Planning Tips & Tricks

Blog Entry By:
Jiwon McCartney
Managing Director

ALLURE is excited and honored to be planning some amazing meetings and events in 2012 for our client.  As we head into the trenches of logistics, ALLURE will share some of our findings on tips and tricks of planning with you.  I hope you will find them useful.

TIP: As you seek your location remember to think about the attendee parking.
When planing a special event where guests are arriving in their own transportation, think about offering a valet service for the attendees.  With the current trend of everyone squeezing engagement and meetings into  limited time, one of the things everyone experiences is being late or rushing to get to an event.

A valet service can give an extra 10-15 minutes back to the attendee instead of looking for a parking space.  It's a small measure to help guests from having to  stress about getting a meter fed or remembering to take their ticket with to pay.  Depending on the location of the event, parking can take up to 30 minutes on top of their round trip commute and the time investment of attending the event.

A typical cost of a valet can be anywhere from $150 per valet to $1,000 for a team.  This cost varies on the length of your event, city and the size of your event.  In the instance there are only parking deck options for cars, you can incorporate the costs into the valet cost.

ALLURE, for a recent event, paid a nearby retail parking lot for use after their business hours.  The cost was $250 for 150 parking spaces and the valet was $500 for a 3 man valet team for 4 hours.  Total investment was $750 for 150 cars for 225 guests.  That calculates to $3pp.  I cannot remember the last time I paid $3 for a valet service AND parking!  This amenity set the tone of the event with a positive experience from arrival.

It was a small price to pay for the client to ensure they would see this audience again for their next event!