They Stood Alone - Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.

the rebuttal“Why is the registration fee at my Sigmaconference so high?”Conference planning is easy … that is, if you areonly an attendee. All you have to do is committo being a participant by registering early or ontime, making your housing accommodations,arranging your transportation, and attending thesessions. Now from the planning perspective,there is nothing to anticipate except the hope thatyou will stay at the contracted hotel, register forthe conference, and attend the sessions. And, alsohaving knowledge of your past track record ofmeeting attendance and patterns!You may ask, “what does my participation from lastyear or the year before have to do with this year’sconference?” When preparing for a conference,event planners must use historical conference data(sleeping room counts, room block patterns, foodBy Sonia HarrisIt is an industry-accepted practice for the sponsoringorganization to offer an “early bird” housingrate as an incentive to attendees who plan aheadby securing their conference rooms 2-3 monthsin advance. Some of our Sigma conferences dooffer early-bird hotel rates. CAVEAT EMPTOR!When hotel issues arise after not having bookedwithin the contracted room block (which couldspan several hotels for a citywide event), the eventplanner and sponsoring organization are less ableto assist you in resolving the housing issue.Be sure to give your input by offering suggestionsfor improvement or commendations for successon any post-conference survey you may begiven. When the sponsoring organization meetsand/or exceeds its contracted room block, itWhen you decide to:1) use the Internet to secure a room witha lower rate at the SAME hotel as theconference,2) accommodate more persons in yoursleeping room than the hotel’s policyallows,3) attend complimentary socialfunctions (with or without meals) duringthe conference but fail to register,4) use sleeping rooms outside thecontracted hotel,and beverage orders, meeting room quantities,actual attendees, etc.) in order to best negotiate therates and fees for the upcoming conference. Howyou “participate” with the conference really doesmake a difference!When it comes to housing accommodations, eventplanners encounter two detrimental occurrencesbest described by Dave Kovaleski of MeetingNews as rooms outside the block and roomsoutside the contracted hotel. Both occurrences arebooked through means other than that which thesponsoring organization designates.the sponsoring organization:does not receive credit for thoserooms or persons since they areoutside of the official count.Although it is possible to track thosewho go outside of the contracted roomblock or hotel, it is a time-consumingtask for the event planner or sponsoringorganization to manually comparethe hotel’s arrival list with the event’sregistered attendee list.HELPS negotiations for future conferences bystrengthening their credibility. This can translateinto LOWER HOUSING RATES and possiblymore meal functions included with the conferenceregistration rate.So the next time you get “sticker-shocked” withthe high cost of your Sigma conference registrationfee, ask yourself whether or not your actions were apositive impact on the conference!30