Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The High Cost of an Ineffective Event

While talking to a client the other day, he revealed some interesting calculations for the cost of their next event.

Factoring in the number of people, productivity and sales lost from being away from the office, and actual event cost (venue, keynote speakers, food, lodging, activities), the company was spending...

...wait for it....

...upwards of $100,000 PER HOUR on their event.

That's a heck of a lot of money. Especially when companies are being particularly frugal nowadays.

We're not saying don't host your event. Certainly not--events have value that far exceeds their cost.

What we are saying is that if you're going to spend $100,000 PER HOUR on a three day event, shouldn't it be the best darned event ever?

Why would you have your presenters go up and PowerPoint your audience to death--as per usual? Why would you have your audience just sit in their chairs for hour upon hour?

You wouldn't. So it's time to rethink how much an event is *really* costing. If it's the same old event as usual, then the price is far greater than the budget allows--even if it's not in dollars.

No comments: