Chilling out…at meetings?
What’s the biggest complaint of meeting planners?
Probably “Over-chilling,†says Donald Young of the International Facility Management Association in Houston.
Ezra Eichelberger, a catering professor at the Culinary Institute of America, describes it as “a universal problem.”
A room was so cold for one banquet that women were given tablecloths to wrap around themselves.
Meeting planner Steve Kemble of Dallas sees it all the time in the surveys by conference attendees, says USAToday.
“If two or three weeks later they’re still thinking about the temperature, then that’s an issue.” He said it is frustrating “to plan a fabulous program, with a speaker you paid $100,000 for, and all you hear from people leaving is ‘Brrr, it was freezing in there.’ ”
“We always make it as cold as possible prior to the event starting, because it’s a better experience,” says Eric Whitson, director of sales at the National Conference Center in Lansdowne, Va. He added:
“At first its going to be chilly to most people who enter, but the temperature goes up as those numbers build.”
Enough conference planners have gotten goose bumps that some are writing temperature issues into their contracts.
Heidi Longton, director of convention and meetings for the Northeastern Retail Lumber Association, says she has written into contracts that she be allowed “access to the thermostat so I can adjust as requested.”
Blue-with-cold meeting attendees may be getting some relief from the environmental movement. More events are boasting “green” features, such as energy efficiency at the meeting site.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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