The common excuse is “I don’t have the time,” or “my manager isn’t going to read the report anyway.” But it begs the following questions: How will your manager learn about the meeting’s success? How will the organization appreciate your abilities and the planning skills required to pull all of the complexities of meeting planning into a spectacular event?

A post-con report summarizes and showcases every element of your work, and demonstrates the results of the meeting. It provides hard data to determine if a meeting should continue to be held, improved upon or eliminated. Armed with a solid report, you can better manage and control your overall meeting systems, discovering new ways to improve the speed and flow of details.

You need to record the history of each event. How many of us can remember the details of a meeting we planned a year ago? What did the evaluations tell us? What did the focus groups and committees report to us in the post-con meetings? What were the final results of our financial report? Did we achieve our goals? How did we market the meeting? A post-con report provides the facts when we reopen the file to plan for the following year.

The report answers the tough questions you may be asked about the success of the meeting, as well as the areas requiring improvement: What was the return on investment for the organization, the stakeholders and the meeting planning department? Were the attendees satisfied with the meeting and why? Was the location convenient to attendees? What were the highlights of the location? Can the failures be fixed? What aspects of the meeting worked? Should the organization retain or eliminate the meeting? In order to persuade change and move others into action, the report should summarize information and facts, not emotions.

Components of a Post-Con Report

1. First, determine who will read your report and what information is important to them. Will it go to senior management, board members or volunteers? Perhaps you will be the only reader. Whoever else sees it may not be interested in the extensive detail you deem important. Simply ask what they would like you to report on after the meeting is complete. Once you know your audience, begin to develop an outline for the report. As you collect the data, place it in a folder right away.

2. Match the culture of your organization. Does your audience prefer a one-page summary in a memorandum format, a long document with appendices and color charts and graphs, or a five-minute PowerPoint presentation? If you’re covering all the areas below, be sure to create a cover page with your name, date, the meeting name and your organization’s brand.

3. An executive summary contains the most important elements of the whole report, offering conclusions and highlights from the material that follows. While it is the first, and maybe only section your audience will read it should be written last. It needs to contain original material. Do not simply copy sections from the report and place them in the summary.

4. Listing the names, roles and responsibilities of the meeting planning staff is critical in order to showcase your team’s talents and abilities. Also, it is wise to include detailed timelines, demonstrating the hours and coordination involved in the work you do.

5. Many organizations use volunteers. Listing their names, roles and responsibilities highlights their contributions to the overall meeting.

6. The meeting agenda needs to be summarized in a short paragraph reviewing the theme and the program plan. The detailed agenda is placed in the appendix.

7. Demographics may be of particular interest to your organization. Answer the following questions: Was there an increase or decrease in the number of attendees, and why? Where did the attendees come from? Are attendees members? If not, why not? Was there minority participation or participation from any other group that may be of importance to the organization? How did attendees hear about the meeting?

8. There are numerous types of evaluations for every part of a meeting. An overall evaluation communicates the attendees’ impressions of the entire event. Specific evaluations for speakers, special workshops or receptions, the trade show, vendors and meal functions can be designed and individually summarized in this section. A summary of issues surrounding contracts and negotiating points is quite helpful when you are considering whether or not to return to a property or city in the future. Notes pertaining to vendors and third-party suppliers offer a plethora of information as well.

9. Having risk and crisis management plans in place is critical. Was the crisis management plan implemented? Much of this information is confidential and cannot be released to all of your readers. Ask the major stakeholders where certain information should go. Highlight critical situations within the report. The detailed plans are to be placed within the appendix.

10. Include a summary of face-to-face, post-con meetings. There are two types of face-to-face meetings: formal and informal. It is human nature to be quite frank and direct when speaking with a meeting planner one-on-one. When the same person is in a group meeting, they evaluate who is in the room and are careful with their statements. Conducting post-con meetings with the site representatives, exhibit company, board members, executives, meeting planning staff and planning committee members is traditional.

