grants to pay for a portion of the F&B.
Of course, hooking up with the Society of Government Meeting Professionals, which is holding its 25th Anniversary Annual Education Conference May 2-5 in Atlantic City, N.J., is a great way to gain all of the intelligence you need to navigate the bureaucratic maze.
Moving from function to form—or perhaps combining the two—our “Better by Design” story details the strides that major convention centers have taken to move away from the necessity of being massive concrete halls to accommodate large gatherings. Quality is catching these days.
With such an increasing number of quality venues available for your meetings, conventions and events, narrowing down the options is becoming more of a challenge.
To help your site-selection process, Meetings East annually polls its readers to find out what Eastern hotels and resorts have risen to the top of their lists during the past year. This is your chance to give some love to the meeting facilities that have done right by you and your groups over the last year. You can vote online at www.meetingstoday.com/awards.
Finally, run your eyes down to the bottom of this page. We’ve added a new feature to the Inbox section by inviting meetings industry ListServ MeCo, or Meetings Community, to contribute some of the most interesting questions and answers it has posted recently.
Enjoy this jam-packed April/May issue!
