SAN DIEGO, CA – August 2, 2010 – Trade show and conference attendees can now insure their registration investments, thanks to a new offering from The Active Network, Inc. (Active) called Registration Protection Plus. Active delivers integrated technology solutions, marketing services and online media properties touching more than 10 million individuals worldwide every year.

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1. Create an environmental impact statement. If you want to host a green meeting, you’ll need to get buy in from all your stakeholders. The best way to do that is to create an environmental impact statement. Don’t worry. We’re not suggesting a long legal document. In fact, we suggest creating a short description with a couple bullet points to highlight the areas that are important to you. For example, you may say that your organization is committed to reducing solid waste and conserving energy at the event. Share this information with other stakeholders at your event.
2. Use paperless technology to manage your event. In the past, organizing an event meant folders full of paper and piles of lists. Not anymore. Web-based registration and attendee management solutions are making it easier to manage any type of event online in a paperless environment. Take registrations online, send automatic emails to follow up and share reports digitally through a web link. Not only do these practices reduce your environmental impact, but they also reduce your workload and expense.
3. Use paperless channels to market your event. In the past, most event organizers reported that direct mail or print advertising played a major role in their invitation process. This has changed. In fact, at a recent RegOnline users event, less than 10 percent of the room reported using direct mail. Consider relying more heavily – if not completely – on paperless technologies to solicit and collect registrations. Email is, in most cases, more effective and less expenses than mailers, and even the most traditional event organizers are moving quickly to email technology to cut costs while reducing their environmental footprint.
4. Stay close. Try to reduce travel emissions by reducing travel needs at your events. If you have people traveling to your events, try to book venues close to the airport. And if you have a large event, book all your sessions close enough that people can walk from venue to venue. If you have events that force your attendees to travel long distances, you may want to consider having more regional events that only require air travel for a few of your staff members.
5. Choose a green hotel. Before you select a hotel for your event, take the time to understand their commitment to the environment. More and more hotels are crafting environmental impact policies. Make sure your hotel and venue are committed to green policies, including recycling and energy conservation. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has created a policy called “Eco-Meet,” which pushes its venues to provide things like waste-free food and beverage, recycling bins in every room, recyclable amenities and organic cuisine. To better understand the policies in place at your hotel of choice, create a survey to poll the hotel on its adherence to different elements of your own impact statement. You may want to ask them if they recycle or if they apply water conserving fixtures, for example.
6. Eat green. Look for a green caterer when planning your event. Many caterers are adopting green business practices, which include everything from cooking with seasonal and local vegetables to using recycled and compostable materials. A Spice of Life catering in Boulder, Colorado has a zero waste policy, which means the organization serves its food on compostable cups and plates made from corn and uses only 100% recycled materials for things like garbage bags and to-go containers.
7. Go digital. One of the most expensive, and environmentally impactful, pieces of an event is the stacks of hand outs that organizers and presenters print for attendees. Many event organizers are getting away from this wasteful practice by sharing the information digitally. Some organizations provide it on their web sites so attendees can review it online – or pick what information they would like to print. Other organizations have placed hand outs on a USB flash drive that attendees can take home with them. Whatever you decide to do, find an alternative to handing out paper that many people don’t use.
8. Reuse. And Recycle. When choosing materials for your conferences and meetings, focus on using materials that can be reused or recycled. Ask your caterer to use washable plates and silverware when possible. Create printed materials that can be used for multiple events. And when selecting hand outs, look for items that are printed in vegetable-based inks on recycled paper. For example, The CERES Conference used binders that featured 60% post-consumer paper content in the frame and 39% post-consumer steel in the rings. Plus, the conference printed its brochures with soy ink on recycled paper.
9. Bulk up. Providing bulk food and condiments for your events can dramatically reduce your environmental footprint. Serve meals buffet style and provide things like salt and pepper, milk, ketchup and beverages in bulk, re-usable containers. If you have leftovers, consider donating those items to a local food bank or homeless shelter.
10. Pass it on. The best way to guarantee a greener event is to share your knowledge with others. Make sure your vendors, exhibitors, presenters and staff all know what they can do to reduce their environmental impact. They’ll thank you for it because it may also save them money.

Canceled events. Slashed budgets. Lower attendance. These are the issues that event planners are facing as they look forward to 2009.

The economic problems are real, but there are solutions for meeting planners. We took some time this month to look around the industry to see what top event planners are doing to cope with the economic crunch, and what we found was surprisingly optimistic.

“It really comes down to keeping smart business practices and having great customer service,” said Carol Wilke, owner of Global Meeting Planners.

A survey from the Religious Management Association mirrors Wilke’s sentiments, showing that 58% of meeting planners are pumping up their marketing efforts to attract more attendees. Another 27% said they would downgrade their catering options. Meanwhile, only 32% said they are cutting events or programs.