11. Marketing documentation such as publicity materials, photographs, press clippings, magazine articles and social media impressions, as well as a list of reporters in attendance is critical for your marketing strategy for next year.

12. The budget report begins with a summary of the overall financial strategies followed by a listing of procedures, activities, a savings chart, a spend management report and the buying decisions of attendees.

A post-con report reflects the overall meeting strategy—the big picture supported by the data. You need to write and present post-con reports regularly to demonstrate that the meeting planning is truly a profession, not just set a set of skills.

Michele Wierzgac, CMM, is an experienced business leader and speaker, focusing on helping people build their business skills, especially in marketing, personal branding and leadership. She presented a two-part session on creating a post-con report at Rejuvenate Marketplace. To learn more about Wierzgac, visit micheleandco.com.

TRENDS: “When I first got here [in 2007], donuts were all the rage. It’s still a trend, but not all over the place like cupcakes that you see right now. Cake lollipops are popular, and I do a lot of ice cream—homemade ice cream bars. For a wedding trend, gourmet popsicles in between the ceremony and reception are getting popular with flavors like lemon verbena, fresh watermelon and raspberry champagne.”

PREPARING FOR GROUPS: “I like those kind of challenges. I see it as, ‘Can I conquer it?’ I work with the flavors they’re looking for, which I hope is always chocolate. It’s my favorite. Right now, I’m doing a plate-up for 100 people—all they said they wanted was chocolate, so they’re getting chocolate. I’m doing a pave with thin layer of chocolate roulade (or sponge cake), milk chocolate caramel ganache, praline mousse, chocolate glaze…and fresh berries.”

GETTING CREATIVE: “I’m going through my funnel cake stage, or my kid stage right now. We also make our own breads here, so I have a ‘grilled cheese,’ or chocolate cherry bread filled with mascarpone cheese, grilled, and served with a vanilla milkshake.”

ADVICE: “We like a lot of details. If [catering mangers] can get the feel of what the client is really looking for, we can give them something great. I think that catering managers needs to go out and eat more. Go to gourmet restaurants and explore and see what’s out there so their taste buds are just as experienced as the chefs they are working with.”

BEING ON TV: “I was gone for 32 weeks…but it was a great experience. I walked away with wonderful friends and met talented pastry chefs. I don’t think we got to showcase our talents as much as we wanted to. My challenge was my memory. You couldn’t use any of your recipes. The clock starts and you panic and you just figure it out. You do what you have to do to make it work.”

LAST MEAL: “In every stage of the meal, I’d have at least a little chocolate.”

> Return to “Top Chefs”

CUTTING EDGE: “For the final night of a convention, instead of a big blowout, the planner has 16 Providence [R.I.] restaurants setting up stations. They are allotted $1,000 each for the food. We are providing rentals, china, service and bar while assisting the restaurants with setup.”

CREATIVITY ON A BUDGET: “Brainstorm with a caterer you trust if you are on a budget. Our business is part of a nationwide group that shares ideas. When you have a budget, we can get ideas from around the country to help with the event.”

OUTSIDE THE BOX: “The most creative idea we were involved in was to get suggestions from the attendees of a convention of the types of food they enjoyed, and turn them into a local food theme. It got the guests involved in the menu planning. Also, at the Crossroads gala this year, as the wait staff passed hors d’oeuvres we had the name of the hors d’oeuvre on a black T-shirt they were wearing.”

INSPIRATION: “Our ideas come from brainstorming with my chefs ideas that I get from eating around the country. I visit New Orleans, Charleston, Las Vegas and Austin regularly. We also have a library-size cookbook collection and go to the Catersource Conference every year.”

ADVICE: “Find a caterer you are comfortable with and let them do their job. We always concede to the planner, but there are times we want to scream and feel that the event may have been put in jeopardy because a planner is micromanaging every aspect of the event but missing the big picture.”

