The Meeting Planners podcast source for what’s new and exciting in meetings and events industry!
Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media
Jon Trask of Alliant Event Services
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Transcripts:
Mike McAllen: Welcome back to Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen with Grass Shack Events and Media and I have with me Jon Trask from Alliant Events Services. Hi, Jon.
Jon Trask: Hello or should I say good day based on your recent travels.
Mike McAllen: Right. Good day. Good day, mate. Tom Hillmer is traveling around again always. Tom Hillmer …
Jon Trask: What a shock.
Mike McAllen: … yes, I actually be meeting up with him here. I’m in Scottsdale right now. Scottsdale, Arizona and I will be meeting up with him shortly for just some drinks, though. Nothing up exciting.
Jon Trask: Are we going to quantify that number of drinks or is it just going to be whenever you ran out of money?
Mike McAllen: NO, no, no. I’m going to stay up later, yes. I wanted to thank our sponsors, Hilton e-Events and Blue Sky Factory, our e-mail provider of choice. And so Jon, how are you doing?
Jon Trask: I’m doing good. I’m hanging in here in the economy. I mean, it’s – as I talked about it in the last one that I did that it’s kind of the thing on everybody’s lips right now but we’re all hanging in and I’m starting to feel some encouragement and I’m here in the side of other folks I talked to that maybe we’ll get some improvement toward the fall. And it’s still – I mean, USA Today – I had an article on Tuesday that a friend of mine sent me knowing the business that I’m in about how the recession is putting pressure on budgets for business conferences. I mean, it’s not just talking about it, its very mainstream at this point and it was in that article, it talked a lot about how people are cutting back on the funding and looking for a bigger ROI (le roi) and sending less people to these meetings.
And that’s the side of it that I think people are not talking about as much as the executive part of it, whether or not wanting to go to the resorts or the nice places or they’re criticizing those types of things. But on the ranking file folks, the cutbacks that are happening and the low attendance in things that I’m talking to people about still is a huge concern, and I think we’re going to have to start seeing some recovery in those numbers before people start feeling better. Not just the fact that they’re having meetings but we got to have meetings people are showing up to.
Mike McAllen: Right, right. That’s interesting, that’s very interesting. That was in USA Today?
Jon Trask: Yes, that was USA Today on Tuesday written by a gentleman named Roger Yu.
Mike McAllen: Yes. A couple of things, I went to – I have a USA Today thing I wanted to talk about but I went to the spin meeting. I think Tank, the Senior Planners Industry Network and they’re going around right now all over the place. They were in San Francisco and now they we’re in LA.
Jon Trask: Right.
Mike McAllen: But that was one of the questions that we talked about at the meeting. It was very interesting to get that feedback from all the people in the room. And so they’re going to send out a whole – from all the cities of what everybody thinks about it which will be very interesting to see. But a lot of that along the lines are just happening but there’s also a lot of people are seeing a lot of recovery right now. So it’s very interesting.
Jon Trask: Yes. Yes, I mean it’s surprisingly busy after a relatively sort of quiet month or two. I’m seeing a huge number of ROI fees starting to come back in. I mean, it’s like I’m working on three simultaneous things today before I dialed into the podcast, and so that encourages me because that’s a lot more activity than I was feeling for the last 6 weeks or so.
Mike McAllen: Yes and that was the consensus that – but people are saying we’re working a hell of a lot harder for – even last amounts of – the ERPs are coming in but they’re a lot of more going away too which is sad. I mean, you get …
Jon Trask: And it’s a huge part for this market.
Mike McAllen: Yes. Oh yes.
Jon Trask: Whatever price you want, you’re getting right now.
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Jon Trask: I mean, pretty much there’s somebody in every market in every supplier in every area who is at that point where it’s like name your price, we’ll do it.
Mike McAllen: Yes. No and that’s true and then the other topic of discussion at the spin was that they – that now, people are afraid. Okay, we will going to give them this low prices. What are we going to do when the economy comes back? How are we going to justify bringing to back up and …
Jon Trask: Right.
