Chapter 14Event Staging

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LOCATION OPTIONS

Airport hotels

Airport hangers

Amusement parks

Aquariums

Arenas

Armories

Art galleries

Atriums

Backyards

Beaches

Boat charters

Churches/chapels

synagogues/temples

Community centers

Conference centers

Cruise ships

Downtown hotels

Downtown

streets/square

Dude ranches

Fairgrounds

Gardens

Golf of country

Libraries

Mansions

Mountain tops

Museums

Parks/campgrounds

Parking lots

Race tracks

Resorts

Restaurants

Retreat centers

Skating rinks

Sports facility

Tennis courts

Art Theaters

Town halls

Warehouses

Wineries

Yachts or yacht club

Zoos

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• Size of the event (including the size of the audience)

• Layout of the site and its suitability for the event• Stage, field of play or performance area• Transport and parking• Proximity to accommodation and attractions• Supply issues for goods and services providers,

such as caterers• Technical support• Venue management

The major considerations for selecting an event

venue include

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An inspection of the site• Compatibility with the event theme• Audience comfort• Visibility for the audience (line of sight)• Storage areas• entrances and exits• Stage area (where relevant)• Equipment• Cover in case of poor weather• Safety and security• Access for emergency vehicles• Evacuation route

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DEVELOPING THE THEME

• Colour• Landscape and/or location• Film/theater/art/dance• Humour• fantasy

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ANALYSING VENUE AND SUTE REQUIREMENTS

• Creative theme or image required• Estimated numbers• Audience composition• Facilities and services to be provided• Staging/competition requirements• Budget parameters

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• Location• Capacity of site or venue• Timing (including availability and

access for set-up and breakdown)• Accessibility• Attendees/delegates/guests/spectators• Host organization• Sponsors• Contractors• Emergency services• Regulatory authorities

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Conference technical requirements

• Registration desks• Display Screens• Staging• Data projector• VHS video• Remote controls• Overhead projector• Extra lenses and

bulbs• Laser pointers• Projection screens• Projector trolleys• Whiteboards• Flipcharts

• Lecterns• Speakers• Audio equipment• Video projectors• Laptop with presentation software• Sufficient power supply• Accessible power outlets• Extension cords• Lighting effects (including dimmer)• Microphones and stands• Radio microphones (hand held and

lapel)• Technician ion site

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Site inspection - accessibility

• Way – finding• Signage• Transport• Parking• Footpaths• Ramps• Stairways

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• Lifts• Surfaces and finishes• Entries and exits• Doorways and doors• Toilet facilities• Emergency provisions (must comply

with Australian Standards)

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Site inspections – outdoor events

• Access for emergency services• Public access• Service access and loading docks• Parking• Public transport• Power supply• Potable water (cold)• sanitation

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For sporting competition considerations would include

• Competition area cleanliness, maintenance and safety

• Competition area clearly marked• Adequate lighting for competition area• Spectator area cleanliness, maintenance and

safety• Marked out- of-bounds area• Perimeter fencing• Buffer between spectators and competitors• Competitor change rooms• Sports equipment of appropriate standard

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• All areas clear of non-essential equipment• Exits and entrances clearly marked and

unobstructed• Electrical systems in good condition• Waste containers provided• Walkways clean and well-maintained• Stairs non-slip• Wheelchair access to all areas• Compliance with fire safety regulations in

all aspects

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CONDITIONS OF HIRE AGREEMENTBetween the VENUE MANAGEMENT

and the hirer.

BOOKING PROCEDURECANCELLATIONSET-UP AND BREAKDOWNSUBLETTINGDEPOSITCATERINGSMOKING

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FURNITURE AND EQUIPMENTLABOURCLEANINGNOISE LEVELSFIRE ALARMSEVACUATION PROCEDURETHE TENANTVENUE MANAGEMENT

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Aspects of the theme

• Entertainment• Décor• Layout• Lighting and special effects• Sound• Vision• Stage• Set

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The Technical TeamThe production, or staging, of an event involves

many specialists. As an example, members of the technical team supporting a performance would include:

• Artistic Director• Production Manager• Technical Director• State Manager • Choreographer• Scriptwriter• Lighting Designer• Lighting Operator

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• Sound Designer• Sound Operator• Vision Designer• Vision Operator• Front of House Manager• Floor Manager.

The following staff would support the performance indirectly:

• Venue Manager• Operations Manager• Logistics Manager• Catering Manager• Cleaning and Waste Manager.

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PROVIDING SERVICES

1. Essential services2. Communications3. Transport and traffic management

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MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT

1. Pollution2. Toilet facilities3. Cleaning

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Tasks Notes

Create request for proposal and send them out

Obtained several bids from several sites

Arranged site visits with sites that meet your criteria

Does venue have adequate space for both meeting and sleeping?

Is there available function space?

Do they meet your environmental standards?

What kind of food and beverage services on-site?

Do they have audio visual services and technicians on-site?

SITE SELECTION

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Tasks Notes

Is the venue close to other attractions?

Is there ample parking?

Are the rates within our budget?

Do they have comfortable sleeping rooms?

Are they close to airport?