LAST MEAL: “French meat pie with ketchup. This is a local comfort food but can also be found in Cajun country. It is made by sauteing onion, ground pork and beef, then adding potato, beef stock, cinnamon and nutmeg, and baking it in a flaky pie crust.”

> Return to “Top Chefs”

What trends are hot in F&B right now?

Sean Kavanaugh

SK: Gluten-free has definitely become more mainstream. I think I even saw that Subway is trying to do a gluten-free sandwich. It’s been growing, and so have more interactive events—smaller portions and more items with chefs on the floor. It develops more buzz. Guests talk about it more on the floor; it gets them involved more—they see one thing and wonder what’s around the corner or what’s at the next station or somewhere else in the meeting area.

How have you gotten creative lately?

SK: I served a large group recently, and every person at each 10-top got a different entree. That right there got them talking to each other, and then the 10th person at each table wasn’t served an entree on purpose. We gave them a few-minute wait to bring up the theatrics of it. Then a chef went up to each table, pulled the clay pot centerpiece out of the center of the table, took the flowers out of it, cracked the pot with the back of a knife and then opened it up, and their dinner was a roast chicken wrapped in parchment paper baked in the clay. Everyone went crazy over it.

How do you buck the “convention center food” perception?

David Skorka

DS: What I push for every day with our convention center chefs is that they need to change that perception. It’s not a pretty perception of the rubber chicken, so every day that chef needs to go to work with his aim being changing that perception of convention center food. There’s no reason you can’t do a four- or five-star meal in a convention center and for volume.

SK: One thing I look at when I’m going into a function, is that whether it’s 10 people or it’s 10,000 people, I’m only as good as my last meal, so if it takes extra work or extra planning or bringing in extra support staff from other venues to make sure that party of 10,000 is great and everybody leaves happy, then that is what it takes. Put everything you have in everything you do and usually you have people leaving happy and satisfied.

What advice do you have for meeting planners?

DS: Get the chef involved early. Our venues vary so much—the building, the logistics, the layout. Each chef in that venue knows his venue and how to operate his venue.

SK: Communicate from the beginning to the end clearly. A lot of times there’s miscommunication on what is actually the expectation and what is being told.

DS: We prefer to know ahead of time if we’re going to have Hillel kosher, Glatt kosher, allergies, gluten-free, vegan, anything. The more we know ahead of time, the better. If Sean and I were at a function and it was 10,000 people, and we knew up front that we had 500 Hillel, 250 kosher, 100 vegan, 200 vegetarian, 26 allergic to garlic, 7 no tomato, we can plan accordingly. If I get it in enough time, I can sit down and research and write a menu that I can knock-out three quarters of the dietary restrictions and requests within one meal.

How can you be creative on a budget?

DS: It doesn’t have to blow the budget to be creative and do something different. I’ve seen Sean do a bunch of things that are creative with regular items. His method of prep and service of that item is the wow factor. It could be peanut butter and jelly, but however you present it adds the bells and whistles.

SK: It’s funny that you just said that. I just met with somebody and wrote a menu, and I’m doing a peanut butter and jelly pipette. I’m going to peel a red grape, dip it in peanut butter and then dip it in chocolate and roll it in breadcrumbs, and then spear it with a pipette of chilled milk.

Where do you get inspiration for your meals?

DS: Every day just living; it’s what we do. I read, watch the Food Network. I mean I never want to copy anyone, but I get an idea of something and then put my own spin on it. I sleep with a pen by my bed.

> Return to “Top Chefs”

SUSTAINABLE EVENT: “Taste of the Bay is an intimate setting where we offer a five-course dinner with wine pairing. I prepare and talk about the seafood in each course. The aquarium’s educational coordinator holds a presentation to explain Sensible Seafood and how you can do your part. [It] also can be modified and scaled down for tour groups, where I offer three courses and demonstrate the main course in order to expedite the process and keep groups on their timeline.”

