Selecting the Right Venue
By Margery Weinstein, Mimegasite.com, 10/26/2006
Published September 2006 in Training Magazine
When you need copies of your course materials an hour before the seminar and you suddenly discover there's no copy center on site, or you can't hear yourself think because the Bar Mitzvah next door is in full swing, you may be regretting your training venue choice. Finding a balance between your technical needs and your budget can be daunting, but it's vital for your success.
So you know your prospective venue has the space and technical amenities you need, and the price is right, so you're just about to sign a contract for your training event. Before you put it in writing, though, you might want to ponder a few more details. Finding a venue that isn't just conducive to your program, but actually enhances what you're teaching, is well worth it, says Ellen Quint, leader of the Northeast Professional Development Group for New York-based accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. "I am a big believer that the kind of environment you have has a real impact on the participants' experience, and, therefore, their learning," she stresses.
Quint cites a venue success story from an October partner development conference for its seniormost leaders at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York, with the mindset that there was no better place to impart the importance of good leadership than aboard a famed battleship. In addition to a well-lighted conference room that could accommodate the program's 100 participants, enough windows to make it bright and a theater on site, learners could wander around the ship during breaks, which kept them stimulated, Quint says.
It also was a change of pace for veterans of the conference scene. "These folks are used to going to meetings and hotels," she notes. "They're so used to being seated in a hotel chair for five hours at a time that this was something a little bit more memorable. Everyone remembers the Intrepid event."
In contrast, Roanoke, Va.-based automotive after-market retailer Advance Auto Parts didn't want anything around that would lure attendees' minds away from the course material presented in April at its store manager leadership conference at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Fla. "We try to go to places where our folks aren't going to be distracted, so we don't go to Vegas," says Doug Bryant, vice president of organization development and training. "We go to central Florida a lot, other places where it's a nice environment and peaceful, but where our people aren't going to stay out all night."
Convenience is a high priority for Minneapolis-based Cargill, an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products and services, says worldwide travel service manager Lisa Kermode. "Typically we want it close to where our people can get to the facility easily via airplane/ airport or via driving, if needed," she says. Kermode sees the benefits to different environments. "Some of the business units want that activity at night," Kermode says. "In some cases, there are planned evening activities where the group will want options to consider. In other cases, even if the group does not plan any off-site functions, people within the group may want options for evening events on their own."
Jody Wallace, president and CEO of Brielle, N.J.-based meeting solutions company EMCVenues says trainer preferences vary when it comes to location. "Some week-long training groups like to have their people at night be able to go do something and be satisfied with the area," she says. "Some trainers feel, 'You know what? I don't want them doing anything but going back to their room and studying.'" Location preference sometimes depends on employee level. While you may not want entry-level workers wandering off—"They're new to the company, you kind of want to keep them close"—you may not mind giving higher-level employees with proven reliability the leeway to have a little fun, she says. A venue such as Tempe Mission Palms in downtown Tempe, Ariz., with restaurants and nightlife right outside the door, would suit training groups looking for diversion at day's end, while a place like Hamilton Park Hotel & Conference Center in Florham Park, N.J., would be better for companies that don't want any distractions, Wallace says. "Two totally different conference centers," she explains. "Both delivering great meeting product, but a totally different atmosphere."
Over the last decade, Wallace says there's been a decline of training events hosted at luxury resorts where workers might go to classes, but what they're really there for is a golf weekend. "In corporations today, that's not happening; that's really being frowned on, because if you're going to a resort that has golf and spa, and all this other activity, then you're paying for that, so I see that being scrutinized more," she says, explaining that in a post-Sarbanes-Oxley world, every expenditure is analyzed. "Sarbanes-Oxley [Act of 2002] has really made meetings a business, and if you're going to have a meeting," Wallace says, "you need to justify you've selected the right place for the right reason."
