The reduction of event lead times is a hot topic amongst
event professionals and is an issue that has their teams pushed to the limit –
working extra hard to make events happen at shorter and shorter notice.
With a biting recession having a real effect, picking up
enquiries with less than a month’s notice is a clear sign of tightened purse
strings and is now very much a reality, if not the norm, within our industry.
My one fear is not that the industry and its hardened
suppliers cannot cope; it’s that working to such tight deadlines could
potentially affect the quality of our outputs. The UK industry prides itself on
the delivery of memorable events and exceeding client expectations, but can
this really be realised with as little as one week’s notice?
What’s more, how do shorter lead times impact on the
relationships that organisations have built up over not just years but in some
cases decades. Reduction in time usually results in the increase in pressure
and stress on everyone involved. It’s a real risk that these relationships could
become strained and potentially ruined by pressure that does not necessarily
need to be there.
It is becoming harder to predict staffing levels, sales,
pricing structures and competition within a destination, making planning for
future investment trickier. All calculations can appear “finger in the air”
guesses when an unexpected enquiry lands on an organiser’s desk. Here at
NewcastleGateshead Convention Bureau we can be thankful when an event confirms
with more than a year to go, and recently we’ve confirmed enquiries as far
ahead as 2018, but this does seem to be a rare occurrence.
To try and get a better view of upcoming events we’ve
been hitting the phones and building our relationships with those agents who
source venues for clients at short notice. The corporate market is especially
unpredictable; as an industry we need to ensure our house is in order and that
everything from live venue and hotel availability and transport information is
to hand so we can hit the ground running to guarantee the quality of service we
strive to provide.
Any comments? Email conferencenews@mashmedia.net
