Michelle Johnson tells a story about getting ready for a small, 1 1/2-day event at a venue she has been bringing major business to for three years running. The owner of event-management company Anchor Group of Stratham, New Hampshire, hadn’t negotiated the small meeting’s contract herself. But when she saw it, she was not happy.
The terms called for a $20,000 minimum food and beverage spend, plus meeting room rental fees. This was for maybe 10 people at a time to partake in two continental breakfasts, three breaks, and one luncheon, along with a takeaway box at the end. She contacted the venue and made the case that given the significant amount of revenue she already brings in on an annual basis, these latest charges were excessive. “In one phone call, I got it all cut in half,” she says. “You have to leverage your relationships as much as possible.”
Invoking buying power is just one strategy in an event planner’s toolbox that can stretch budgets to meet the ever-increasing costs of staging meetings—without sacrificing quality or the wow factor.
Nicola Kastner, CEO of Event Leaders Exchange—an invitation-only global community based across Canada, the U.S., and the United Kingdom for senior corporate event leaders—illustrates the cause and effect behind these ever-increasing event costs. In a LinkedIn post last March, her message was to the point: “Prices are not only rising, but they are doing so in ways that go beyond what you might expect with typical inflation.”
“Cost increases are driven by structural shifts in supplier behavior, labor shortages, geopolitical factors like tariffs, and lingering effects from pandemic-related disruptions,” she writes, citing a litany of effects—based on data and culled through research from multiple sources—ranging from steep hikes in accommodation prices and food and beverage rates to labor costs, venue rental charges, audiovisual (AV) and production fees, airfare, event insurance, and shipping expenses, among others.
So, what’s a planner to do? Get creative, think outside the box, be strategic, scrutinize every line item, and leave no stone unturned. “I’m telling my clients that what used to routinely cost about $15,000 to do a 10-by-10 booth at a convention is now running closer to $20,000 or $30,000,” says Wendy Porter, owner of Minneapolis-based Wendy Porter Events. “But budgets aren’t increasing that much. We’re having to make some hard choices.”
Those decisions begin with figuring out where and when to hold events, requests for proposals (RFPs), and contracts. Develop a well-thought-out RFP, narrow the responses, and then “hammer on the concessions,” says Larry Hanson, chief marketing and sustainability officer at ConferenceDirect, based in Beverly Hills and Folsom, California. “We want to create that competition between venues.”
Rachael Glaws, principal and creative director at RGI Events in the Washington, D.C., area, says planners should leverage items like sleeping room attrition and right of first refusal on meeting spaces to work in their favor. Choosing a Tier 2 city like Dallas versus a Tier 1 city like Los Angeles also can be a big money-saver, says Kim Dierks, director of events at Brightspot Incentives & Events of Irving, Texas. Planners might also consider selecting times of the year and week when prices are lower and availability is better. “The most expensive is a Monday through Thursday conference,” says Amy Green, co-founder and partner at Los Angeles/New York City-based BDI Events. “Chicago is likely to be more affordable in late winter, as Orlando should be in late, albeit hot, summer.”
Food & Beverage
Kastner writes that food and beverage costs have seen the steepest increases, estimating they’re up 45% to 55% over pre-pandemic times. To help mitigate the ballooning costs, some planners work with venue chefs to pare existing menus—say, to two meats instead of three on a buffet, or by switching to a plated meal to reduce waste. One of Glaws’ clients opted for one seated dinner rather than multiple reception-style gatherings with small bites, which required less labor during a multiday meeting.
Green suggests looking into nearby independent meeting and event venues that can be served by area food purveyors, including food trucks, to save money on some components. Green is a big fan of sports stadiums and arenas. “They already have furniture and food stations and a bar, and there are TV screens everywhere,” she says, also noting there’s nothing wrong with giving people an afternoon off or time for a meal on their own.
Dierks lists easy things to eliminate: bottled water, canned soda, dessert at lunch, and hot breakfast. “Not everybody eats three-course meals three [times] a day at home,” she says.
Mention coffee to almost any planner and you’re likely to get an earful. “In San Francisco, we paid nearly $200 for a gallon of coffee,” says Mark S. Bice, meetings and education director for the Optometric Vision Development & Rehabilitation Association in Aurora, Ohio. “Now I just negotiate, depending on the market, not to exceed a certain amount as a base price.” Porter says it can often be more cost-effective to bring in outside coffee. “We’re also seeing people forego the coffee break and giving [attendees] a $25 Starbucks gift card,” Porter says.
Meeting budgeters also could leverage trends like the decreasing rate of alcohol use among adults—younger adults in particular—and adjust accordingly. Porter recalls a recent event at which the alcohol bill came in significantly under budget. “Next year we know we can invest more on the food side and less on the liquor,” she says.
