Experience how event solutions translate into best-practice support for optimizing owners’ investment in MICE-related technology from the leading global event production company.
Maximizing event-generated ROI requires more than a piecemeal, checklist approach to providing function space, food and beverage service and event technology equipment. It also goes beyond reactively addressing pain points. It’s about rethinking sales pitches and patchwork systems with monetizable business and technical strategies and capturing the full upside of today’s expanding and evolving events market with integrated planning and expert execution.
Think partnership, not product purchase, to optimize tech offering
Identifying the possibilities for increasing event ROI and consistently delivering cost-efficient best practices that create seamless experiences start with shifting away from transactional interactions with service providers to aligned partnerships. This collaborative, consultative relationship offers owners an inside track to leverage the latest advances from new rigging options to the latest LED walls into a cohesive action plan aimed at achieving long-term functionality and increased profitability.
“One of the first things that my team wants to understand is the financial goal for group business and events and how each space is expected to contribute. Let’s say the hotelier is looking to drive revenues from a boardroom. Rather than focusing exclusively on event spends—which need to be weighed carefully at a time when planners want more bang for fewer bucks—we can suggest a wide variety of uses for that space that may not have occurred to the hotel’s team,” said Sarah Gascoine, Encore’s director of design and integration.
“We work with our customers to understand their initial vision. Based on that, we add on different ideas so owners can begin building profits from day one. But we also incorporate the flexibility to evolve these options as owners modernize and future-proof those rooms when they move forward with their next renovation or plan a new build,” she added.
A true end-to-end meetings solution partner collaborates with owners and operators to optimize revenue-generating opportunities for growing MICE business, while maximizing cost efficiencies, safety profiles and the lifespan of the owners’ investment.
Make the most of tech- and event-led revenue generation throughout the property
The point for the Encore team is helping owners make every aspect of event technology a sales and marketing tool. That can mean rethinking the potential of wireless connectivity to tie lighting and sound systems into an iPad that lets the hotel’s team leader change the background, lighting or music as they move through the space to create an unforgettable wedding reception. It can also translate to ensuring that a bank of projectors lowered from behind ceiling panels can drop down safely and turn on simultaneously without overloading the electrical system.
Many hoteliers could add big numbers to the plus-side of their P&Ls by fully utilizing their grounds as event space or monetizing the walls, ceilings and even floors. Encore's experts say features such as LED walls can be great business-building sources of the “wow factor” at an event, as can integrated digital signage throughout the property. These present exceptional sponsorship opportunities, if maximized.
“There’s a great deal of potential revenue when you have a group in-house and you want a big brand to advertise. You can get revenue from that marketing throughout the entire building using digital signage options; that is a huge opportunity,” said Joe Pasterkiewicz, vice president of Encore’s specialty services group. “You can actually pay for the signage itself by selling the marketing. We have venues that are doing from a quarter-million to a million dollars’ worth of branding sales from digital signage.”
The ultimate goal, of course, is to make the event experience better. So, initiatives may also include using digital signage and other technology to transform static white-box event/conference spaces into locations of unforgettable, Instagrammable “wow moments”. It may involve creative engineering solutions, such as having bouquets or tables descend from the ceiling on platforms. Or perhaps it’s something more high-tech, like video-mapping tables or the hotel’s architecture.
“We have done a lot of really cool events that showcase a hotel with video mapping on the entire building, so we can make the hotel come alive,” said Pasterkiewicz. “We’re also doing fully immersive events that incorporate scent; we have machines that put a scent in the air.
We have venues that are doing from a quarter-million to a million dollars’ worth of branding sales from digital signage.”
Joe Pasterkiewicz
Don’t spend; invest
Protecting the owner’s technology investment demands a comprehensive framework that not only meets or exceeds current needs, but also anticipates the specter of obsolescence, transforms systems into sales tools and increases efficiency by creating integrated solutions for everything from the electrical grid to the architecture to the length of the cable runs.