SEE FOR YOURSELF
As perfect a venue for its program as the battleship was, Deloitte, which made its reservations six weeks before the event, still had to do some careful planning. With the conference center at one end of the ship and the theater at the other, the company needed to take foot traffic—both that of its learners as well as those of the visiting public—into consideration. The company had reserved meeting space on board, but the ship was still open for public tours. Quint gauged potential difficulty with an on-site visit. She was able to specify beforehand "the kind of flow" she wanted. "I always make sure I look at the space," she says. "A place has to look well taken care of. I look at the bathrooms, and sit on the chairs, literally, particularly if people are going to be there for more than two hours."
On-site inspections allow you to give the facility a pre-test. "Stay at the hotel unannounced," says Michael Zuccarello, vice president, director of training and development for St. Louis-based financial services company A.G. Edwards & Sons. "If you're relying on food service, have a meal. Ask someone in the conference center to make you ten copies of something." Post-event, the company asks its learners what they thought about the venue on its class evaluation forms. The hotels and conference centers worth doing business with again become evident when program attendees share their thoughts with facility staff. "The best ones want the feedback and follow-up immediately when they see a problem," he points out.
Kermode also can tell when a venue will be able to deliver on its promises and handle any last-minute problems. "If they're asking a lot of good questions about what we need, then we feel better that they're going to be able to handle it," she says. "If they're not asking us, and they're making assumptions, then we're a little less easy about it."
Bryant says during on-site visits he notes the hotel rooms' accessibility to the conference center. "When you have 4,000 people, you can get pretty spread out." He says he also looks at the transportation the venue offers from the airport, and makes sure his learners will be happy with menu options. "You can have a great learning event, but if something little like the food and beverage isn't up to par," Bryant says, "it'll make a bad experience for our folks." You might also want to get referrals from other companies; Bryant says he habitually does so.
Wallace recommends asking specific questions about your event accommodations. "What room am I going to be in, and who's next door?" are among the queries trainers should put to the venue, she says. Wallace, who says a general contract is always drawn up for events, observes that companies are increasingly asking for written guarantees on specific points such as soundproofing and that the property conditions will be the same for the event as they were the day the trainer visited.
CONFERENCE CENTER OR HOTEL?
The majority of Cargill's training programs are housed in conference centers, Kermode says. "The setup of the rooms is usually more conducive to training," she says, pointing out that soundproofing and equipment availability make full-scale conference centers more practical. Hotels may not have as many services as conference centers, but housing training there might help you better maintain your budget. "They're usually less costly," she notes.
Wallace says there's a definite uptick in the use of conference centers vs. hotels for training. "The nice thing about a conference center is they have what's called a complete meeting package," Wallace points out. The package typically includes guest room accommodations, a food and beverage plan, basic audiovisual needs and meeting rooms. Rather than the a la carte pricing plan typical of hotels, "everything when you go to a conference center is bundled in one complete package, so there's not a lot of surcharges or surprises," she says. "Plus, it's a big time saver because the conference center is designing your meal plan versus you having to do that yourself."
Conference centers have their drawbacks, though. Besides usually being more costly than hotels, they often can't accommodate (for sleeping, meeting and eating) more than 250 people, Wallace says. "Many clients with large meetings only wish there were larger centers," she says. "There are a few like Woodlands [Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center] in Houston. [Clients] cite locations like Phoenix and Orlando as wish locations for future large conference centers." Thirty to 50 is the average group size for the training conferences EMC helps book venues for.
Prices for conference centers, like any other commodity, vary by region. In Chicago, Wallace says you can expect to pay $259 to $279 per person for all-inclusive packages. All-inclusives in Los Angeles will likely run you around $299 to $305 a head. The Big Apple costs big bucks, too. There you'll pay about $400 per person. She says the best deals to be had are in the Southeast, where in Columbia, S.C., you'll pay about $239 to $269 per attendee. Also worth noting: the Atlanta area is also where trainers will find the largest concentration of conference centers.
Rooms at conference centers are especially designed to host training, Wallace says, and these venues usually come with well-staffed business centers, so when you need copies made last minute, an urgent memo faxed or help with a projector, you get that all-important amenity—extra help.