TRENDS: “One of the other chefs that works with me says that gourmet hot dogs are going to be big this year. Maybe we’ll do tofu, chicken, Cincinnati dogs or others to make them upscale.”

OUTSIDE THE BOX: “I like events like Taste of the Bay because I get to step out of the box and rewrite new menus—go above what I do on a daily basis and get to play with food right in front of the guests.”

INSPIRATION: “I’m a member of the American Culinary Federation, and I get pamphlets of what’s new and what’s hot. I see what’s done with some items, see a nice presentation, but think maybe instead of chicken we can use fish. I see something and a hundred ideas come at me.”

ADVICE: “Let the chef know what you are looking for, but be open to suggestions—especially when it comes to sustainability—if they can offer an alternative with the same taste.”

LAST MEAL: “I think it would be a big, fat cheeseburger.”

> Return to “Top Chefs”

First: Think of the letters “BMW” when sitting down to a formal place setting. The great thing about this tool is that you can do it silently in your head and no one but you knows your valuable tool. “B” stands for bread, which is to the left of your plate; “M” represents meal, which is in the middle; and “W” stands for water, which is to the right of the plate.

Second: You always want to follow the host’s lead. When the host picks up his or her napkin, place your napkin on your lap with the fold facing toward you. When excusing yourself from the table during the meal, place your napkin in your chair. Please note, the napkin does not go back on the table until the meal is finished.

Third: If you are dining with others whom you have not met, be sure to introduce yourself to everyone at your table. If appropriate, try to offer some contributing conversation. Don’t let the event end without knowing the names of the person on your right and your left. Not only would it be a shame, it would be rude as well.

Forth: The rule of thumb is to use the utensils that are farthest away from the plate when starting a meal. You’ll usually see two forks to the left of the plate (a salad and a dinner fork), and a knife and spoon to the right of the plate. A spoon, fork or both placed above the dinner plate are for dessert. Avoid stirring your coffee with the dessert spoon; a coffee spoon should be provided when coffee is served. If not, you can use your dinner spoon on the right side of the plate.

Fifth: If you prefer to forego coffee or wine, smile at the waiter and say, “No, thank you.” The server should remove the coffee cup or stemware from your table. Never under any circumstance turn the coffee cup or any glassware over.

Sixth: You should always follow the host’s lead at the meal. If there is not an official host, it is proper etiquette to wait until everyone at your table has been served before you start eating. This even applies to buffets. If someone has a special order and says please go ahead, then by all means – go ahead.
Seventh: This is not the time or place to ask for a doggie bag or “to go” plate. Remember you are there for business.

Eighth: Don’t butter your bread in the air or tear it with your hands. Do tear off a small piece of bread from your dinner roll, and butter it while it’s still on your plate. Lift the small piece of bread to your mouth and eat it. Remember to butter one piece at a time, eat it and then continue with the next piece.
Ninth: Chewing with your mouth open is a big no-no. No one wants to see what you have it your mouth. We can wait to hear what you have to say.

Tenth: Finally, turn off cell phones, pagers and Blackberrys. If you positively need to take a call, excuse yourself from the table and leave the room. If you think you can text or send an e-mail under the table without being noticed, you’re wrong.

By Michael Bassett

When Melissa Bohlmann plans a conference and looks at what her food and beverage costs are going to be, it’s almost enough to take her breath away.

“It’s becoming a real strain,” says Bohlmann, convention services manager, Lutheran Hour Ministries, St. Louis. “When I take a look at our annual meeting history, food costs have really gone up over the past two years. And I’m going forward with booking that meeting through 2012, and those costs are going to keep going up.”

According to the National Restaurant Association, wholesale food prices have increased 8.7 percent this year through August. This is on top of a 7.6 percent increase in 2007. So, when one considers that prices rose just a measly .7 of 1 percent in 2006, observers can understand why planners like Bohlmann have let out a few gasps when they’ve seen their F&B bills over the past two years.

