SITE RESEARCH AND CONTRACT NEGOTIATION

THE FIRST STEP: RESEARCHING YOUR IDEAL VENUE

Our team of experts will help you identify the appropriate venue for your upcoming event via a measured series of steps to  match cities and locations to your meetings, from the initial assessment of your event's needs to the negotiation of terms and the signing of contracts with the event host entities, specifically:

• First and foremost, conduct a comprehensive assessment of your meeting's identity, history, future growth and direction:

  • Understand your typical attendee profile and location preferences: is this a regional or national/international audience

    • Does your audience travel well?

  • Determine typical attendance numbers and more importantly, projected attendance.

  • Evaluate aggregate event space needs:  breakout rooms and keynote auditorium capacity requirements, exhibit hall size and special event(s) site preferences.

    • Other physical requirements must be considered, such as desired registration area configuration, availability of meeting staff rooms and move-in, move-out access, i.e., if your exhibit hall will be on an upper floor, will the GSC and exhibitors be challenged logistically to set up and break down the room?

  • Determine aggregate hotel room needs within a convenient distance to event site.

  • Length of conference.

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Once this evaluation is complete, we can start to look at appropriate venues.  We will first need to determine if the event is more suited to a convention center space to accommodate a large number of attendees, or if a more intimate, hotel-style venue is the best fit.  It's easy to make a medium-sized event look small when it inhabits a huge space!  When this is determined we can narrow our search to focus on appropriate venues in the clients' preferred city locations.

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Once the site options are researched our team will present the client with its recommendations on the preferred cities and locations.  RTE staff will travel to the host candidate location(s) with the client to meet the site managers and assess the physical locations and capabilities, upon the client's request.

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THE FINAL STEP: NEGOTIATING CONTRACTS

Congratulations, you have determined your ideal event venue!  Now it's time to go to contract.  RTE will help you navigate through the extensive terms and conditions of the contracts required to secure a site, including separate supplier contracts emanating from multiple hotels to secure room blocks, Audio-Visual and production companies and any other contract required to bring in services that the site does not provide in-house.

 

Contract negotiations will address Food & Beverage prices and guarantees, room block release terms to avoid being charged for unused rooms and perhaps most importantly, length of contract!  Many clients, especially those who prefer to run their events from the same city year after year, can realize cost savings by signing multi-year contracts.  However, if your event is on a fast-growth arc, then you may find yourself saddled with an expensive buyout if your event outgrows the venue before the final year of a long-term contract.

 

The bottom line is that RTE stands by its clients to determine the best venues and the best contract terms for its clients!