Remove Event Planning Remove Food and Beverage Remove Negotiating
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Mastering Event Contracts: Essential Negotiation Strategies for Meeting Planners in 2025

Smart Meetings

Avoid pitfalls and protect your event Contracts are the lifeblood and backbone of the meetings industry. Negotiating contracts is the first step before confirming speakers, color themes or catering options. “I think it goes to the wisdom of making sure you lock in food and beverage prices as early as you can, Warner offered.

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Event Planning Has Risen in the Ranks of Most Stressful Jobs

Velvet Chainsaw

Event planners are experiencing sticker shock from rising costs for audiovisual, food and beverage, and other direct meeting expenses. Planners are charged with making the problem go away but have little to no negotiating power. Adapted from Dave’s Forward Thinking column in PCMA’s Convene.

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What Event Planning Best Practices Are Here to Stay?

Smart Meetings

People may not remember the awesome sound from the speakers of your event, or the incredible food and beverage. They might also forget all about the transitions between dynamics and games or events, but they’ll most certainly remember if they attended your event and it appeared unsanitary or messy.

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Two Tensions Keeping Senior Event Professionals Up at Night

Velvet Chainsaw

The big three include food & beverage, A/V + production and speakers/entertainment. In addition to negotiating and locking in pricing, some of the tactics to consider are: Decreasing the event length by a couple hours or half-day.

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Debunking the Myth of All-in-One Event Management Software with Lindsay Martin-Bilbrey

Attendease

Here are some key takeaways from the conversation with Lindsay, where she debunks the myth of all-in-one event tech. So building a solution that can navigate from procurement to abstract management, food and beverage, registration, and more… it’s something hard to come by. What drives the need for all-in-one solutions?

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13 Corporate Event Planning Mistakes That Will Cost You Money

Attendease

Luckily, having a great event management tool on hand along with understanding the potential pitfalls can help you avoid these 13 costly mistakes. Ensure every member of your event planning team negotiates with vendors and makes an effort to get better pricing. No defined event goal. No contingency planning.

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How to Create a Long-Term Event Planning Timeline

Social Tables

When you start planning an event, one of the first things you should do is figure out your event planning timeline. The next time you start to plan an event, consider using this helpful guide to create an event planning schedule that works for you. What is a long-term event planning timeline?