Recently we were asked to propose an incentive travel programme based in one of three European cities – Prague, Lisbon or Vienna. Our client was expecting 80 or so globally based guests and wanted to run a four or five day programme; a real mix of conference, activity, customer visits and a little bit of entertainment thrown in too.
Another client asked us to pitch in ideas for a live event and wanted to downgrade from their usual five star property requirement to a four star in order to “save money and demonstrate to our people not only our commitment to communication but also an acknowledgement of the difficult economic times in which we our operating”.
The budgets for both, it is fair to say, were hugely challenging and both our clients knew as much. We knew, our clients knew, but boy I wish the hotels and properties we’d approached recognised as much (and that’s with preferential rates negotiated directly with both clients and made available to us too!).
“It seems as though only our clients and us are aware of the credit crunch,” I said to a colleague of mine. I was left wondering if anyone else was having the same problem, or were we experiencing small agency syndrome? To put it bluntly were hotels just not interested in doing business with us or were we not negotiating as well as the big boys?
In his opening piece this month Martin Lewis, Managing Editor of Meetings & Incentive Travel (M&IT) magazine said something similar. “Now it’s time for the venues to get real. If they are going to win business, they will need to be more flexible on pricing, more creative with their marketing and more proactive with sales activities .... Instead of the 24-hour rate, we need a Friday rate, a Monday rate and a ‘please-take-it-off-our-hands-it’s-Sunday-and-we’re-empty’ rate. That way you, the organisers, can get more bangs for your buck and the venues can hold on to more of the business, albeit at a lower yield.”
So, I’m not the only one. Phew! Heartened by this I called up my DMC in Prague to talk rates. “Well yes I understand the problem, but you have to understand in April we are very, very busy and I don’t have many properties able to accommodate you, let alone willing to negotiate with you.”
“I may have to go elsewhere,” I said. “The budgets are just miles apart and our client isn’t going to go for this at all. The budget is fixed. That’s it. That’s all the money they’ve got.”
“Well of course I’d be sorry to see you go elsewhere, but do think of us for another time and another event,” said our Prague DMC. It wasn’t quite the end of the conversation, but it was close!
Well, bad news for us and our client this time - but good news for Prague. Prague is officially busy in April and so it seems is Vienna. Lisbon is busy too they tell me, but either less so or just happier to negotiate and offer alternatives. So now we’ve got one happy client, one more recce booked in for before Christmas, and one more happy DMC who knows that there will still be some hard conversations taking place over the next few weeks regarding budget – but at least they’ve seen off Prague and Vienna this time around.
But what of the UK? What’s happening in the UK in terms of incentive travel, live events and the rest? Well depending on whom you talk to it’s either doom and gloom or not a problem at all. The one thing that does seem to unite both groups is that they agree that lead times are getting shorter ... and decisions are being put off until the very last minute.
“It’s not a question of not wanting to negotiate,” says one close contact and colleague from the hotel side, “it’s just a question of what our managers and sales people are saying and what our diaries are saying too. I’m happy to negotiate and in this climate business confirmed is business I want, and if I need to drop our rates to confirm the business then I will do, but I’m still hearing that some properties – and luxury ones at that - are struggling to find space for new enquiries. A colleague said to me recently that they were given an open brief; ‘look through your entire portfolio of properties and tell me what you can offer my group for the third week in January’. They had to go back to their client and say that they couldn’t offer them anything. They are solidly booked! Now you’re not going to get any negotiations off the ground whilst properties, collections and groups have problems like that to contend with!”
Hum. Nice problem to have, but still a problem. So, where do we go from here? We are where we are. We’ve got to look wider and consider properties that perhaps a year ago, or even less, we just wouldn’t have considered on our first approach list. We’ve just got to get on with it and work our knowledge, and those relationships, the very best that we can! Finally, we've got to ensure clients know what the situation is like out there. We may be at the start (or in the middle depending on who you listen to) of a credit crunch ... but quite clearly only some of us know about it.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Can A Live Event Ever Become A True Experience?
We’ve all been to live events which seem to think that their only duty is solely to provide us with information – often reams of it – without a single thought to how that information is communicated, or indeed whether their audience is in fact ‘getting’ what they are trying to say.
At best, live events like this connect with only a small portion of their attendees and when I attend events like this I am driven to ask the same question time and time again, what are the attendees actually taking away from the event?
True, some may take just one or two pieces of key information away that encourage them to engage / change behaviour / sell more etcetera, etcetera; but what about the rest? Live events are rarely inexpensive to put on and are certainly time consuming for all involved. Why then are we still seeing so many live events where it’s all about what the speakers want to say and how they want to say it, with little or no thought given to the audience?
Let’s look at how it could be. Let’s look at one of the biggest live events to have taken place recently when Barack Obama gave his first speech as President-elect in Chicago. There were, it’s claimed, over 250,000 people attending. When I saw the footage those in the middle and behind could barely see the huge repeater screens let alone the man himself on the stage and yet the atmosphere was charged, everyone was listening to what that man had to say and joined him in a huge chant when he said “we can” overcome the obstacles and difficulties that America faces.
