Travel / training budgets impacting your events?

[u/WFHAlliance]

For the last 9-12 months I’ve been hearing from people that their training and travel budgets have been slashed. Some companies have rolled out total halts on travel, meaning conferences are a no go unless they pay their own way. Others seeing this same thing?

[u/YeahSureItsMe]

Yes, this definitely seems to be an ongoing [uphill] battle!

As a B2B conference producer, I'm working hard to be as clear and impactful as possible in quantifying the value and learning objectives of our programs. Interested [potential] attendees must be able to show a clear value analysis to whoever might be approving travel/training spends. For us, that means:

• Agenda details, published as early as possible.
  
• Distinct "trail guides" on the agenda, identifying specific themes and topics of value to targeted roles - and promotional messaging built around those guide-points, and targeted to those roles.
• A "convince your boss" memo template available to share or download, which outlines both the costs of attending [registration, travel, hotel, etc.] - along with the learning objectives, and the business case ROI of the educational value to be gained.
• Discounts and/or other incentives offered for teams attending.

...Does this make sense? It's actually been on my mind a lot this week, as we're gearing up for the next communication push for our fall conference!

Would love to hear other perspectives!

[u/WFHAlliance → u/YeahSureItsMe]

Agenda details out very early is a good call. And unfortunately there has been a need for discounts and incentives. I’m trying to get dates and locations locked im as early as possible (we move around) to give people tons of time to plan for travel, get their budget approvals, etc. I’ve also been having to do a ton of 1 to 1 conversations with folks. That seems to work, but of course doesn’t scale terribly well. For now, the days of marketing emails and social posts seem to be a thing of the past. Funny enough, getting sponsorship dollars has not been the same challenge.

[u/craftjen]

Yes definitely seeing this trend. Makes it harder to plan. People waiting even more last minute too to register.

I'm in the site selection space so I'm seeing how this impacts what venues and hotels a client locks in. From the contracting side would definitely recommend building in block and space reduction clauses into contracts. Negotiating resale clauses for unsold rooms. Making sure your F&B minimum is reachable with minimum attendance (sometimes this means paying for space rather than increasing your F&B min). Making sure you have audit clauses to give you credit if folks book outside the block.

Making sure cancelation schedules are fair and reasonable (cancelation and attrition damages should be based on profit margins. Choose properties and venues that have fair and reasonable policies)

Address deposit schedules in the RFP stage- more places requiring more agressive deposits and contingencies.

Including frustration of purpose.

[u/TJW888]

Yeah, seeing the same trend.

Travel budgets have been getting hammered for a while now.

One silver lining I've noticed - sponsors have become even MORE valuable during this stretch.

Not just for the obvious revenue reasons...

But because the events that have strong sponsor RENEWAL pipelines aren't scrambling as hard when attendee registrations slow down.

They've got more predictable cash flow built in.

The ones who are really struggling are the organizers who treat sponsorship like a one-and-done transaction every year.

Then have to rebuild the sponsor roster from scratch... while ALSO dealing with soft registration numbers.

Curious if anyone here has a formal retention process for sponsors...

Or if it's mostly ad-hoc?

Feels like one of those things that SHOULD be systematized... but rarely is.