Do they have a pool, spa, weight room?

What kind of transportation is availability?

Are they recommended by the CVB?

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Tasks Notes

Get a copy of menus and f/b services?

Are there any renovation going on during our dates?

Are there hotels close by for overflow?

Are there adequate flights available to city?

Restaurants on-site or in the vicinity?

Is their shuttle from/to airport free?

Is there a Concierge?

Are they compliant?

Do they have Room service?

Is the venue in a safe neighborhood?

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Choosing your Destination

Things to look for and ask for when choosing your destination City. Energy efficiency, water conversation, waste management, hazardous waste elimination, etc

Ask the Convention and Visitors Bureau or Destination Management Company to find venues, vendors, and suppliers who meet your environmental standards. Ask for a list of green venues, properties, vendors, and suppliers.

Look into the mass transit systems connecting the major venues with other transportation services.

Is the city served by adequate airlines to allow for fewer flights and minimize layovers?

When submitting a Request For Proposal (RFP), include your environmental requests and standards to hotels, venues and other suppliers you will be using.

Is the destination city easy to walk around? Is transportation easily accessible? Are the attraction close by and available through mass transit?

PLANNING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

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Accommodations

Things to take into consideration when choosing your event venue.Things to ask about include the recycling program, linen reuse policies, whether they buy and use environmentally friendly cleaning products, how do they handle their food composting, do they use bulk containers for sugars etc and shampoos etc., do they reduce consumption of electricity, etc.

Choose hotel and event venues that connect to the airport by mass transit and are within walking distance of one another.

Ask venues for their in-house environmental policies and a description of the programs in place.

Have hotels complete the checklist and detail their environmental performance. Give preference to those with the best scores.

When doing a site visit, verify that your environmental standards will indeed be met.

Choose a hotel that is willing to go with your standards.

Establish a carbon-neutral initiative to counteract the CO2 emissions from your event.

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Venue

Things to take into consideration when choosing your event venue.

Choose a venue that is connected to the airport by mass transit and within walking distance of the hotel. Ask the hotel if they have van service.

Request a copy of their environmental policy and plan.

Find out what in-house environmental programs the venue offers.

Perform a site visit to verify that your environmental service requirements can be met.

Find out if the venue has had any environmental audits performed in the last five years. Ask to see the reports.

Choose a venue that is willing to cooperate with your requests.

Try to locate the hotel and meeting venue within walking distance of each other.

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Transportation

Things to take into consideration when coordinating, selecting and purchasing your transportation needs.

Have those who cannot travel attend virtually by using new technology.

Choose a destination with minimal travel requirements for participants.

Communicate to the attendees the environmentally preferable transportation choices for getting to their destination. Commuter trains and other mass transit systems are preferable to car and air travel.

Make it easy for guests to get to the airport from the meeting venue. Provide information about the local public transit system or arrange for carpooling shuttles.

If air travel is required, recommend an airline that has a sound environmental program.

Purchase electronic tickets for airline tickets.

If traveling by car, look for vehicles that reduce emissions: electric and hybrid powered. Vehicles using natural gas, propane, methane gas, and ethanol are good options.

Provide a public transit pass and map in delegates’ packages.

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Food and Beverage

Things to take into consideration when coordinating, selecting and purchasing your food and beverage needs.

Ask that condiments, beverages, and other food items be provided in bulk instead of individually packaged. Do not serve water in individual plastic bottles.

Ensure food and beverage packaging is recyclable and that it will be recycled.

Give your delegates reusable coffee mugs at the start of the conference.

Ask your supplier to buy local produce in season to avoid costly transportation of goods.

Offer fair trade, shade grown, and organic coffee.

Request organic produce and free range chicken/eggs/meats.

Offer vegetarian meal selections; vegetables consume less land and energy to produce.

Request participants to sign-up for meals. Letting you know how many meals they will be attending will reduce food waste and your costs.

Have untouched food donated to a local food bank or soup kitchen. Ask that leftover food be composted or shipped to a local farm as livestock feed.

Use reusable cutlery, dishware, and linens.

Choose reusable centerpieces and decorations such as living plants or silk flowers. Give these away as table prizes.

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Communication and Marketing

Things to take into consideration when coordinating, selecting and purchasing your communications and marketing needs.

Share your standards with all those involved: management, suppliers, participants, presenters, and exhibitors.

Use the Web and email to promote your event.

Use electronic registration and publish the conference agenda on-line.

When hard copy material is necessary, print on both sides and use soy or vegetable-based inks and recycled, chlorine-free paper.

Ask your hotel to dedicate a TV channel to conference information and updates.

Offer electronic proceedings of the events.

Avoid paper duplication by giving participants their packages when they check in rather than before.

Ask presenters to minimize paper hand-outs.

Present speakers notes electronically along with conference minutes.

Use your leverage with your contracted services and encourage them to go green with their communications.

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Exhibition Production

Things to take into consideration when coordinating, selecting and purchasing your communications and marketing needs.

Create signs for reuse.

Provide collection bins for recycling name tags.

Print their materials on recycled paper and use vegetable-based inks.

Bring only what is needed to the event and take away what they do not give out.

