Venue Sourcing & Contract Negotiation Large Conference

Venue Sourcing & Negotiation - Large Conference

Overview: In recognizing the Meetings Department was over capacity with multiple high priority time sensitive projects, the Texas Association of Realtors reached out to Idea Tree Events to source the venue for its annual conference.  The Texas Association of Realtors outsourced the labor intensive workstream to secure a conference venue for the next three years for 2,000 attendees.   

Approach:  Using EIC best practices with all requirements and meeting specifications, Idea Tree Events created a detailed RFP document to secure a venue for the annual conference.  After conducting outreach and discovery across multiple cities, a comparison analysis of all proposals was administered to guide recommendations made to the executive stakeholders. Additionally, Idea Tree Events negotiated with each chosen venue, collaborating with all stakeholders to increase program “rooms to space” ratio to more appropriately align to the current market.

Outcome: The detailed RFP document developed at Idea Tree Events was one that could be repurposed in the future by the Texas Association of Realtors Meetings Department as a proven process to source venues. Through negotiating room rates and F&B minimums, Idea Tree Events was able to secure cost savings of over $300K for the organization and a competitive, commission-free, 3-year contract.  This led to significant value add and cost savings for the Texas Association of Realtors. Contracting with Idea Tree Events to source venues allowed the department to maximize its efforts on the hire of an important team member as well as manage other meetings already in production.