 Did any of you happen to catch the documentary about the fire festival? It's a fascinating study for those of us in the events industry And I think fascinating because it didn't actually happen to any of us But it is a great reminder of some of the things we should be doing to help protect our events And that's what we're going to talk about today Hey, it's Leanne from LeanneColderwood.com and I first heard of the fire festival actually when it was Marketing in the months leading up to the festival, you know seeing things a little bit on Twitter and Instagram and then of course when the event actually took place Watch the Twitter scape just explode with all of these pictures and comments about what a disaster It was so now two years later with the two documentaries out on Hulu and Netflix It was a great insider's view of what actually happened and what led up to this massive disaster And while it's interesting to watch the documentary We can't help as meeting an event professionals to watch it and think oh my gosh That could almost happen to anybody So what do we need to do to protect our events and meetings from turning into a complete disaster? so while I am not a Meetings and events risk mitigation expert there are some things that I think we can all learn Very simple tips that I want to share with you for both meeting planners and For meeting partners about how we can help each other mitigate the risk and prevent a potential disaster For you meeting planners out there here are four very simple things to remember And keep in mind every time you plan a meeting first and foremost Make sure that you actually have a risk mitigation plan There are some great templates out there including one from PCMA and I'm going to include that link below this video So check out the template they have in putting your risk mitigation plan together Tip number two stick to your budget Watching the fire festival documentary It is clear that they either didn't have a budget or they did not adhere to a budget Which is why a lot of the things went off the rails So when you create a budget make sure you're referring to it often and stick to it tip number three Don't over promise and I think that is the biggest learning from fire festival Are things that were promised in the marketing materials that weren't even in place and as such the Expectations were set so high and of course as you saw plummeted down to the earth So ensure that you're promising what you can deliver on step number four Work with your meeting partners again the fire festival It doesn't even appear that they had a collaborative relationship with the meeting partners It was more of a dictatorial relationship So work hand-in-hand with your meeting partners to fill in the blanks on your risk mitigation schedule And that's what we're going to talk about next is what can we as meeting partners do now to help our meeting planner friends? Launch and execute a successful event Okay for you meeting partners out there. What can we do to help our friends number one? And most importantly is share your facility or your organization's security plan You likely have a plan in place already You we just need to get that in the hands of the planner so they can work it into their own event plan So make sure you have that dialogue with the planner about your hotel or your destination security plan Alongside the security plan your venue probably has a medical Emergency plan ensure that you share that with your meeting planner as well Tip number two if your client has to cancel their meeting There are things that you can do in lieu of just collecting those Cancellation checks from the client for one the client doesn't want to cut you a check So let's find ways to fill the holes that have been created by this cancelled space So a few quick tips notify site selection firms They have a network of clients around the globe that could potentially fill that hole that's been created by the cancelled program So if you know some site selection professionals get your cancelled space into their hands so that they can disseminate to all their Colleagues and clients and see if they can find a good fit for your program number two let your hotel brand know that you've got a hole to fill as well and Perhaps you already have some internal systems in place of posting cancelled space But make sure the colleagues and the sales teams that you work with closely are Well aware of the cancelled space for when they're talking to their clients We can't rely on them to check the cancelled space system every single day So just send them a quick email to say hey I've been thinking about you and here's some cancelled space that just came up on our radar if you know anyone that can use it Tip number three notify your competition There could be a hotels around you that require some overflow options And they never thought to reach out to you thinking that you might be full So now you could potentially fill some of those guest rooms with overflow from other hotels in their programs Tip number four maximize on that space that's now available and try and get your internal meetings done during those weeks of cancelled space That's a great way to use the space and you're probably trying to find ways to schedule in your team meetings anyway Or client events maybe do a client event in some of the cancelled space that's recently opened up the third thing that meeting partners can look at is a client's history and credit history and see if they're on the brink of bankruptcy and It doesn't happen a lot, but I'm not gonna lie It actually happened to one of my clients and they declared bankruptcy right after their meeting Which fell short of expectations and they ended up having to pay some attrition bills They filed for bankruptcy and unfortunately that hotel couldn't even collect on the attrition charges so looking at the client's history and Seeing if they've had there have been any red flags in the past I know this is something that I'm also going to look at it at as a site selection professional Making sure that the clients have a great event history to back up their event While a majority of us were at arms length from the fire festival disaster It does make for great discussion So if you want to talk about fire festival more, there's tons of discussion boards out there Find the LinkedIn groups for event planners and managers and started discussion up It's fascinating to read the threads and and see what people think of this whole disaster and how it's impacting their events as well As for what came out of fire festival for me It actually spoke to The need for relevancy of our industry the fire festival organizers did not respect the professional work that our industry People do day in and day out and we do have some Organizations that are fighting for us and the relevancy of our jobs each and every day Meetings mean business and meetings mean business Canada are doing the work for us If you want to check out the good work that they are doing I'm going to give put the links to both meetings mean business and MMB Canada below this video Check it out and don't forget that GMID is coming up in April for more blog posts on both meeting planning and Servicing our meeting planning partners check out my blog over at Leanne Calderwood calm And if you are a meeting partner and would like tips on how to attract meeting planner attention You can download my free worksheet guide over at the website. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time. Bye for now