As vice president of marketing for Utah-based insurance agency Trucordia, which has 500 employees and 300 offices across the U.S., Leslie Greve’s plate is full. And that is before taking on the task of organizing company meetings, which include seven regional gatherings, an annual retreat, an incentive trip for top salespeople, and a producer meeting. For that feat, Greve turns to full-service event-planning company Grand Connection in Grand Rapids.
Grand Connection describes itself as a one-stop shop for meeting planners, offering services such as registration management, venue selection, assistance with incentive travel, accommodations arrangements, and on-site event staffing, to name a few. “From a staffing perspective, it means I can partner with somebody who has expertise and not staff up internally year-round,” Greve says, adding, “I can sleep at night leading up to all of these events knowing that all the details will be perfect.” Many folks like Greve are opting to turn to a single source or just a few that can provide everything they need for setting up meetings or events. It not only can save a lot of time, but also helps planners deliver a professionally executed, successful gathering.
An excellent place to start is with the convention and visitors bureau (CVB) of your host city or town. In addition to helping planners make connections for venues, catering, transportation, and other services, some CVBs go even further—especially when assisting organizations that do not have professional meeting planners on staff running their events.
Brandie Putnam, senior convention services manager at Choose Lansing, says it is not unusual for their staff to become an extra set of hands. When the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association World Tournament came to Lansing last year, Choose Lansing served as the host responsible for the funding and execution of the event, from setup to teardown. That included everything from coordinating hotel rooms and creating clay horseshoe pits to securing bleachers, setting up fencing, recruiting volunteers, working registration, organizing social activities, and taking it all apart afterward. For the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals, a creative problem-solving competition that has been hosted at Michigan State University in East Lansing several times, Putnam works closely with judges and officials on housing and welcome programs. One year, she served as editor for the event’s daily newspaper.
Helping Hands
Grand Connection General Manager Christina Thelen says being a one-stop shop makes things very easy for clients. Grand Connection in Grand Rapids does about 150 events a year, most in West Michigan and some outside of the state. That doesn’t mean Grand Connection handles every aspect of an event themselves, however. “We’ve been in business 25 years—long enough to know the things we’re great at and the things we will never be great at,” Thelen says. “We have amazing vendor partners—production companies we work with, designers we work with, and rental companies we work with. [By partnering with them,] we’re able to get things done just as quickly and seamlessly—and probably quicker—with less issues than if you called them yourself.”
One of the things Grand Connection specializes in is building customized registration websites along with a personalized event app that most of its clients use. “We build that out, we customize it, we add all the data to it, manage the attendees, and manage all the data,” Thelen says. She adds that often, the specialized skill of website creation is something clients are not as familiar with, so it has been a major plus for them to offer that service.
Few clients come to Grand Connection just for its technology offerings—many tap the company to manage hotel and conference center needs as well, such as hotel bookings; site searches; site visits; negotiation of contracts; and management of event space, food, and beverage. Grand Connection works with venues on event setup, unloading, and production. “We’re not doing the production, but we have great production companies we work with,” Thelen says. “And we are managing those pieces.”
Thelen says her company also handles transportation logistics, such as arranging airport shuttles for arrival and departure, and buses to venues and off-site events. This leaves clients free to focus on the content of conferences and supervising internal staff contributing to the program. “We’re doing everything except managing what’s coming off the stage,” Thelen says.
Double Trouble Entertainment in Marquette started off as a DJ service more than two decades ago but has evolved to become a full-fledged entertainment production company with services that include building portable venues and professional staging. The company does a lot of trade-show work, including for events in Las Vegas, Nevada; New York City; and Miami, Florida. “We do all sorts of stuff now,” says Double Trouble Entertainment Operations and Production Manager Katherine Marsh. “We do DJ services. We also do tents, tables, chairs, bounce houses, officiant services, a little bit of wedding coordinating, photo booths, and full concert production services, as well as concerts and corporate trade-show work. We hire audiovisual technicians to do the lights and audio hanging as well as executing.”
