Open Forum

Welcome back Cvent Community members! I hope you all had a great weekend! Let's get started today with our Huddle of the Week!

Event costs keep rising and it is possible to reduce your budget and still deliver great attendee experiences. Here are some tips and technology to leverage to save on event costs:

1.  Be open-minded
2.  Find your vendors early
3.  Invest and reuse
4.  Save on power and Wi-Fi
5.  Go paperless
6.  Dynamic Access Portal
7.  Venue Sourcing Tech
8.  Venue Diagramming Tech
9.  Event Registration
10.  Onsite solutions

Even if you only use one of these cost-saving tips or technologies, it will help you cut the budget for your next event.

Questions for you:

1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?

Want to learn more about saving costs on your events? Check out our Cvent Blog post – 10 Ways to Save on Event Costs in 2023- today! We also have a cost savings calculator to level up your budgeting game!

#HuddleoftheWeek

#VoiceIt

#Budget

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Megan Clark
Assistant Team Lead, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? Yes.  We decided to go paperless recently and I use Cvent to send information to attendees, vendors, and speakers in the form of emails and pdf's.  We used to print large conference books and now have saved a tremendous amount of money using this method.
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?  We try to buy our swag in bulk and think strategically about how we could reuse items.

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Sarah Jacobson
hybrid
St. Luke's Health SystemUnited States
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?
   Yes, but not everything yet. Hope to add to the list in the future. 
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?
   If there is a new item or event feature we are after, we try to get it sponsored for the first iteration of it. 

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Chris Townley
Marketing and Communications Associate
National Council Of State Housing AgenciesUnited States
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 Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? Event Registration

 What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend? I recommend setting up receptions and all meals as optional so that headcounts can be collected for primary and guest. Often, guarantees are submitted for the exact amount of attendees, when in reality the Plus One is not attending meals or there are registrants who won't be onsite until after the Welcome Reception or are departing prior to the Closing Banquet, etc.

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Hallie Loeb, HMCC
Event Operations Specialist
CDW United States
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Questions for you:

1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?

We definitely use these ones: 

1.  Find your vendors early
2.  Save on power and Wi-Fi
3.  Go paperless

1.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?  Be flexible on location - look for a venue that may be lower-cost. 

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Elena PEREZ
hybrid
SEIU - UHWUnited States
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? Yes! 
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend? Having sessions that use the same AV on the same day so you don't have to pay double. 

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Justina Hulen
Events Director
RSLC
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Questions for you:

1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? It is vital that we book vendors early. Being in a high-volume wedding industry and desirable area (Charlottesville, VA), we have to book early to ensure we have vendors. That said, going paperless has probably been the most cost-saving for us, as we send far fewer print marketing materials and we do not print materials for our registration center; all agendas can be found online now, and we have signs for scanning a QR code to take you directly to the site.
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend? Depending on your events operation, invest in some of the frequently used items so you don't have to rent them for every event (registration tables, sound system for music/casual remarks, reusable centerpieces, basic tablecloths for a registration/swag table, etc)

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Cate Liverman
Director-Constituent Relations
UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School FoundationUnited States
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? Going digital
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend? Bulk purchasing of branded items, it more upfront but saves in the longrun

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Mary Ann Hall
Event Specialist
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago(CRSO Department)
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? Yes, we invested in Event in a Box to be more efficient in badge printing.
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend? Definitely being more strategic in our sourcing has helped us in this year. We don't source a lot, but we have a small team so it's more effective. 

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Beth Vriesen.
Events Registration Administrator
Associated Bank Corporation
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?  Going paperless - for attendees and on-site staff - has saved at least $150 per person.  For on-site staff, we utilize iPads and have documents uploaded in the event app that only we can see that include BEOs, diagrams, schedules, contact info, etc.
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?  Water stations in lieu of bottled water.  You can jazz them up with infused waters as well..  Also working with venues regarding menus.  You can often piggy back on another group or get custom menus for a lower cost if you have some flexibility (plus, banquet chefs typically love to break away from their standard menus).

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Julie-Michelle Davis, CMP
Meetings Manager
Amex GBT - USA
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We have been using the go paperless method, bringing in a mobile app and digital screens around the venue (though that doesn't really help with saving on power!). Not really sure it saves money at the end of the day, but we've been doing the onsite solutions. We've definitely put more focus on reuseable assets.

To save money we've really just looked at where we put our money and scaled back on some areas that maybe didn't feel like they had much impact so we can focus on funding things that would have a great impact.

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Rachel
NJ
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1. Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?
   • We are trying to shift all of our paper programs to our virtual app, but it is hard to make everyone shift to that. We do use electronic venue diagrammng. All of our event registration is solely online, no paper option which also saves a ton of time!
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?
   • We had to go through budget cuts with our last event. We categorized everything from essential to can cut and determined which items do we need to keep the same level of events we've done in the past, and what are things that are nice to have but won't effect the overall event experience.

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Laura Apel
Events Manager
CDLLifeUnited States
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?
   1. Yes, several
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?
   1. Negotiate F&B
   2. Price compare

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Lori Wildman
Marketing Director
lwildman@dmainc.com
DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.United States
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1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above? Yes, I am embracing "paperless" whenever possible! I also always have a preset diagram for all my venues (we use Cvent Diagraming at Mason), and I try to book my vendors at least 3 months in advance! For the others, we always try to be energy efficient.
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend? Someone else mentioned this but we do this too - buy in BULK. How can you resuse.  We also reduce the number of swag and have it as "grab" vs "give" - same with programs.  We are working to reduce signage and often buy signs we can reuse. If it's a sponsor sign we are looking at ways to incorporate electronic/slides vs printed signs.

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Lesley Irminger
in_person
George Mason - Office Of University EventsUnited States
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Questions for you:

1.  Are you taking advantage of any of the tips listed above?
   1.  Be open-minded
   2.  Find your vendors early
   3.  Invest and reuse
   4.  Save on power and Wi-Fi
   5.  Go paperless
   6.  Event Registration
2.  What are some other cost-saving tips that you would recommend?
   1. Plan in advance and make sure everyone is briefed, everything is triple checked, costs are compared and booked out way in advance

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Olivia Popofski
MKTG
Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada and AffiliatesUnited States
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