Glossary Term -- Attrition

Each month I would like to share a word commonly used by professionals. The words along with their meaning will be from the APEX Industry Glossary.

The Convention Industry Council is the organization of 33 associations coming together to exchange information among the meetings, convention and exhibitions industry. One of the initiatives is APEX, Accepted Practices Exchange to develop practices that reach industry wide. One of the practices is a glossary of terms used in the industry. The goal of the glossary is to standardize the definitions of words used by the meetings industry.

This month's term is Attrition.

Attrition: The difference between the actual number of sleeping rooms picked-up (or food-and-beverage covers or revenue projections) and the number or formulas agreed to in the terms of the facility’s contract. Usually there is an allowable shortfall before damages are assessed.

Attrition Clause: Contract wording that outlines potential damages or fees that a party may be required to pay in the event that it does not fulfill minimum commitments in the contract.

The way to avoid attrition is to be realistic in the number of rooms or amount of food you will be needed. The rule of thumb that I use is that you can always increase your block if you need to, but you can’t lower your count.

That’s the Planner’s Pointer for today.

Seeing the End from the Beginning:

How will your event look? Take a minute, take five minutes. What do you see? How do you want it to look? Called visualization, this exercise done at the beginning of planning an event is helpful because you can let your creative juices flow and think about what you want to see happening. For example: If you are a bride to be what you would like to see happening at the reception. What colors do you see? Do you see a band or DJ? What does the room look like? I would do this even before you look at all the wedding magazines. Are you planning a fund raiser? What kind of activities do you see? What kind of food? Sit down or stations? What kind of entertainment? Let the mind wander and most of all write it down.

Having an idea of what you want to happen will help guide you to possible themes, locations and dare I say budgets. This vision many change somewhat from the beginning, but it lays the groundwork. Good groundwork makes for great events.

That’s the Planner’s Pointer for today.

Goal Setting

Whether you have decided to do a meeting with 25 people or a convention with 25,000 people you need to determine the goal or the purpose for having the event. In my opinion, once you determine the goal other parts of the process fall into place.

For example: A non-profit organization wants to have a fundraising concert to raise funds. Since the goal is to raise funds, the first thing that needs to be determined is how much money they would like to raise from that concert. That will determine everything from ticket price to the artist they want to have perform the concert. If the goal of a meeting would be a brainstorming session to develop the next new product for your company then you needs would range from a comfortable setting to the people who you would have at the session.

Once you have the goal, share it is with everyone involved.

That’s the Planner’s Pointer for today.