This event was no mere live event. It was an experience; a once in a lifetime experience possibly for some, but none-the-less an experience. Barack Obama must have known that when he went onto that stage and spoke to that audience he would have only one opportunity to get it right ... and get it right he did.
Now Barack Obama could have come out and stood there and delivered a speech that told his supporters the information that he wanted to give them. He could have thought that he was the most important person in that huge gathering of people. Perhaps he did, but that certainly didn’t come across; not for one second.
What did come across was a truly inspired leader who engaged with his audience and who took his audience along with him on a journey via his speech. His speech lasted a little less than 18 minutes and during it he did give information to the audience that he needed to impart, for instance the fact that there are no quick fixes and that it might take more than one term to get America back on track. However, even when he was giving out information he never forgot to engage his audience whether that was by asking for their help, their patience, their support or, as he often did, by reminding them that he couldn’t do it on his own and that this audience (those physically there and those watching or reading about it) were part of the solution.
I imagine that there will be those reading this who will say, “yes but we don’t have scriptwriters to writer for us like that”. Here’s the news – you can access them and they don’t cost a fortune. Invest in a scriptwriter and make sure it’s one who understands you, your company, your culture and your messages and knows how to weave some magic through your script.
There will be those amongst you who will say, “our next conference is a million miles away from a political rally ... and so it should be.” I agree, but would urge you to think less about a conference (unless that’s what you really do need to have) and more about an experience; an experience where your audience leave truly revved up and ready to go. An audience who leave inspired, who understand the challenges ahead and, perhaps most importantly of all, their part in the solution, will be of much more value to your organisation than those who have just been talked at.
It’s been time for us to think about how we do live events for a long, long time now. I would argue that with the current economic climate coupled with the necessity to continue communicating to people, it’s now more important than ever. We need to make some changes. We need to ensure that live events become experiences because it is through experience that people become truly engaged, truly change or truly begin to sell more – whatever your message and intent is.
At the end of the day, the most important people attending your next live event / experience are the people in the audience, not those on the stage. The people you are trying to communicate with are the ones who should drive your thinking and that’s why I urge you to give them an experience and not the usual live event.
At best, live events like this connect with only a small portion of their attendees and when I attend events like this I am driven to ask the same question time and time again, what are the attendees actually taking away from the event?
True, some may take just one or two pieces of key information away that encourage them to engage / change behaviour / sell more etcetera, etcetera; but what about the rest? Live events are rarely inexpensive to put on and are certainly time consuming for all involved. Why then are we still seeing so many live events where it’s all about what the speakers want to say and how they want to say it, with little or no thought given to the audience?
Let’s look at how it could be. Let’s look at one of the biggest live events to have taken place recently when Barack Obama gave his first speech as President-elect in Chicago. There were, it’s claimed, over 250,000 people attending. When I saw the footage those in the middle and behind could barely see the huge repeater screens let alone the man himself on the stage and yet the atmosphere was charged, everyone was listening to what that man had to say and joined him in a huge chant when he said “we can” overcome the obstacles and difficulties that America faces.
This event was no mere live event. It was an experience; a once in a lifetime experience possibly for some, but none-the-less an experience. Barack Obama must have known that when he went onto that stage and spoke to that audience he would have only one opportunity to get it right ... and get it right he did.
Now Barack Obama could have come out and stood there and delivered a speech that told his supporters the information that he wanted to give them. He could have thought that he was the most important person in that huge gathering of people. Perhaps he did, but that certainly didn’t come across; not for one second.
What did come across was a truly inspired leader who engaged with his audience and who took his audience along with him on a journey via his speech. His speech lasted a little less than 18 minutes and during it he did give information to the audience that he needed to impart, for instance the fact that there are no quick fixes and that it might take more than one term to get America back on track. However, even when he was giving out information he never forgot to engage his audience whether that was by asking for their help, their patience, their support or, as he often did, by reminding them that he couldn’t do it on his own and that this audience (those physically there and those watching or reading about it) were part of the solution.
I imagine that there will be those reading this who will say, “yes but we don’t have scriptwriters to writer for us like that”. Here’s the news – you can access them and they don’t cost a fortune. Invest in a scriptwriter and make sure it’s one who understands you, your company, your culture and your messages and knows how to weave some magic through your script.
There will be those amongst you who will say, “our next conference is a million miles away from a political rally ... and so it should be.” I agree, but would urge you to think less about a conference (unless that’s what you really do need to have) and more about an experience; an experience where your audience leave truly revved up and ready to go. An audience who leave inspired, who understand the challenges ahead and, perhaps most importantly of all, their part in the solution, will be of much more value to your organisation than those who have just been talked at.
It’s been time for us to think about how we do live events for a long, long time now. I would argue that with the current economic climate coupled with the necessity to continue communicating to people, it’s now more important than ever. We need to make some changes. We need to ensure that live events become experiences because it is through experience that people become truly engaged, truly change or truly begin to sell more – whatever your message and intent is.
At the end of the day, the most important people attending your next live event / experience are the people in the audience, not those on the stage. The people you are trying to communicate with are the ones who should drive your thinking and that’s why I urge you to give them an experience and not the usual live event.
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