Why So High?

The simple answer is that the price of commodities has risen sharply in the last two years. For example, the runup in the cost of oil has led to an increased global demand for biofuels. Consequently, the price of corn, soybeans, and wheat has more than doubled in the past two years, leading food companies to raise prices on everything from cereal to ketchup.

This increase in the price of grains has contributed to an increase in meat prices, as farmers are forced to pay more for feed for their livestock. According to the National Restaurant Association, the price of beef and veal has increased by 19 percent this year. All of this is not expected to change over the next year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects food costs to increase by as much as 5 percent in 2009.

Beverage costs have been on the rise as well. According to the Boston-based pricing intelligence company Intellaprice LLC, the price of bar beverages increased by 5 percent this year over 2007. The company says price increases can be found across the board. For example, soft drinks were, on average, $.13 more expensive.

Negotiating Strategies

For Charles Melear, conference planners, United Church of God, Fort Collins, Colorado, “increasing food costs are a budget consideration more than in previous years.” So he is very proactive in negotiating food and beverage.

“I create the menu items I desire and present it to the chef or salesperson,” Melear says. “Then I ask if that specific meal can be done at a price [including tax and gratuity] that I suggest or recommend. Usually they come in very close to what I ask, and it is almost always less expensive than their listed banquet menus.”

Giovanna Brandi, senior account executive, Marriott, Renaissance, Ritz-Carlton, and JW Hotels & Resorts, agrees, and says that when it comes to the faith-based market, “I’ve never worked with a group that paid regular rates off the banquet menu. I developed a set of menus years ago that I had pre-approved by the hotels in my region for use during value dates. [Those menus] were created with client and hotel feedback, and the inclusive pricing varies depending on hotel demand during the requested meeting dates. Hotels are happy to work with client food and beverage budgets as long as they are realistic.

“What I’ve noticed,” adds Brandi, “is that it’s taking a lot longer these days to actually sign contracts—it seems planners are really going through everything with a fine-toothed comb.”

Chrysta Bollinger, director, member services & communication, Catholic Campus Ministry Association, Cincinnati, plans an annual convention for 350 people every two years. “At least one dinner has to be sitdown and fancy,” she says. So she’s willing to look at alternatives—menu items that allow her to stay within a budgeted amount but maintain the high quality of a grand banquet.

“So I’ll sit down and start creating a budget,” Bollinger says. “I’ll start with a wish list—everything I want to have. I’ll see what money we have in sponsorships and see how realistic that wish list is. If it’s not, then we start paring it down.” Bollinger works with a meeting-management company that helps her to negotiate everything, including site selection, contracts, and food and beverage.

While sales departments are usually the first point of contact when negotiating F&B details with venues, Janet Pickover, CMP, director, Site Inspections Plus, Princeton, New Jersey, maintains that any meeting planner who wants “to get the biggest bang for the buck,” should always talk to the chef. “And don’t let any salesperson say you can’t talk to the chef,” she says.

“It usually depends on the planner,” says Jami Leveen, director of marketing, Aramark Convention Centers and Cultural Attractions. “Some want to have direct access to the chef, although the standard practice is that once the meeting is booked, the salesperson works with the meeting planners. If it’s a large event involving a lot of menu planning, the planner will certainly work with the culinary team, which will include the executive chef.”

Setting New Trends

According to an Aramark report on culinary trends at convention centers, Aramark chefs are going to be looking for ways to give a gourmet treatment to “otherwise ordinary” menu items.

For example, Palm Beach Country Convention Center Executive Chef Michael Russell is giving chicken new looks by roasting it with prunes, kalamata olives, and lemon roasted garlic jus, or sautéed with caramelized pears, figs, dates, gorgonzola, and Frangelico syrup.

“Guests are looking for a ‘new gourmet’ that is more aligned with their budget expectations,” Russell says in the report. “To meet their needs, we’re mixing things up and taking a new approach to spice up ingredients that might not be top of mind.”