Mike McAllen: … but I think that often on the watch. I mean, if you have a good service and you’re providing good service in your good company, you’re going to be able to get the prices back again. I mean, it’s going to have to come back because you’ll be …
Jon Trask: Yes. I mean, personally my message has been to a lot of people on that. You can get any price you want from anybody so why not get the good people and try and – let’s put pricing aside for right now and let’s talk about doing your show right, and let’s talk about what the actual educational goal for the eeting are and how we can improve the experience in what we can do right now to step the quality up. And the pricing stuff is going to have to sort itself out later. I mean, I think even the people who are buyers know that this is a kind of a blip and it’s not going to be able to last forever.
Mike McAllen: Yes, I agree and I think you’re right about it and it actually – I really feel that at meeting planners should really be concentrating more on the content of getting more involved in what they’re really trying to get going on their meetings to get their attendees. Whatever they’re bringing them together for – of course it’s great to have a great show around it to have the great place to stay and the food and – that shallow of having to get them comfortable, you really need to talk about the return on your investment. What happens after the meeting and start thinking more about what’s happening – the meet of it, the content.
Jon Trask: Well – and that ties in with that USA article that I was looking at USA Today where companies are demanding more ROIs. It’s like if I’m going to pay to send you to this meeting, you Mr. Ranking file employee in my company, what am I going to get in return for it?
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Jon Trask: They want to see some tangible returns and that’s happening throughout Corporate America. So I think the planners need to be cognitive about it and need to be really writing a strong business case for their meetings and really writing good outcomes. What are people going to walk away with? What can we give them besides a good meal?
Mike McAllen: Yes. No, I agree. I agree and that comes to the USA Today article that I read today. I don’t if you saw it today in USA Today but it was – the headline on the front page is “Struggling GM Hosts Buyers at Spa”. And I was like, oh God come on. And then it says, “Event promotes purchases for fleets; critics unmoved.” And I saw this and then I read through this front page article by this writer is Max Jarman from the Arizona Republic and this took place here in Scottsdale. I think Scottsdale. It’s found here in Arizona around here and from another writer named Sharon Silke Carty from Detroit. And they were so slamming this and all – the whole front page just – that usual AIG thing and I understand they were given $15.4 billion and they’re doing this. But then they had all these people, they’re mad about it. How they can spend this money flying in all these people but these are all they’re customers.
Jon Trask: Right.
Mike McAllen: And I was thinking, “Wow, would I love to be able to fly all my customers into somewhere and show them my product.” Even if I was …
Jon Trask: Yes.
Mike McAllen: … if I was a newer salesman, if I could fly in everybody, hold and touch my [0:07:39] that I’m selling, still that’s how you sell.
Jon Trask: Yes.
Mike McAllen: I mean, I can’t believe how they would be angry about this because I thought it was the best and they cut away all the fluff. So anyway, this front page article is just critics talking all about the critics about it, blah, blah, blah which is grabbing headlines, I guess.
Jon Trask: Yes.
Mike McAllen: But then they had a little box in there saying, “Oh, for more on this, go to this other page.” And so deep in the paper, there’s this little article and the – and it’s still it’s kind of slamming it but it was – that title was “GM Scales Down Resort Event for Fleet Buyers.” So I was thinking again, tying back to what we said before about looking after – looking at meetings – meeting planners have to look about what happens down the line afterwards. So this is a perfect case where they should be looking at how many sales they make after this meeting …
Jon Trask: Right, right.
Mike McAllen: … that they’re selling these trucks. And they also talked about how at the second article deep in there that GM’s cutback on all the sponsorships that they did that they don’t have any customer contact which I thought was brilliant. That should be the headline.
Jon Trask: Yes, yes.
Mike McAllen: They cut back – they don’t sponsor the Academy Awards, they don’t sponsor the NCAA Final IV or NASCAR. So this whole keep America meeting thing, I think you and I are going to do our speech at that – our talk and MPI …
Jon Trask: Right, coming up in July.
