A meeting planning consultant was hired to work with a client about 3 months before their event which was a medical conference for 1000 people. As she asked questions about the space requirements, she was continually given very evasive answers.
About 4 weeks into the project or 2 months before the event as the attendance grew and the client knew that they would face a sell-out situation for this meeting, the consultant finally go the answers. The client’s planner had not yet done a site inspection at the facility because it was a brand new hotel and had not been finished until that time. The contract had been signed blindly, site unseen.
The consultant and the planner then flew to the location, completed a walk-through and managed to accommodate the sell-out crowd by placing a web feed from the main room into 3 adjacent rooms so that everyone had the same information.
Moral: When signing with a brand new hotel, know what the largest room capacity is intended to be and arrange your attendance accordingly. Plan to do a hardhat tour during construction and a site visit when the hotel is completed.