According to Leveen, convention centers, responding to meeting planners’ requests, are beginning to offer more retail dining choices, to give planners alternatives to traditional catered events.
Bohlmann is planning something different for her annual convention next year in Greensboro, North Carolina. Concerned about costs and the fact that the numbers for certain meals, particularly breakfasts, have been down, she’s putting together a menu of meal packages.

“It will lower costs,” Bohlmann explains, “and probably guarantee the hotel and convention center better numbers.”

In the end, says Pickover, cutting costs or choosing trendy budget-conscious menus won’t help if the planner “doesn’t know the [food and beverage] rules of the road.

“You can get a terrific price,” says Pickover, “but if the event is poorly planned, and your attendees have no time to eat, then it’s all just a waste of money.”

Maureen Gross, director of meetings and events for the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, based in Washington D.C., has almost entirely eliminated food functions from her programs since 1999, which can consist of some 25,000 Catholic youths of varying ages. “It was just too difficult to do a cost that people could afford,” she says. “We used to end up with a hot dog, chips, and soda that we’d have to charge attendees $10 for. I know why it costs that much, but it was just too much money for that kind of food.”

Instead, now she intentionally looks for sites that offer many dining options within walking distance, and also works with hotels and convention centers to help them offer the right choices for her group. “We will work with a facility to help them capture as much of our business as they can,” she says. “We let them know the price point that our attendees are comfortable with and they can go from there.”

Attrition: “Once you’ve come up with a minimum that both parties can live with,” says Foster, “ask for allowable attrition in food and beverage that’s equal to allowable attrition of the guest rooms.”

What’s Included: Make sure you have a clear understanding of what goes toward that minimum. While coffee breaks, receptions, and meals should all be included, try to include such things as hospitality suites and F&B functions from sponsor organizations (who wouldn’t be there if not for your function).

Your Responsibilities: Make sure you are very clear on what your responsibilities are in different time frames if you fall below your guarantee (after allowable attrition). If you cancel something before the food is bought, you should be liable for less than after the food is purchased.

“Let’s say the profit margin on food is generally about 30 percent,” says Foster. “The other 70 percent is the cost of the food and labor. If a group books $10,000 worth of F&B and cancels it six months in advance, the hotel has not lost the full $10,000, but only $3,000-that’s the money that would have gone into their pockets. The other $7,000 would have been used to buy the food and pay for labor. So the hotel should only be entitled to the $3,000-what’s called the loss of profit.”

On the other hand, once the food has been purchased, it can’t be returned and if it can’t be used for another group, the hotel should be entitled to the full 100 percent that’s been lost, in this case the full $10,000.

Replacement Business: Make sure that the group damages are reduced if the facility is able to book replacement business after a cancellation. The difficulty is in defining replacement business. “It should be defined as any business that the hotel would not have been able to book if your event took place as scheduled,” Foster explains.

Why the clarification? Consider these circumstances: Your group has to move from a large room to a smaller room because of attrition. But now the hotel has moved another group that was already booked into that larger room. You should not be fully liable since the business has been replaced.

By Kate Burton

It might be an exaggeration to say that “everything” is negotiable, but not by much. Of course, there always has to be some give and take on the part of the planner, as well as the hotel. “We might not be able to do a Saturday night for a discounted price,” says Linwood Campbell, senior convention services manager of the Westin Charlotte in North Carolina, “but if the planner is willing to change the event to a Sunday or Friday evening, when we’re typically not as busy, we can usually do a lot more.”

By the same token, if you allow a hotel to create the menu, they can often tag team one group’s menu with another’s. “If I already have one group in house that is having a given meal, I can give the second group a value if they opt for the same menu or some of the same items,” explains Ed DiAntonio, CPCE, CMP, director of catering for the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Hotel in Orlando. While the additional food is an obvious cost, DiAntonio says the savings in labor allows leeway for a better price.