Still, major corporations are canceling events. In fact, AIG recently announced that it was cutting hundreds of events in December. The events that are going on as planned are reporting up to 60% less attendance.

As a meeting planner, you’re faced with two challenges: Increasing attendance and reducing cost.

The question is where do you start?

We asked other event planners what they were doing, and here are the results…

Two Great Ways to Attract More Attendees.

Send Email: Many meeting planners are turning to email marketing to boost attendance at their events. If done right, email can perform better than direct mail – for a fraction of the cost. Most successful marketers send a series of emails leading up to an event. The frequency that you send emails should be based on the response of your audience, but in general, an email every week for four weeks is a good approach. Try to keep emails personal and relevant. One way to accomplish this is to send different emails to different segments of your audience. For example, you might want to send your members a different version than your non-members, tying the message into something they feel is personal to their member status.

Get Social: The best way to attract people to your events is through word-of-mouth. People are much more likely to respond to someone they know and trust than an advertisement. Plus, word-of-mouth advertising is free. If you want to spread the word for your events look into the event functions on social networking sites like Facebook.com or LinkedIn.com. These sites allow you to connect with thousands of people through networks of people you already know. You can even create a fan page for your event on Facebook to increase your exposure, and it’s all free.

Three Great Ways to Cut Costs

Meet Online: Many event organizers are taking internal meetings to the internet, using web conferencing software to bring people together for virtual events. Not only do web-based meetings save you time and money on things like travel, catering and room rentals, but these virtual events make life easier for your attendees as well. Most event technology companies tie in to virtual meeting providers like ReadyTalk and WebEx so you can register and manage your attendees the same way you do today while still holding your event online for a fraction of the cost.

Know What You Eat: Many event planners think cutting the catering budget means cutting quality. That’s not always true. Take a deeper look at your catering options. Sometimes things like bulk condiments and buffet food can save you important cash. While most event planners will quickly point out that going with “cheap” food is not a good option, they will tell you that there is wiggle room in every catering budget and small changes can yield big results.

Go Automatic: One of the biggest expenses in any event is the labor hours it takes to register, coordinate and communicate to your attendees. Most event planners spend too much time on things like collecting payments, sending event reminders and conducting registration updates. By fully utilizing an attendee management system, like RegOnline, you can reduce workload on these tasks by up to 75%. That reduced workload allows you to take on more projects with less people, dramatically improving performance while slashing a big cost center.

With the economy on the decline, event planners will continue to experience business challenges. That just means your role is more important than ever. Take the initiative now to do things that will make you look like a hero in 2009.

Feeling the economic crunch?

Tell us what you’re doing to react to the changing economy by sending us an email: jrussell@regonline.com

March 5, 2009 – The Active Network (Active), a leading provider of application services technology and marketing solutions, today announced that James Lonsdale-Hands has been appointed general manager for the ActiveEvents division, which provides technology and services for event management. Lonsdale-Hands brings over 25 years of experience in the conference and events industry and will drive strategy, marketing and product direction for ActiveEvents, which includes both RegOnline and WingateWeb, event management software providers acquired by Active in 2008.

Prior to joining Active, Lonsdale-Hands served as the vice president of events and publisher Embedded Franchise for United Business Media, a leading global business media company. While there, he managed all aspects of the day-to-day business operations for the brand and was responsible for the division’s business performance including sales, strategy, events and more. Before that, Lonsdale-Hands served as director of new business and marketing for the George P. Johnson Company, a worldwide marketing agency. He has also held sales and marketing positions for a number of events organizations including Wyndham Jade, Eco Expo and Reed Midem.

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Media Contact:
Dana McKeithen, The Active Network, Inc.
Dana.mckeithen@ActiveNetwork.com or 858-964-3820

March 5, 2009 – The Active Network (Active), a leading provider of application services technology and marketing solutions, today announced that James Lonsdale-Hands has been appointed general manager for the ActiveEvents division, which provides technology and services for event management. Lonsdale-Hands brings over 25 years of experience in the conference and events industry and will drive strategy, marketing and product direction for ActiveEvents, which includes both RegOnline and WingateWeb, event management software providers acquired by Active in 2008.Prior to joining Active, Lonsdale-Hands served as the vice president of events and publisher Embedded Franchise for United Business Media, a leading global business media company. While there, he managed all aspects of the day-to-day business operations for the brand and was responsible for the division’s business performance including sales, strategy, events and more. Before that, Lonsdale-Hands served as director of new business and marketing for the George P. Johnson Company, a worldwide marketing agency. He has also held sales and marketing positions for a number of events organizations including Wyndham Jade, Eco Expo and Reed Midem.# # #Media Contact:Dana McKeithen, The Active Network, Inc.Dana.mckeithen@ActiveNetwork.com or 858-964-3820