Contracts

4 Event Crisis Scenarios Every Planner Can Learn From

This is a guest post by Barbara Dunn, Attorney & Meeting Industry Expert. This article shall not be considered legal advice. Readers are advised to consult their legal counsel.

You have probably heard the saying, “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” 

While many meeting and event professionals work hard to anticipate problems that might arise during their meetings and events, the reality is that often, the biggest challenges are those that cannot be anticipated or planned for before the meeting. 

What can planners do to plan for the unexpected challenges? 

The following are four true stories of challenges faced by meeting and event professionals, how they were resolved, and what could have been done to avoid or minimize the problems that ensued.

No Rooms at the Inn

Just three weeks before its annual meeting, the meeting planner for a professional society learns that the luxury brand hotel scheduled to host her group’s meeting will be undergoing exterior renovations. As a result, the hotel will not be able to provide sleeping rooms to the group. 

The hotel proposed to the planner that since it could host the function space, it would transport attendees to and from the hotel by bus to a nearby limited-service hotel. Knowing that the hotel’s proposal was unacceptable, the planner worked to secure rooms and function space in another luxury brand hotel.

Meanwhile, the group advised the original hotel that, due to its inability to provide sleeping rooms as required by the contract, it was in breach of its contract. Thus, all obligations were terminated, and the hotel would be legally responsible for all monetary damages incurred by the group to move its meeting.

Once the alternate hotel was secured, the original hotel was advised of the summary of the monetary damages incurred by the group due to the hotel’s breach. Those damages included the difference in room rates between the original and the alternate hotel, the difference in food and beverage prices between the original and the alternate hotel, costs to notify the attendees of the change in location, costs to update the website, and attorneys fees to review the contract for the alternate hotel.  Documentation of such charges was also provided. After reviewing and discussing the damages, the original hotel accepted the summary and paid the group for its damages.

Although this story has a happy ending, the group could have put itself in a stronger position with the original hotel by including a provision in the contract to address the possibility of the hotel’s cancellation. That provision would include a detailed listing of those categories of items and costs for which the hotel would need to pay monetary damages if it could not provide the rooms or function space required by the contract.

The Speaker and The Scandal

Just three days after entering into a contract with a keynote speaker, a nonprofit organization learned on the national news that the speaker was involved in a scandal that alleged that he had engaged in illegal and unethical behavior. 

Once the group learned of this development, they quickly assessed their options, including canceling the speaker contract. Unfortunately, the contract did not allow the Group to cancel for such reasons; instead, the group would have to pay a cancellation fee. 

After discussing this issue with the speaker’s bureau, the bureau agreed to allow the group to apply its contract and fee toward another speaker. The group accepted this proposal and contracted with another speaker.

While the group was pleased that the speaker bureau understood its concerns and addressed them regardless of what the contract said, the key takeaway from this story is that strong language in the speaker contract should be included regarding the group’s right to cancel due to issues or concerns involving the speaker. 

Typically, in speaker contracts, there is a broad right for the speaker to cancel for reasons such as illness, death of a family member, and even “overriding professional obligations,” but this right is one-sided. By converting these provisions to mutual rights, the group will be better positioned to protect its interests with this important investment.

“Under-departed” and The Snowstorm

How does a snowstorm in the northeast affect a meeting in Florida?  When the attendees from the meeting before are unable to travel back home to the northeast.  That’s just what happened to one group a few years ago.  When it and its attendees arrived in Florida for their meeting, they learned that the hotel was not able to provide their sleeping rooms or function space because the group before did not check out of the hotel as scheduled because they were unable to travel home to the northeast. 

Once alerted to the problem, the hotel secured sleeping rooms at a neighboring hotel and provided function space to the group. Ultimately, the holdovers could travel home, and the group could move its sleeping rooms back to the hotel.

This issue of being oversold — or, as one hotelier put it to me, “underdeparted” — can be a major disruption to a group’s meeting. And yet despite efforts to put strong language into the hotel contracts, these “underdeparted” situations will still arise from time to time and therefore need to be managed from a practical standpoint outside of the contract.

Party of Two for the Ballroom?

Just two weeks before its annual sales meeting, a corporate meeting planner discovered that the ballroom reserved for her company’s general session programs was now reserved for another group and would not be available for her company’s use. 

Although the contract did not state that the hotel could move the group’s function space, the hotel made such change anyway. 

When challenged on this change, the hotel stated that the change was due to the fact that the group would not be using its minimum room block, and therefore, the hotel found another group who would replace revenue at the hotel. 

The alternate space offered by the hotel was inferior in size, location, and amenities. 

While the group continued to challenge the hotel’s right to move its function space, it contacted its decorator about the alternate space and whether it could be made to work for the general sessions. Following such discussions, the group determined that the alternate space would work for the group. 

Now, the negotiations over what the group would receive from the hotel as a result of this change began. 

In addition to paying the group’s additional costs to move the general session (including decor, lighting, and signage), the hotel agreed to waive more than $20,000 in room block attrition fees the group would have been responsible to pay under the contract terms. So, in the end, while not happy about the alternate space, the meeting went from a financial failure to a financial success due in part to the hotel’s change in function space.

There are really two key learning points from this story. 

1. Make sure that hotel and convention center agreements include language which requires the hotel or center to obtain the group’s prior consent to any function space reassignments.
2. When any challenge such as the double-booking of function space occurs, remember that sometimes that challenge can be a good thing.  Often, it gives the group leverage to negotiate concessions which will be financially beneficial to the group.

So, the next time you hear a story from a meeting professional about something going wrong at their meeting, don’t just think that the same thing can’t happen to you — think of what you would do to make sure the problem never arises in the first place.

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