Conventions and big corporate gatherings can be a great source of business if you can be top of mind in a few areas online and off. There is no magic bullet or easy solution to getting convention business but here's what we've seen work.
Hotels - Sales & Catering Managers / Concierge
Companies that are attending a convention work with a hotel sales manager to plan their stay in a market. Many times this hotel sales person becomes the de facto planner for food and beverage activity for the company outside of the hotel. They constantly hear questions like, "We're going to be in town for a week, where can we go on the Tues night outside of the hotel to host something casual for 100 people."
These people are a great source of referrals for groups, small to large. We have plenty of stories of them sending business our way from a couple of people looking to break away from the group to $10,000 whole pub buyouts. Get to know these people and be in their ear well ahead of convention and party season.
Concierge's inside hotels play a similar role in that they will refer great business in your direction if you build a strong, authentic relationship and you are top of mind when the convention rolls into town.
DMC's - Destination Management Companies
These are event planning agencies hired by companies coming to town for a convention. They will plan all of their external convention activities. Like hotel sales people, working with these groups is about relationship building, having them understand what Fado is great at and how they can use us.
We have landed large events ($5,000 - $25,000) through DMC's in multiple markets. Know what conventions are coming to town and reach out 6 months (or more) ahead of time to DMC's to see how / if we can be included in a proposal they send to their clients.
Local Companies
When the Architecture convention comes to town, you should be reaching out to local architecture, design/build firms (months in advance). When the restaurant convention comes, you should be calling on Coke, equipment manufacturers and restaurant service providers. You get the idea. All of these companies will be entertaining when the convention comes to town and you want to be part of the action. Get a list of conventions booked for the next 12 months and build a contact list of potential party buyers.
Online Search and Ads
Search engines are the top source of information for convention planners looking for a venue in a city. Do a search for 'private event space' or 'event venues' in your market. You want to have a presence in the organic search listings for these highly traffic-ed terms. If you don't show up you should send an email to your marketing department to make it happen.
Of the 782 web inquiries for events from Aug 1, 2012 - May 31, 2013, 441 have come from search engines. See below for a complete list of sources for party inquiries on the websites.
Ahead of high convention (and holiday party) season, the busier event pubs will have Google ads running to help drive new sales. If you want these to run, just ask. As an example, from Oct 15 - Dec 5 of 2012 search ads drove 6,529 website visits in 7 markets at a cost of $8,573. The traffic resulted in 51 web inquiries (we don't know how many additional phone calls since we don't track those). From those web leads, we closed $11,974 in business.
While all this traffic isn't convention business, it's an indication of where the buyers are and how to engage them.
Private Event Related Websites
You also want a presence on top rated sites like www.cvent.com, www.eventective.com, www.opentable.com, www.yelp.com and specialty sites like (www.theknot.com, I know
not a convention site but worth a mention.). These aggregators and review sites see
substantial traffic and are valuable resources for out of town buyers.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau
It's a great organization, they have great programs and they offer a lot of visibility for hundreds of event venues, bars and restaurants. The CVB has only proven to work for us if you invest significant time in networking, volunteering and relationship building inside the CVB. If you treat them like a big DMC, you will probably see some business but it will be the result of a lot effort. This finding is based on work we have done with the CVB in Chicago, Atlanta, Austin and Seattle.
Just advertising and getting exposure doesn't work, you have to activate behind it in a real way to make it pay off.
What have you seen work? Any tactics that you are currently working on that you'd like to share?
Sources of online private party inquiries August 1, 2012 - May 31, 2013
google (396 records)
yelp.com (89 records)
(direct) (80 records)
google_CPC (61 records)
bing (45 records)
opentable.com (21 records)
yahoo (12 records)
marybrickellvillage.com (9 records)
hereschicago.com (8 records)
urbanspoon.com (7 records)
facebook.com (5 records)
atlanta.citysearch.com (4 records)
comcast (3 records)
eightiesband.net (3 records)
eventective.com (3 records)
mywedding.com (3 records)
theknot.com (3 records)
themagnificentmile.com (3 records)
prweb.com (2 records)
10best.com (1 record)
aol (1 record)
atlanta.net (1 record)
austintexas.org (1 record)
blog.tremontcityliving.com (1 record)
buckhead.patch.com (1 record)
chicago.weddings.com (1 record)
dailyhappyhour.com (1 record)
denver.citysearch.com (1 record)
downtownmiami.com (1 record)
fadoirishpub.com (1 record)
foursquare.com (1 record)
happyhours.downtownseattle.com (1 record)
local.yahoo.com (1 record)
maps.google.com (1 record)
plus.url.google.com (1 record)
search.genieo.com (1 record)
tripadvisor.com (1 record)
yellowpages.com (1 record)
zagat.com (1 record)
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