There are a few things Double Trouble doesn’t do: decorating, catering, and—wait for it—outhouses. But they will support clients by finding sources for those items. “Then we help with full execution,” Marsh says. “Our team does pretty much the infrastructure builds, event management, whatever you need.”
Britney Hoskins, owner of The Top Pic Collective event-management company in Sterling Heights, also bills her business as a one-stop shop for all things events. “Even with corporations, [the client] isn’t usually an event planner,” she says. “They’re usually a person who got added to this task force in addition to whatever else they are doing. When they can make a phone call to someone they know is going to handle it on a high level and make them look good, it’s like a breath of fresh air.” The Top Pic Collective manages and offers services including planning, design, photo booths, and arranging for vendors. The Luxe Rental Collective, the company’s event rental service that is also in Sterling Heights, provides seating, tablecloths, backdrops, glassware, decor, and related items.
In addition, Hoskins operates Morenas Event Venue in Grand Rapids, a venue accommodating up to 250 attendees. She opened the 15,000-square-foot Morenas Event Venue Detroit in Redford in September, converting the former Karas House banquet facility into a meeting and event space with multiple ballrooms and areas for breakout sessions. Both Morenas locations offer an open vendor option, which enables clients to use their own caterer, manage the bar, and hire other services they might need. “On the flip side, sometimes people are overwhelmed with open vendor,” she notes. “They need a DJ, bartender, photographer, decorator—a long laundry list of people. We can fill in those gaps. We can help with as much or as little as we need to.”
Under One Roof
Also in the Detroit area are two historic venues managed by Live Nation—The Fillmore Detroit and Saint Andrew’s Hall—that promote their ability to handle every aspect of an event. The Fillmore Detroit offers about 40,000 square feet of space for events, and Saint Andrew’s Hall contains roughly 10,000. Both include theaters for presentations and performances, as well as space for guests to gather for a seated event.
“If you are a client who books with us, you essentially just book the location and we take care of the furniture, food and beverage, any decor, or any kind of enhancements like confetti blasts—anything like that,” says Alix Heinz, director of sales for Live Nation’s Detroit venues. “Anything we don’t have in-house, we’ll bring in, so the client doesn’t need to do anything unless they want to.” Outside vendors include providers of audiovisual technology, furniture, floral, photo booths, entertainment, music, and catering, among others. Some of the company’s partners can provide add-ons like specialty coffees or a cannoli station.
Being a national company managing 40 venues across the country that also present concerts, Live Nation can tap into top names in entertainment for those with the budget for it. And it can arrange more than just national musical acts, Heinz says. “We also have partnerships with celebrity chefs who can come in and do cooking in front of people and make it more like a show.”
St. Joseph-based Sunset Coast Events provides one-stop services for planners holding events at the Lake Michigan College Mendel Center in Benton Harbor. The Mendel Center’s spaces include a 14,400-square-foot conference and event room with capacity for up to 1,200, a large theater that can accommodate nearly 1,500, and a small black box theater seating 229. Sunset Coast Events Manager Amanda Porter says the company’s sub-sidiary White Space Events manages the venue, while its 1928 Planning Co. works with clients to provide services. “We are partnered with a few venues in the area, and we have worked hard to become a one-stop shop for the client, with a floral designer and rental and lighting company under our belt as well,” Porter says.
Of course, opting to have an event at a destination like a resort is another way to ensure most details will be taken care of. Judy Booth, vice president of sales for Boyne Resorts in northern Lower Michigan, says clients holding events at Boyne Mountain Resort, The Highlands, or Inn at Bay Harbor appreciate that everything is under one umbrella and handled by on-site staff. “It is a lot less work for meeting planners,” Booth says. “If everything can be contained in one property, it reduces the cost of busing, and it reduces the cost of coordinating. Resorts also will help you do team-building events and spousal programs. It’s all on-property. We take all that extra work off their plate.”
1928weddingplanners.com
boyneresorts.com
doubletroubledjs.com
thefillmoredetroit.com
grandconnection.com
lansing.org
livenation.com
themendelcenter.com
morenasgr.com
saintandrewsdetroit.com
thetoppiccollective.com
whitespaceweddings.com