Mike McAllen: … I think and when we get in there, we should have every single person in that room set them up with a blog and start blogging about this stuff. Just take over the internet kind of a thing because …
Jon Trask: Right.
Mike McAllen: … there are so many people – how many people at this meeting they – how many people got hired for this? How much of that money went back into the economy? And they want them just to sit on the money and do something else. What they’re trying to sell, anyway? So I was just …
Jon Trask: We – I was flashing on something and my wife said last night. We had a dinner with some family and friends and we were all sitting around and talking about my business for a little bit. And she said that – and she works in Corporate America. She said that inevitably, she has found, whenever the media reports on a story that she has any level of intimate knowledge about, like if it’s people she knows or if it’s someway touches on her business where she has a lot of knowledge, she said inevitably, they get it wrong.
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Jon Trask: So I’ve just sort of learned to take everything that they say with a grain of salt because there’s no nuance, there’s no understanding, there’s no depth to the reporting and usually that leads to them being 180 degrees wrong most of the time.
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes. The title of this thing, on the front page, “Struggling GM Hosts Buyers at Spa” and I thought to myself, I bet no one entered the spa at this place.
Jon Trask: Yes.
Mike McAllen: Of course this – and it was filled with 4 days event. It’s Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa but they were in the parking lot most of the time with the cars, I’m assuming.
Jon Trask: Yes, they’re probably doing ride and drives and they’re probably …
Mike McAllen: Yes, they were.
Jon Trask: … and they’re probably in meetings.
Mike McAllen: Yes. I think with all these people and it just – anyway, that was just – it kind of [0:10:51] like oh – so I wanted to call out those two guys that were – the two writers to be like – maybe later on they’ll talk about follow-up story on how many cars and trucks were sold to be a positive spin on our economy.
Jon Trask: I don’t know. I don’t see that happening. I wish I could say, “Yeah, Mike. You’re right,” but …
Mike McAllen: I know, it won’t happen. It’s a nice thought.
Jon Trask: Well …
Mike McAllen: No.
Jon Trask: … so tell us about your trip.
Mike McAllen: Well, it was a fantastic trip of course. It was a vacation. We went out to Sidney and was beautiful and I wanted to kind of talk about it. We did one – we kind of splurged on this night at the Sidney Opera House and we went – we did this backstage tour. And we had to be there at 6:30 in the morning and it was a – they give tours all day of the place but this one was really about the guts of how it works, the whole opera house.
Jon Trask: Right.
Mike McAllen: And they have several theaters. It’s not just one. It’s there’s like – I think there’s like five theaters in the place and there’s the one, a huge one and then there’s where the symphony is placed for music and then they have theaters where they have like a place and things going on. They have a kids’ theater. Anyway, we got to see the whole back end of the whole place. And the one thing that we – my wife and I went and Carrie is in the hospitality business and so she – we went and we had to be there at 6:30 in the morning which wasn’t great. She wasn’t really happy about the whole thing but we got there …
Jon Trask: Not a vacation.
Mike McAllen: … yes, because we’re on vacation but the guide never showed up who was supposed to take us. So we’re sitting at the stage door and the guide never showed up. So we – I mean, didn’t show and then we’re all like – but the security guard was the nicest guy and he started making phone calls and he said this has never happened, right? So he was calling, and calling, and calling and this lady comes running in and it was like – they said, can you come back an hour later and somebody will be here and they’ll take you for even better tour. So we got to go through the whole back to see how it all works. She had all these wonderful stories. We stood on all the stages. I’ll post some photographs that I took during – we stand in the pit, the orchestra pit. We stood on the stages, just all the great stories. The Nutcracker’s playing, getting ready to play now there. I guess they’re flip flopping us so they’re kind of doing The Nutcracker stuff I guess [0:13:20]
Jon Trask: Okay.
Mike McAllen: Anyway, I didn’t think about that tour right now but they have all – the very cool thing about that place is the big room, the loading dock is below and they had – the whole back of the stage is an elevator that comes up. So you can imagine loading in all your stuff stages whatever. It just pushed at the back of the stage underneath and it comes all straight up. So nothing comes in from the sides.