It’s not just bells and whistles, either. The more information owners have to help navigate the evolving tech landscape, the better. There are always new solutions to consider, such as AV over IP, which promises greater scalability, or a “satellite” approach to providing multiple access points on an event floor (e.g. Encore’s Internet Everywhere ecosystem).
That said, some owners still want and need wired connections to get the quality and speed customers demand, so solution partners are often the ones ultimately tapped to juggle multiple needs.
“You need that robust network: having the ability to set up an SSID [service set identifier], which is a private network or a login for one group in particular, and you can segregate the bandwidth,” explained Pasterkiewicz. “So, you can give 200 megabits or a gigabyte to one group and another 200 megabits to another group. That way, nobody’s crossing over. Each group has dedicated bandwidth.
As high-tech as that may read, much of the actual work that goes into making it all happen relies on having the know-how and forethought to properly execute on infrastructure.
Pasterkiewicz pointed to one particularly massive Las Vegas convention space the Encore team recently outfitted, which presented a considerable logistical challenge.
“If the length of the cabling is too long, you have to put switches throughout these pockets in the floors, to make sure that the signal is broadcast and strong enough to get across a thousand-foot room,” Pasterkiewicz explained. “It’s really about making sure that you have the proper cabling and proper infrastructure.”
Extra safety doesn’t mean high cost
As the number one events solutions provider for the world’s hotel chains and casinos, Encore draws on experience gained while working with 2,100 in-house venues in 20 countries to find the right solution for their needs.
Their oversight also extends to safety. An expert solutions provider can be a critical source of guidance for owners, from avoiding problems with power overloads to complying with load-bearing standards for truss-work installations, preventing tripping hazards from cables on floors and outdoor spaces and addressing myriad other potential safety issues.
“The solution can be as simple as installing panel boxes at set intervals to eliminate the need for long cable runs and keep circulation patterns clear,” said Pasterkiewicz. “When you are talking about safety, it is fairly inexpensive to install a few different 200-amp circuits.
Increased expectations by planners are stretching the problem-solving expertise required to accommodate complex components. This impacts not only safety considerations, but compliance. “In one instance, the planner wanted everything suspended from a grid hung over an event space. But that installation was far too heavy for that framework,” said Gascoine. “The solutions provider needs to understand what’s compliant with safety standards and the venue’s infrastructure. Using that, teams like ours can offer alternatives on how to use different options to create the impact the planner wants and still maintain a safe environment.”
Equipment maintenance is another key point. “We have a very, very robust rigging program. We have a group of 20 people that travel around the country and the world inspecting rig points both at the functional level and visually,” said Pasterkiewicz. Motors are inspected after events in one of seven warehouses around the country. “Our teams actually grab each cable link and make sure it’s in the right place and that it has no nicks or breaks. If it does, it goes to one of our repair shops and has to undergo another inspection when the work is completed.” Hoists are inspected annually, which means a complete teardown and reassembly by certified team members.
Align goals that build planners’ satisfaction, ROI
If planned, installed, and marketed correctly, meetings infrastructure can generate ROI to not only covers its own costs but become a valuable revenue stream. Other solutions need to rely heavily on leading-edge tech, but in a way that is seamless and unobtrusive. It’s all part of a delicate balancing act that the foremost end-to-end meetings solution providers are successfully walking, said Gascoine.
“Planners and consumers want simplicity. We don’t want anyone to have to download an app or connect a device. We understand that a lot of our clients—for example anyone in the medical field—can’t just download software to make their presentations work,” said Gascoine. “So we're looking to integrate easy, intuitive wireless solutions, because we understand that no matter what your company uses—if it’s Teams or Zoom, if it’s Apple or PC—when it comes to technology, we want it to work seamlessly.”
Brendan Manley is a writer, editor and digital marketer specializing in hospitality content creation based in Warrensburg, New York
The views and opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel Investment Today or Northstar Travel Group and its affiliated companies.