Mike Duchock, Marketing Events Manager, ExamSoft, Dallas
Do you find that your booking window (the time between starting the process of researching and booking a meeting and the actual event) is increasing or shrinking? Are you finding it harder to book rooms/meeting space in a short timeframe at hotels and other meeting facilities?
For an event the size of our user conference (400 rooms on peak) it’s getting tougher to book less than two years out. We’re missing out on preferred venues but able to negotiate good deals with the ones that are still open. Many other conferences of similar size in our industry are promoting their locations and dates four years out.
Do you expect your attendance to increase or decrease in 2017?
Thankfully our conference is new and rapidly growing so we expect a decent increase for 2017.
Are perception problems (meeting at luxurious properties, resort destinations, etc.) a great concern for your organization? Do you expect any perception problems in 2017?
We won’t consider gaming properties, New Orleans or Las Vegas because of the perception that they’re more keen to cater to our attendee’s vices rather than their needs for a conference venue.
Are you exploring the possibility, or have you already held, a “hybrid” meeting (meetings that combine live events with an Internet/digital component? If so, what are your observations?
We’ve explored the idea of a hybrid meeting but ruled it out due to the expense and potential loss of in-person attendees.
Are sustainable (green) meetings something your organization has moved toward? If not, do you expect to implement more-sustainable meetings in the future?
At our last user conference we decided to go completely paperless for agenda information, relying on our new mobile app. On the first day we received lots of feedback from attendees that they prefer to have something tangible to refer to or even turn in to their bosses as proof of attending the meeting.
How important is Internet bandwidth to your programs (i.e., Wi-Fi), and do you think hotels are being more or less flexible with their Internet bandwidth pricing? Any tips to share with your fellow planners to get free or discounted Wi-Fi for your meetings?
We are a software company so Wi-Fi is vitally important for our user conference. In the past I’ve negotiated more than enough bandwidth in exchange for exclusively using the in-house AV provider. When our decision came down to two properties and one was offering free Wi-Fi, we got the other venue to also give it to us for free. Because of concerns about their quality and pricing, we then used much of our own equipment (projectors, lighting, monitors).
Do you find that you had less leverage on room rates during the last year? What are hotels and facilities telling you when you negotiate?
We chose a city and month that is considered peak season so it was difficult to negotiate the room rate we preferred.
What other trends are you seeing in the meetings world, such as changing attendee demographics (i.e., Millennials), or any other trends that are impacting your programs?
Of course networking is one of the top features of any conference. We’ve seen that our attendees want us to facilitate networking among their more immediate peers, help them filter out the fellow attendees who don’t have a similar role in their organizations.