Along the same lines, Campbell notes that the hotel won’t discount a published menu item, but “we will create a customized menu that’s comparable for a discounted price. I might not be able to discount x for you, but if I can substitute y instead, I can give that to you at the price you need.”

In fact, a customized menu and talking with the chef directly are two great strategies for keeping costs down while adding interest. “My first challenge is in explaining what I need,” says Sheri Clemmer, associate meeting planner for the Silver Spring, Maryland-based Seventh-day Adventists World Headquarters. She plans meal functions for a group that is primarily lacto-ovo vegetarian (vegetarians who consumer dairy products).

“I often have two meals a day for 10 days,” says says. “Please don’t suggest eggplant parmesan and vegetarian lasagna for all 10 days!” When it comes to budget, she is willing to work with the hotel. “If I have to cut out a dessert option or one of the salads to whittle it down to the price I need, I will.” But there are times when she just flat out states, “This is my budget. What can you do for me?”

That’s the strategy recommended by John Nellesen, CMP, director of event management for the St. Louis Renaissance Grand and Suites Hotel. “The best way to keep costs down is to be honest with us about how much you have to spend. Once we have a budget, the chef can go all out with the money we have to spend. The standard menus are great as a starting point, but we don’t need to stick with them.”

Presentation Counts

Another way to save is by working with the hotel on the decorations that typically accompany a food event. “Find out what items the hotel can give you that aren’t a hard-dollar cost to them,” says Jason Jordan, a St. Louis-based strategic account manager of the meeting and event services management company Experient (formerly Conferon). He explains that a “hard-dollar cost” is anything a hotel has to pay for itself.

“For example, centerpieces that have fresh roses are a hard-dollar cost because the hotel will have to pay for the roses and therefore they will have to charge you-so there’s not much room for negotiating,” he explains.

“On the other hand, they might own something that would work as a centerpiece so there is no cost to them to provide it. Even if they would normally charge an upgrade fee, a planner can negotiate that, knowing there is no actual cost to the hotel.”

Theme decorations often fall into this category, and a simple starting point is to take a look at the group catering menu. Odds are that if they’re touting a Mexican buffet, they’ve already got the decorations in house to go with it. “If you don’t have to pay for decorations,” says Jordan, “that’s more money that can go to the food.”

And don’t be afraid to do it yourself. “Our priority is food, rather than decoration,” says Carol Eby-Good, member services coordinator of Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Mennonite Economic Development Activities and a meeting planner for the group. “We keep our centerpieces simple.” For a recent meeting with multiple food functions, she bought several pots of chrysanthemums from The Home Depot for use as centerpieces for meal functions.

“They were only two or three dollars a piece and lasted through the whole meeting,” she says. “We varied the look of the room with different linens and the other elements on the table for each meal so with very simple staging, we got different looks.”

Incorporating local flair can add creativity without adding much cost. Clemmer well remembers the fun attendees had with decorations at one dinner in Colorado in 2004. To get a taste of the locale, the international group of about 120 attendees went to a local restaurant for regional fare, including baked beans, fresh cornbread, barbecue-style Portobello mushrooms, and more.

The restaurant was already decorated in an Old West style, with “Wanted” posters on the sides of booths. To make the event more fun, Clemmer’s team put the names of the group’s big players on personalized “Wanted” posters. “It was so much fun and people kept walking around to look at the different posters,” she says. “The people who were on the posters got to keep them at the end.”

Campbell suggests another way to make an event more personal. “We can take a recipe of one of the attendees and recreate it, maybe a signature punch of one of the founding members of the church or a special pie that is everyone’s favorite,” he says. Label it so everyone knows whose recipe it is, and all of a sudden, a simple drink or dessert becomes a memorable part of the event. “Everyone wants a memory,” says Campbell, “so the more personal you can make it, the better.”