Use items for the free handouts and trinkets that are made from recycled materials, durable or reusable.

Have exhibitor promote their own environmental initiatives.

Provided on-site recycling for paper, cans, glass, and other materials that are generated.

They choose reusable decorations and display materials. Ask local schools, retirement facilities, or charitable organizations if they would like to receive used decorations after the event.

Provide separate receptacles for recyclable and the garbage.

Request that the display booths be created using recycled, reusable material.

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PLANNING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Here are some questions you can ask the participants at the beginning of the planning

process to uncover and develop your vision for the event. Create more questions based

on your particular and unique event structure and requirements.

What is your event’s primary emphasis, the overall vision? Is it education, fun, product release,

fundraising, anniversary celebration? Elaborate - _____________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Who is the beneficiary? Will this event be for the participants, the organization or other? ______________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

How important is financial success? Is our main focus profit, benevolence, or public relations? _________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

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What information will you be sharing or what will you be celebrating? ____________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

What location will serve our needs? ________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Where are most of our participants located? Will they have to travel, do we need a popular destination? __

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Will money be an issue for the participants to travel? __________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

What is the target date? (Is it determined by the month, season, year, or day of week?) ________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Who is your target audience? Are they our employees, family, club members, sales team, like minded

people, industry groups, or students? _______________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Why do they want to attend? Is it education, fun, entertainment, interest, job requirement? _____________

_____________________________________________________________________________

________

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Is the event required attendance or will they be paying? ________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Can they afford to attend? Who will pay for their registration, travel, lodging, and other expenses? ______

_____________________________________________________________________________________

What is your budget? Is this a rate-conscious group? Are we making a profit? _______________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

What kind of space is required? (Is it luxury, business, economy, fun, or adventure?) _________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Will we need sponsors? Do we need to find additional funding?__________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Is this a repeat event? If so, what were the results of the last event? Are there past data? What do we need to

do differently?_______________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Are the attendees repeats? Did they attend our past events? What evaluations were received? __________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

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Is networking an important component? ____________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Are exhibits a component, either as a source of revenue or information? ___________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Will there be offsite events? If so, what is needed? ____________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

How does environmental planning contribute to all of our decisions? _____________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Have we done our best to make environmental choices? _______________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

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ENVIRONMENTAL CHECKLIST FOR VENUE SELECTION

Item/Question Yes No Notes

Does property purchase reusable, recycled and durable products or products that can be recycled?

Does property have an in-house recycling program for both the property and guests? What materials are collected?

Does property recycle any other materials (linens, phone books, oil, pallets, batteries, etc.)?

Will your property provide recycling bins for our meeting? What materials will have recycling bins: aluminum, glass, newspaper, white paper, plastic, steel cans.

Will property commit to seeing that the above items collected from our meeting are actually recycled?

Does property have a contract with recycling hauler/s or business/es?

Does property donate, sell, or recycle old "durables" (i.e., furnishings, etc.)?

This list is quite extensive, but when you created your own environmental standards you will know which of the following questions and answers pertain to you.

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Item/Question Yes No NotesWill your food and beverage services use reusable items such as cloth, glass, ceramic, etc. rather than disposable items such as styrofoam or plastic for our meeting?

Will your property serve food buffet-style? One large plate? Without garnishes?

Will your property use cream pitchers, sugar pourers and washable spoons rather than individual creamer and sugar packets, etc. for our meeting? Jelly servers rather than individual packets? Other?

Will your kitchen purchase fresh rather than packaged produce?

Are vegetarian available?

Does your property purchase and serve beverages from a dispenser or in returnable refillable containers?

Who pays for bottle deposits--the client or the property?

Does your property donate leftover food to a local non-profit organization?

Will you provide cloth rather than disposable table drapes for display tables?

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Item/Question Yes No Notes

Does your property have props, decorations, foliage or centerpieces that we can use?

Will your property use chips or coins rather than disposable paper tickets for coat checking and auto parking?

Does your property have guestroom dispensers for soap and shampoo?

Is property willing to remove all small plastic amenity bottles from the guestrooms which our participants will occupy?

Does property give guests a choice on having bath linens and bed sheets exchanged?

Do guestrooms have low-flow showerheads? Low-flow sink aerators?

Will pitchers of water be placed on the tables rather than prepouring glasses of water?

Will you use insulated water containers to keep the water cold longer?

Will you use water from a cooler rather than using ice?

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Item/Question Yes No Notes

Will you use leftover water and ice to water plants and replenish fountains?

What other water conservation measures have been taken?

What are you doing to reduce dry cleaning and laundry paraphernalia?

Does property offer double-sided copying at a reduced rate?

Do doors to your meeting rooms open and close silently, without any sound?

At the close of our meeting, is your property willing to distribute meeting materials and sample products left behind to a local charity that can put them to good use?

What percentage of your property's lighting is fluorescent?

Do meeting rooms have dimmers on lights?

Do meeting rooms have windows for natural lighting?

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Item/Question Yes No Notes

What other energy conservation measures have been taken?

What other conservation measures have you incorporated?

Is there anything further in regard to being "green" that your property will offer us?

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Chapter 14Event Staging

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