Tales from the trenches
March 2008
Smart Planner
Recently we asked planners to recount some of their horror stories—every planner has at least one!—and we were amazed to see the kind of potential disasters you deal with every day. Here are a few that may strike a chord with you. (If you’ve got a story to contribute, just e-mail us at editor@smartmeetings.com. We’ll publish additional contributions on our website or in a future issue.)
editor@smartmeetings.com
“We put on three-day real estate meetings, and the set-up for the meeting room is complicated. Our attendees set up little temporary “offices” at their spaces in the meeting room. The first night of our meeting, the hotel staff did not check the contract carefully, and they were halfway through breaking down the meeting room and throwing away people’s personal belongings [when I arrived]. It was a real wild ride to stop them and re-organize the meeting room.
Nancy Barta, Executive Staff, NCE
“A hotel in my area had changed brands, and I had met with the sales people at their open house just the week before to plan a meeting breakfast for 100 women for a Sunday brunch. We took the centerpieces in early, but when we took the balloons in later, the desk clerk said, “Well, the sales people are not here, and we have no brunch for you today. We have it on the books for next month.” It was 9 a.m. and the guests were arriving at 1 p.m. Luckily, I’m a caterer and event planner. I went into the kitchen and we were able to get it together, setting up the room with the help of all the hotel employees that we could muster. The guests arrived to a beautiful room—they never knew the difference. That is why we do what we do...and know what we do.
Melody McGinley Whitelaw, Owner, The Main Event by Melody
“Here is one that is fun to relate now, but was a real problem the day it happened. My client, a technology company, was putting on a product introduction and software developers’ conference in London. We had rented the famous Palladium Theatre in London for the only two days available and had a tight schedule for set-up and rehearsal on Day One in order to do the main show—a developers’ conference and reception—on Day Two. The contract specified that we had the entire facility.
We all started our respective duties early that day: the production company was setting the stage, the developers had set up their computers and were running their programs and I was in an office behind the stage meeting with various vendors.
Suddenly the house went dark and everyone lost power. As you can imagine, this is a real problem for production and computers. We all rushed around to find out what happened. I headed toward the lobby area, as I knew the manager’s office was up there. I couldn’t believe my eyes: I was standing next to four scantily-clad can-can dancers with large feather wings! Some of our production staff and software developers had caught up with me, and we all opened the door to the lobby at one time.
It turned out there was a party going on at 10 a.m.—with a full bar set-up and about 50 people drinking cocktails and laughing. It seems they were there to have a surprise 90th birthday celebration for a former actor who used to perform at the Palladium. He was expected any minute, and someone pulled the power so the birthday boy wouldn’t think anyone was there.
Needless to say, the manager and I were in deep discussion about his interpretation and my interpretation of having rented the entire facility—he didn’t think the lobby was included in the contract! We had lost precious time and had to scramble to reset everything to be ready for rehearsal.
Phyllis Quinn, Principal, Quinn Associates
I went with a client to do a site visit at a hotel in August. When we arrived, I saw that they had torn up the whole front and lobby area and were doing major construction. [Our company] had booked this hotel three years out for another client who was doing a program there in October for 1,000 people. During the site tour, I learned that the construction project was due to be completed in November!—the hotel didn’t even call to let us know this was happening. If I hadn’t come upon the construction by accident, I might never have known what was going on.
The week before the October conference, the GM of the hotel called to tell my client they had to drain the lake three feet while her group was there, but not to worry as no one would notice. When we walked for the program, the lobby was still under major construction, the front was almost finished, the lake was being drained and you could hear the jack-hammering from anywhere on the property. They had a makeshift spa and a portable schoolhouse for an exercise room.
In the pre-conference, the GM promised us that we would have no loud noise on the day that the majority of the people checked in. My job became making sure the promise was kept. I was stationed in the lobby, and whenever someone started to make noise, I would stop them. If someone dropped something, they would all turn around and look at me. I can now add construction foreman to my resume. My client was happy with the results that day. —
Patricia F. Zollman, CMP, Regional Director, HelmsBriscoe
This event took place in a hotel ballroom. It was a dinner for about 250 guests with dancing, open bar, the whole works. About 30 minutes before the event was scheduled to end, the client asked me to start clearing centerpieces and such off the tables that had already been vacated. No sooner did I get started than the banquet captain came up to me, with a very panicked look in his eye, and told me that the keg had been stolen from the bar. Yes, that's right, stolen, nowhere to be found. We assumed one of the guests had stolen it, and the hotel was prepared to charge the client $500 if it was not returned. As my client was very budget-conscious, this just was not an acceptable option. The client's husband grabbed a friend, both of whom could definitely come across as intimidating if you didn't know them, and they went off in search of the guest who stole the keg. After about 20 minutes of combing the crowd and asking questions, the search was narrowed down to one attendee who kept denying the accusation. Unfortunately, as this was going on, the news of the stolen keg started to spread throughout the room and it became a bit of a side show to the event. I continued to break down the event, and about 20 minutes later, the guest who denied having anything to do with the theft came back with the keg hoisted onto his shoulders, stating that he found it “in the bushes.” It was a rocky end to an otherwise smooth event, but at least the client didn't end up getting charged $500 for a $50 keg.
Debi Kinney, CEO, A Silver Lining ~ Hospitality Consulting & Event Coordinating
