Tips for finding the perfect meeting site

Finding the perfect site for a meeting is still a mainstay for most planners, but the way companies want to conduct meetings is giving opportunities for creativity.

Planners say, ultimately, the site and how the meeting is set up still depends on the company’s goals and objectives, then the budget and then the venue.

The overall meeting industry “went gangbusters into the recession where meetings were scaled back and cut down,” said Kate Vinyard, managing director of Face 2 Face Meetings & Events Worldwide. Now, companies understand and re-evaluate the value that meetings bring to the company and are trying to find creative ways to do it.

Even though the economy is coming back, Monica Compton, owner of Pinnacle Productions Inc., said she isn’t seeing budgets returning to where they were in, say, the 1980s.

“Back then, we had a budget and tracked costs, but if we needed to spend more, it was OK,” she said. “People have gotten more prudent across the board, and planners, as a whole, are going to continue to negotiate hard.”

Companies are looking at both traditional spaces, like hotels, as well as funky, cheaper meeting sites that enable them to incorporate a theme into their meetings, said Mike Michel, founder of InLine Meeting & Site Selection.

The majority of his clients are still looking to keep costs down, so they are trending toward hotels where everything is under one roof and companies can get the most bang for their buck.

“Costs go up with funky,” Michel said. “If everyone is flying into Atlanta, most want to keep everyone in the same place.”

Companies using a meeting space for training are tending to stick with the traditional hotel meeting space, Vinyard said.