First Dates

Finding an event-production company usually begins at the request-for-proposal stage, when meeting planners put an event out to bid to three or more companies. Once the field is narrowed down, it is a collaborative effort, says Total Event Resources' Miller: “It involves a lot of gathering information and listening. Every client that comes to us has different needs and objectives, so we start by learning as much as we can about the goals of the event.”

Campos Creative Works gets both sides together for a creative input meeting at the outset of a project. “We meet with the internal drivers of the meeting, such as the meeting planner or the marketing executive, and have a kickoff to discuss what the meeting is going to be about,” says Campos.

From there, a creative director, and often an executive producer and a writer, are assigned to the project, depending on the scope of the conference. They then assemble the rest of the core team, which can include a lighting director, a speech coach, and video and sound designers.

At this point, the production company typically presents the client with another, more formal proposal that includes specific pricing.

What Will It Cost?

“In the special-events industry, pricing is a controversial issue and a hot topic right now,” says Lisa Hurley, editor of Pacific Palisades, Calif.-based Special Events magazine (a Financial & Insurance Meetings sister publication). “Some companies charge an hourly fee for services, and some charge a markup on everything they source for you, but there are really a million ways to do pricing.”

With Sarbanes-Oxley and procurement forcing more transparency into invoices, planners are looking for production companies to provide line-by-line costs of each service. “Clients want the invoice to specify the cost of each service and the production company's fee next to it,” says Hurley. “It is causing the event-production industry to open up their books a lot more.”

Price integrity is something that is critical to Destiny Health's Higgins. She places a lot of value on a company that is upfront about added costs from the beginning. “A true partner reveals the costs associated with everything rather than just adding extras to the event,” she says.

Higgins notes that video production and elaborate staging are two areas that can quickly drive up production costs. As a result, she has learned to improvise. “One Smooth Stone has taught me that sometimes less is more. They come up with ways to keep the costs down but still make the stage look good.”

Creating high-impact branding and messaging on a limited budget is a challenge facing many organizations — including Financial & Insurance Conference Planners. When FICP hired One Smooth Stone for its annual conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., last November, the mission was to convey the conference theme, License To Learn: Bond in 007, in an imaginative and powerful way throughout the four-day event — without breaking the bank. The solution: using pre-fabricated pieces of equipment for the stage set. “Everything on that stage set was a stock piece of scenery,” says Mark Ledogar, vice president at One Smooth Stone. “Instead of developing an expensive custom piece for the 007 design, we realized we could use standard staging equipment and treat it in a very clever way to make it look personalized.”

According to Ledogar, using stock equipment can shave budgets between 50 percent and 75 percent compared to a custom designed stage set, yet still pack a punch. “We were able to communicate the FICP message and incorporate some fun and creative elements. It's not about how much you spend; it's about what you do.”