Jon Trask: Wow.
Mike McAllen: Yes, it was just completely crazy and the elevators are built very tall because a lot of the operas and things have spears. So they’re very tall when the guys come in and out and there’s always little great – little things we got to see about the – they take noise meters on everybody’s ears because they found us so loud in there and certain people in the orchestra is they can only sit in there for so long before they have to leave. They have – they keep track of everything. But it was just fun going up the back stages and where the ballet was happening. There was all the stuff still left over from the night before like the little socks and stuff all of the stairs going up and even that costumes and then we had breakfast there in the green room which is this giant green room with all the people working there.
They were just so gracious and they were – they kept saying they’re so sorry about our having to wait in the morning. I was thinking, how do that happen in here in the United States. You’d never get this kind of service in something like this. I mean this kind of – they were just so gracious and wonderful, and at the very end that we were eating and our guide sat down. They could serve this breakfast and she said – I was answering questions and asking about us and we’re all talking about what we do. Her boss comes walking in and said we would like to refund all your money for this. We can’t believe that you had to wait the hour or would you like tickets to something, we have all these shows or you can have the tickets and be refunded, whatever you’d like. We just want to make sure you walk away from here with a great feeling.
Jon Trask: Wow.
Mike McAllen: So we ended up …
Jon Trask: It’s a good service.
Mike McAllen: … yes, we ended up going to the symphony which Carrie and I neither one of us have gone to the symphony ever in our lives and we were both kind of thinking, oh it’s going to be a big snoozer. I don’t know why – we both have that in our mind but it was fantastic. It was just the most fantastic to watch the symphony and just the whole – though you think it’s kind of snobby but it wasn’t. It was just spectacular. Anyway, so that was a wonderful evening we had there and if anyone gets a chance to go on that tour out there, it was kind of expensive [0:15:48] expensive of course it was really well, well worth it but if you get a chance to go out there, it was just really a cool tour, a very cool tour plus learning about the whole building and why – how they built it and it was just fantastic.
Jon Trask: Well that …
Mike McAllen: I’m going to go on and on and gushing about it. It was just a fantastic place.
Jon Trask: The tech part of this that those meetings is like wanting to see that. I love the backstage. I actually had a backstage experience while you were in Australia by going to the Stagecoach Festival out in Coachella and I ended up by getting to hang out backstage at that and it was – it’s just so much fun because I’m as interested in watching the set changes and the gear as the bands.
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Jon Trask: It’s just fun to see how these things come together and it’s a wonderfully planned event out in the middle of the desert, they brought in two huge, huge video rigs. I took some photos and I owe them to you for the website because I really want to get them on our Flickr account just to get a sense of something what they did because between nights, it was a 2-day festival, the first night set completely changed for the second night. I mean, they brought everything down and put a completely different video rig in.
Mike McAllen: That’s amazing.
Jon Trask: And I mean, it’s video rigs that are just – they’re the envy of me. I’m looking at it and I’d go and – that’s like the penultimate. I would love to be involved in a show like that. Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney were these two headliners and both of them had phenomenally done rigs. I couldn’t praise them enough for just the quality and in particular, Brad Paisley who – I hadn’t listened to that much prior to this festival but I found it was quite an engaging performer. He was a lot of fun and the materials that they produced for his shows supported the show so well. It was very impressive. It was fun to watch. It added an element to the show. It wasn’t just screens behind the guy with pretty pictures or something at one point, for example, and these are all things that – I stick in the back of my mind and I can crib for a show sometime in the future.
Mike McAllen: Yes, yes.
Jon Trask: But he did a duet with three different people who were on video, pre-recorded. And so at one point he did a duet with Allison Krauss where she was life-size in one corner of the screen and it was literally like she walked on stage.
Mike McAllen: Wow.
Jon Trask: And so she’s there singing, he is singing his part and then at the end, she turned around and walked off-screen.
Mike McAllen: That’s awesome.
