Blog for Carson Tang

They say to business location, location, location becomes top of the list critical for a physical businesses and events. Here are the criteria used in selecting locations for your marketing events in an urban environment serving a audience population from a 90 mile radius:

1.                Room rental rate
2.                Availability on a long term basis
3.                Flexibility and willingness of facility management to work with us
4.                Space to accommodate group size
5.                Space to accommodate short term growth
6.                Accessibility to public transportation (subway)
7.                Accessible parking for cars
8.                Cleanliness, odor free, rodent and insect free, and mildew free facility
9.                Area of facility seemingly safe for people and cars – actual and feel
10.              Amenities in facility (non fixed chairs, tables, internet, screens, projection, PA, lectern, air conditioning, etc.)
11.              Decent acoustics and lighting
12.              Hours venue available
13.              Restroom capacity and cleanliness
14.              Proximity to cafes, fast food, restaurants, etc. if you have all day events with long breaks
15.              Security at venue
16.              Extras — who cleans up, what is cost? What are you allowed to bring in and do at facility?
17.              Other simultaneous events — will they interfere with yours? Are rooms sound proof?
18.              Is facility ADA approved and equipped
19.              Is electricity and outlets, and water available to you with or without charge?

Please note although this list is not exhaustive and there other items not included. Although these may not be a make or break a deal it is the totality of combining the items on matrix and weighing all the pros and cons that will provide you the best location for the purposes you seek.

In addition to those voicing their two cents you can put out a call to action to your list. We sent two call to actions out and there were no viable sites suggested with concrete information nor photos (everyone has ideas and suggestions and fewer have the facts or will get them to you). Having no or few inappropriate sites offered the selection of a site is then by default left to you in its entirety (or whomever did all the work and research to locating the best possible venue under the criteria above).

The adage in working in a volunteer environment where everyone loves giving you their two cents yet doesn’t offer you the whole dollar is “put up or shut up” – in a gentle way of course.

There will be those not happy with what venue (whether — location, building, costs, windows, neighborhood, yadda, yadda, etc.) you select for your event. It is unusual if you have a large number of attendees where not a single one will not complain about location, space, distance, price, etc).

Be very aware you cannot please everyone and to give into one person or your emotion to make choice without a pragmatic and systematic checklist for site selection to work off of can be a detriment to the success, both short term or long term, of the event you are producing.

Bottomline, the facility must work with the group and be flexible as you are flexible with the facility, you need it to be available tomorrow (if it is repeat) – or even available when it is supposed to be, and you need it to be positively memorable.

What should you pay for a venue? The going rate is based on what you derive from at least five location quotes. I usually price ten or more.

I Recently priced out about 36 locations before narrowing the prospects to a smaller list to match them against one another on the above matrix. Knowing what our minimum attendance will be and what you can charge for attendance helps you select a site based on what they charge. Once you get down to the top three in consideration then you need to:

1) meet personally and interview management; and
2) inspect the site. A credible and dependable facility will offer you at least an initial agreement acknowledging or agreeing to either short or long term rental. If they do not and it is on a handshake – DON’T! This happened while working with the selection of the Snapple Theater in NYC. The General Manager put off providing us lease agreement stating she would get to it – never did. They summarily cancelled our rental with a single email notice the Monday afternoon before Wednesday (two days) of the meeting without justifiable cause. No calls, no follow-up email, etc. zip zilch nadda — just one single solitary email that could have been sent to wrong address or lost in cyber space. At this point (two days before the event) over 600+ members were already notified of the meeting date, time, and location being at the Snapple Theater. You can see the huge challenge presented.

I have been producing events since 1973 and over the years my acuity to what attendees (really really want and expect) and working with venues has been honed a wee bit. Some areas and concerns may not seem important or perhaps really important but don’t be misguided. As live events go we have something called Murphy’s Law and we have an incredible effect called a “ripple effect”. Any little decision or action can translate into enormous consequences (positive or negative).

Understanding this dynamic and having tons of experience with groups, psychographics and demographics, producing events for 20 – 24,000, the reality of what does or doesn’t happen at events, and what will happen with the facility is predictable more so by those with more experience.

You don’t want to commit event suicide by not taking into account what the attendees will experience and feel at the event – would you want your attendees to get a ride in a smoking sputtering jalopy or would you rather have them take a ride in a brand new smooth posh leather lined Lexus? Although cutting corners is beneficial, if it is not necessary you don’t want to undermine environment and ambience. The look and feel (and even smell) of a facility does have a subconscious effect on the attendee which has impact on word of mouth (more about WOM in future articles).

The key is to get as much experience under your belt as possible and not act in a manner based on what your personal needs or wants are but based either on group surveys, experience or better – registration questionnaires.

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