SMG, THE PHILADELPHIA-BASED company that manages 49 convention and exhibition centers in North America, has inked a national agreement with Conferon, the Twinsburg, Ohio, meeting management giant, designed to simplify booking for Conferon clients.

The companies have finalized a standardized national license agreement addendum, which spells out agreed-upon contract terms, including force majeure, cancellations, the duties of both parties if construction occurs, a policy for conflicting bookings, a policy for food and beverage service ratios (when SMG handles food service), and unavailability of major hotels in the room block, among other issues.

The agreement does not involve pricing discounts, according to Dave Lutz, Conferon president. “The goal is to keep people from having to go back and forth on things like force majeure, to allow the sales folks to really focus on the business terms of the deal. It's really meant to expedite the contracting process.” The deal had been in talks for more than two years, and “was solid [work] for the last six months,” Lutz says.

For Gregg Caron, vice president of operations and business development, SMG Convention Centers, the hope is that by making the booking process easier, “it raises us in the pecking order.” SMG also has standardized contracts with Microsoft and media company VNU; however, each relationship differs.

Conferon has standardized contracts with a number of hotel chains and several individual convention centers, but this is the first convention center agreement of this magnitude. “Hotels, in general, have done a better job of making things more customer-friendly. They have a way to go, but convention centers have a really long way to go,” Lutz says. “We've worked hard with this agreement to make sure that somebody who's in the business, but not necessarily an attorney, can make sense of it.”