Jon Trask: Another one of the pieces was with B.B. King where they just – they brought him in like a theoretical live feed and they windowed him into this wide panoramic screen and it was just – it was a very cool idea and again, the guy produced – who sat down and produced this tour really took a vision of putting the show together in a unique way, and having the screens actually support the material on stage. And I thought, there’s a really good lesson in that for people when they’re putting it to other meetings and when they’re getting a producer or when they’re working with somebody who’s putting the material together because it wasn’t just flash for flash take. It was – there was a definite purpose to it, I felt.
Mike McAllen: Yes, that’s interesting because I was talking to you earlier about that article that I’m working to write for event solutions, about that exact thing. About how you can tie in this big concerts that go into the corporate stuff. It’s so exciting because I know I have that same feeling when I was at the Sidney Opera House and I was thinking to myself, oh this is like – because we think sometimes we’re in like in show business kind of doing these corporate event stuff.
Jon Trask: Right, right.
Mike McAllen: And people doing like in theater and stuff. It’s cool. I mean, we can do cool stuff too but …
Jon Trask: Yes.
Mike McAllen: … it’s a different vibe kind of – anyway …
Jon Trask: It is really fascinating stuff and I would definitely recommend that if you want to see a great country music festival and you can make it to California, Stagecoach is a phenomenal event. I had never gone before. I’d always kind of stayed away because of the crowds and such and apparently, they had like 100,000 people over the weekend.
Mike McAllen: Wow.
Jon Trask: But it was a very fun event. We had a great time and like I say that just the tech geek side of it getting to watch all this technology and be so well-utilized and so intelligently put together was a real treat for me regardless of the music part which I enjoyed too.
Mike McAllen: Yes. Well, that’s the thing with my wife going on that Sidney thing. She is not interested in the tech stuff at all and she was just – had a great time.
Jon Trask: Right.
Mike McAllen: I mean, it was a fantastic time. So, two good tips, like if you go to Sidney, you go to the opera house and if you are down South during the time or you want to go to the Coachella, is that what you said? Coachella?
Jon Trask: It’s actually …
Mike McAllen: It’s Coachella.
Jon Trask: … [0:20:41] folks. It’s Coachella’s festival grounds. They just started doing a country music festival the following weekend. So – which makes perfect sense when you look at it economically. I mean, they’re putting in a huge field full of stuff and I mean, this is probably one of the largest outdoor stages you’re going to see and very, very extensive rig. And again, I took some pictures so we’ll put those on the Flickr account or on the website or something just to …
Mike McAllen: Right. Yes.
Jon Trask: They’re not great but they’ll give you a sense of.
Mike McAllen: Yes, I’ll put – I did the same. I took a bunch of pictures of the Sidney – a one or two or so. Some that I wasn’t supposed to take so maybe I shouldn’t put them up. I know they were so nice. I was … some places are like don’t pictures and I was like – I’m taking pictures and carry it somewhere and like oh – they delete it or – because they were saying during that – we were already taking pictures and then they said well, don’t take pictures in this area and I was like oh …
Jon Trask: I was actually told that once on a tour that I went on in England and the gentleman, he would say, he said, “You know, we just don’t want to see this showing up on the internet.” So I mean, we’re really proud of this and we just – want a little control over how it’s disseminated.
Mike McAllen: All right. Well, I know you have to take off to a game.
Jon Trask: Yes. I’m going to a Ducks Detroit Wings game. So, there you go.
Mike McAllen: Go you [0:22:03]. I’m going to go. I’ll see what Tom is doing, give him a call, see if he’s here yet and I guess we can chat again next week.
Jon Trask: Sounds good. Safe travels from your trip and we’ll catch up with you all next week.
Mike McAllen: And I’ll give the e-mail address, MeetingsPodcast@gmail.com. Please send us your questions, tips, tricks, whatever you want to send us, send us something, questions. So I’ll talk to you later, Jon.
Jon Trask: All right. Thank you.
Mike McAllen: Bye-bye.
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