Of course, it’s not just the presentation of the room that can make an impact, but the presentation of the food itself. “We’ve been moving away from props and trying to ensure the food is the star,” says Steve Enselein, vice president of catering and convention services for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, based in Chicago.

With the emphasis on fresh foods, the chain is moving away from what Enselein calls “traditional institutional equipment to look more like attendees are guests in someone’s else.” Chafing dishes are replaced with large pots and pans, which keeps the food fresher, while wood benches, ladders and stainless steel tables hold the foods rather than the traditional skirted banquet table.

Sit Down!

When it comes to pricing, a sit-down dinner is almost always going to be less expensive than a buffet-a bonus in that attendees usually perceive a sit-down dinner as more “elegant,” but a negative in that there’s going to be fewer choices. Hyatt has recently come up with a method to deal with this corporate-wide with its Personal Preference menus. Phased in over the past year and soon to be introduced as part of its standard banquet menus, the concept is simple: a sit-down dinner that offers attendees choices.

“The goal is a restaurant-style experience,” says Enselein. “The planner selects an appetizer and a salad from a pre-determined list that is the same for every attendee. They also choose four entrees, typically a beef, chicken, fish, and vegetarian entrée, from which attendees can make their selection at the beginning of the meal.”

The price for this added variety? “Typically, it will be about five percent more than our standard sit-down because there are more labor costs involved from the hotel standpoint,” says Enselein. “But the pricing comes out comparable to a buffet with a similar choice of entrees but a much more elegant feel.”

The meal is topped off with a dessert sampler so attendees can experience bite-sized pieces of several different desserts rather than just one.

Speaking of dessert, Nellesen advises that’s a good place to go for the “wow” factor: “Face it, a person can not like their salad, find their meal just OK, but if you wow them with the dessert, they’ll remember the whole meal as being fantastic.”

Breakfast, too, is another area where it’s often easy to find a middle ground. “We’ll do a standard Continental breakfast,” says DiAntonio, “but add in one hot item along with it, say a coddled egg with spinach and bacon, or one with braised fennel and sage sausages. It costs more than the Continental, but less than a complete meal, so it’s a great compromise.”

Break It Up

Meeting breaks might well be the best place to add some bang for the buck since by their very nature they’re less expensive than full meals. One simple way to get more value is to “take the dessert portion of a package meal price and split that into another event later,” Nellesen suggests. For example, save the dessert portion of a dinner and serve it instead at an afternoon break.

At Copper Mountain Resort in Colorado, adding activities to a break is a great way to add some pizzazz without a lot of extra cost. “Our Energy Break is really popular,” says Kyle Peterson, manager of conferences and group services. “We can pack a mesh bag with foods like granola bars, espresso beans, and an energy drink and then head out to the climbing wall, for example. It gets attendees out of the meeting rooms and into the mountains, plus it gives them a taste of something they might want to do more of in the afternoon. Even if they just get outside for a few minutes, it’s revitalizing.”

Other ways the resort recommends waking up attendees is to bring in a yoga instructor for a few minutes of stretching or, for a smaller group, have a couple of people who can do chair massages. Such activities add little cost, but with the food itself becoming less a center point, they can pack a memorable punch. Just add some power bars and fresh fruit, maybe some freshly baked breads and freshly squeezed juice, and you’ve got a health- and cost-conscious event.

Other theme breaks can also add a lot of fun without adding a lot of dollars. “We’ve been doing a lot of penny-candy breaks,” says Nellesen. “We buy candies in bulk, like Red Hots, Swedish Fish, Tootsie Rolls, and such, and present them in old-style candy jars.”

To add some flair to a fairly standard cookie break, DiAntonio takes a metal flattop, puts the cookies on top of it-and some Sterno stoves underneath it. “Guests are now getting warm cookies that also smell wonderful,” he says. He also says soft-serve ice cream machines are fun for groups. “We set it up to look like a store and then add toppings so attendees can create their own sundaes.”