Investigating Venues

Toder learned how unusual venues can enhance the need for emergency preparedness during an event she planned for a riverboat on the Mississippi River. An attendee began choking on some food, and while a paramedic who happened to be on board was able to help her, the woman needed further medical assistance. But there was nowhere close to dock the boat and get her to an emergency room. “So the captain took the boat into a lock and dam area, and we had to wait until a certain amount of water was drained from the lock so the boat would be lowered enough to roll the woman over the side and into the arms of an [emergency medical technician],” Toder says. “You can’t always plan for these things, but being aware of local resources in the event of emergencies does help.”

Many planners also check the security of areas surrounding meeting sites. “The group I plan events for is pretty athletic, so I want to know if they can feel comfortable running around the facility at 4 a.m. or at night after meeting sessions,” Juntti says.

››› Fitness Facilities. The quality of hotel fitness centers can swing from glorified closets with aging equipment to gleaming, state-of-the-art facilities. Juntti examines the quantity, diversity, and quality of exercise equipment available in these centers and ensures hours of operation will suit her group. If a pool closes at 6 p.m. and most of her meeting sessions end at 5 p.m., there may be grumbling.

Ask the Big Questions

Planning for events at convention or conference centers, where exhibition or large-scale meeting space is needed, brings another set of issues into play. Debbie Estes, director of event marketing for Best Buy, says these venues need the capability to expand or “scale” should the nature or size of your event change. “Many times you have to pick the venue before all the details about your event are known, and so you need some assurance of flexibility,” Estes says.

Another big concern is logistics, or ensuring all of your equipment and materials arrive on time and get where they need to go. Checking on how “load in and load out” of supplies will work is one thing planners often like to do with their own eyes, especially for big events. “You don’t always get a clear idea of this from photos or from talking to convention-services employees,” Toder says. “You need to verify the size and location of freight elevators to ensure they can accommodate all of your equipment and to check the points of access outside buildings, because there may be only single-road access, which affects how vendors can get into a site. You really need to walk these areas yourself.”

Experienced planners also learn to ask the kind of questions during inspections that can head off unwelcome surprises down the road. “One thing we always want to know is if there will be any construction or remodeling going on during the event,” says Ann Biggar, an office manager for Padilla Speer Beardsley, a Minneapolis public relations firm. Some of the company’s meetings have been plagued by construction work that wasn’t previously disclosed.

Planners know venues are on their best behavior during formal inspections, so many will seek to validate their own findings by checking in with colleagues. “Event planning is a small world, and there is a wide network we can tap into to get a feel for how colleagues view certain meeting sites and the quality of experiences they’ve had with them,” Estes says. “Word of mouth travels pretty fast in this business.”