Audiovisual
It’s critical to have an AV partner at the table when discussing contracts and to negotiate every possibility, including realistic setup and rehearsal times, on the front end. With that, rethink the level of AV required. “Maybe turn more [breakouts] into interactive, brainstorming, conversational workshops where you don’t need all of the AV,” Dierks suggests.
And don’t take no for an answer if you want to bring your own equipment, Porter advises. “The only time you should have to use the venue for something as it relates to AV is for rigging,” Porter says. “They know their venue and they have the responsibility to make sure rigging is set and nothing falls and lands on somebody. And [electric] power—you don’t have a choice about that. But everything else would be fair game.”
Insisting on an outside AV provider might incur a fee, but even then, Johnson says, it can save money. She cites one example in which a venue’s AV vendor quoted her $450,000—when she went to an area supplier, she received a $175,000 bid for the same job.
In situations like that, she’ll happily pay an extra charge, which she says is typically only a couple thousand dollars, to avoid having to use the in-house vendor. “Or, [sometimes] I have had to agree for [the in-house company] to do breakouts and Wi-Fi—give them a little something, but take away the majority of [AV],” she says.
Porter points to new technology and online platforms as helping with the budget-versus-reality conundrum. She cites Trade Show Internet (based in Calabasas, California) as a service that can be used to provide internet for any event, so you can save money by not using the venue’s internet. Porter similarly characterizes event-marketing platform Mobly for capturing leads.
Decor
Decorating is often a budget buster, especially when tariffs come into play. Porter tells of one supplier who had a container of decor items coming from overseas last year. It was offshore, waiting to land, when he learned it was going to cost him $80,000 more than the previous week because of newly imposed tariffs.
Julie Frank, a Florida-based planning manager for BCD Meetings & Events with headquarters in Chicago, recommends focusing on quality over quantity. Take centerpieces, for example. Those massive, flashy flower arrangements sometimes impede face-to-face interaction, while a shorter, more understated version saves money and fosters conversations.
Glaws recommends cutting back on the materials you bring to adorn the space and relying on lighting to help dress up the room. And as Dierks notes, don’t hesitate to reuse and rearrange.
“We just had a show that did big arches and their company letters in balloons, but we could move them around,” Dierks says. This allowed his team to use the balloon decor for multiple portions of the event, rather than having to get new decorations for reception spaces, the lunchroom, and so on.
Sponsorships
Getting sponsors to cover items like receptions and breaks or provide services that would otherwise have to come out of the planning budget is often pivotal. “We try to get clients to think strategically,” Green says. “What are they paying for as part of their event that could be sponsored? Or, what are their wish list [items] that [they can’t afford] unless they have a sponsor?”
The key is making sure sponsors get the biggest bang for their buck. “Sponsors don’t want just a 6-foot table in a room anymore,” Green says. “They want something creative and authentic.”
She describes one event where sponsors were given individual moments to shine. A food company sponsor did recipe preparation demonstrations and sampling, for example. “That is a moment people remember,” Green says.
Still, sponsors are being more discerning with their money. Johnson describes one client that has earned as much as $800,000 from a sponsor expo, but this year, up to 20% of the sponsors aren’t returning. “Sponsors can make the money by [putting their message] online or sending one guy out to a dinner,” she says. “But if you can somehow guarantee the pipeline of future business for them, they’ll sign anywhere you want.”
More Ways to Save
Share the Load: Michelle Johnson says she connects with planners for meetings that are coming in directly ahead of or behind hers. “We talk audiovisual, we talk food,” she says. “What if there was a way to use the same stage, screen setup, or podium? Just think outside the box.”
Rethink Transportation: Kim Dierks finds that providing continuous shuttle service between airports and venues isn’t always the most cost-effective option—at a client’s recent Dallas conference, event attendees were taking Ubers and expensing them back, doubling the transportation cost. She suggests skipping predetermined ground transfers and instead allowing attendees to expense their transportation or providing them with codes to pay for ride-sharing services.
Look for Area Talent: When it comes to keynoters, entertainment, and photographers, the regional talent pool shouldn’t be overlooked. “It used to be ‘Hey, we’ll get this big name, spend $150,000, and it’s going to draw people to the event,’” says Wendy Porter. “That’s not what’s happening anymore. People don’t care about sitting in a room with a celebrity. They care more about relationship-building with people.”
anchorgroupco.com
bcdme.com
bdi-events.com
brightspotincentivesevents.com
conferencedirect.com
covd.org
eventleaders.com
rgievents.com
wendyporterevents.com
