I felt sort of obligated to go to a session on negotiating convention center contracts, since it is I’m sure something our readers would want to know more about, even though I really wanted to start off the day with the “Making the WOW factor relevant” session, which sounded like a lot more fun. But I’m glad I did drop by to hear the latest on negotiating with centers from Mark Roysner, attorney at law with Roysner & Associates (though I did hear terrific things about the WOW session, too, which was led by Mike McCauley with ProActive and Red7Media’s Jim Alkon).

First off, we did an audience response system survey of the audience, and a full 60 percent were anticipating a decrease in attendance in the next six months (20 percent expected a 6-10 percent decrease; 40 percent anticipated a greater than 10 percent decrease). So, looks like everyone’s bracing for some rough weather ahead.

Anyway, Roysner talked about a bunch of things, but a few stand out to me right now:

*Read your contract, every word, even if you’ve read the same contract from the same center 10 times before. Because even if the contract language hasn’t changed, the situation probably has, and you’ll need to consider what that language means when applied to how things are now (and what you’re anticipating). Plus, they do change the language every now and then, even though it may be hiding under the same old headings. And read it in the beginning of the site selection process, not after you’ve already contracted with your hotels and will basically be stuck with no other options.

*They might be more willing to negotiate certain things nowadays than they were in the past, such as minimums on exhibit space. Check to see if your] minimums are guaranteed per hall or in aggregate. He said that most contracts will make you pay for unused minimums in one hall even if you sold out in other halls. Can you go with an aggregate minimum? Then work with the center to keep it reasonable. “Try to get them to modify to take off minimums that have you don’t think you can sell out so they will just charge for the square footage you actually used,” he said.

*Exclusives also are a little different these days, he said. While centers used to just have exclusive agreements with telecom and utilities, nowadays it can be security, cleaning, all sorts of other services that they will force you to use. This gets you into trouble with any long-term exclusive contractors you have on your own, since they’ll likely raise their rates if they don’t get all your business as contracted.

Put in your contract which exclusives are specifically included as of the date of execution of your contract, and put in a clause that you’ll only accept exclusives in place at a certain date. And on your contractor contracts, include a clause that excludes you if the center forces you to use their exclusive contractor. “You have to do it on both ends,” Roysner said.

Also watch out for new commissionable issues—some centers are adding DMC commissions (if you use our preferred providers, you don’t have to pay commission, but to bring in your own who have worked with you for years and knows all your group’s quirks, you pay us a commission). He said a fair thing to do is not to charge for bringing that DMC or production company in, but if the facility has to supply support for that company, you pay for that service.

I know the new coolio teleprompters that are clear and posed on either side of the speaker are all the rage these days, but at IAEE’s opening session last night I felt kind of bad for the speakers, most of whom looked like they were trying to keep up with a tennis match, their heads sproinging wildly from side to side. While Bob Eubanks, the emcee of the evening, did a much better job with it, even he looked a little challenged in trying to make it look more natural.

I don’t know the answers, but unless your speakers are pros, you might want to rethink using these things. It was really kind of distracting for the audience, and I can only imagine what it must have been like for the various speakers.

Let’s see if this works: It’s supposed to pull in all the latest Twitter posts and flickr updates tagged “IAEE.”

If this does work, thanks to Maddie Grant for leading the way with an ASAE 2008 Twitter Fountain.

Here’s a direct link, just in case.

Other than some serious last-minute rushing to make my flight due to some weird traffic phenomena, the trip to Miami for the IAEE Expo Expo was pleasantly, well, pleasant. And my room at the Doubletree is serviceable, even though I have the world’s grossest view out the window of some kind of drainage pit where it looks like a building once was. But if I lean out the window and crane my neck to the left, I can see the ocean!

Anyway, the opening general session was chock full of awards, presentations, and the other stuff that tends to make opening general sessions snoozers. I did like Bob Eubanks as the emcee. He was the perfect balance of funny, cranky, and incredulous. But the rest of it just really dragged. I’m sorry, but it did. Some day, someone will figure out how to make these things less boring, but today wasn’t the day. Or maybe I’m just tired.

The reception started out pretty interesting, though. It was held at Jungle Island, a very cool venue that would have been perfect if our group was 500 instead of 2,000. As it is, they seemed to be pretty overwhelmed. The food warmers were empty, the servers seemed a little freaked out, and the bar was 200-deep. They kept telling us to move on, there would be more food further down the way. And there was, but again, the plates were empty. Some people were eying the parrots along the path with a hungry eye. By the way they were squawking and trying to look fierce, I think the parrots felt that vibe, too. Fortunately, we all eventually found something non-feathered to put out the fire, but it wasn’t the smoothest of food services.

One of the best parts was seeing the baby animals, including a kangaroo, some lemurs, a lion, a tiger cub, and a baby gator, held by their handlers who in some cases let us pet them (I fell a little in love with the red lemur, who was hugging his handler like a baby and felt like the softest fleece).

The other best part was running into someone I actually know and was hoping to run into, but figured I never would (you know how that goes if you don’t arrange a meeting ahead of time): Candy Adams, aka the Booth Show Mom. Then I find out that the person I had been futilely hunting food with earlier turns out to be someone I had mentioned here on face2face a while back, consultant, speaker, and author Maryls Arnold. I wish I’d known she was going to bring up face2face at her session today–I would have put up a greeting for her class, just for fun.

Well, I’m totally out of gas and not looking forward to an early day tomorrow, but I am looking forward to some good sessions. Stay tuned…

I generally am pretty little-kid about holiday decorations—it doesn’t take much to make me go “ooh.” But hotel lobbies do tend to overdo it at times. Or so Hotel Chatter thinks. Here’s their pick of the five ugliest types of hotel lobby Christmas decorations. I am in agreement on this one, though I’m not sure it counts as decoration per se:

“We love walking into a room and being greeted by the sweet scents of the season — warm apple cider, gingerbread, cinnamon, cookies. Do you know what we hate? When there are no mugs of cider or any gingerbread or cinnamony cookies around. Please don’t so that to us. If you’ve got the aroma, deliver the goods.”

What’s kind of surprising in this day and age is that hotels decorate their lobbies for the holidays at all, though they do seem to make it more of a wintertime theme than anything that smacks of religion.

Thanks to Patti Shock for the pointer!

For smaller meetings, I love this idea from David at the Association Executive Management blog (though you should be sure to keep in mind the caveat brought up in the comments).

If your attendees are on the nerdy side (and hey, that’s not a bad thing to be called these days–even geeks can be popular), Wired has for just the hotels to hold your meetings at. Check out Geek Hotels Pass the Nerd Test for the details.

Yup, they sure can, much to all our chagrin. Here’s an interesting exploration on the why’s and how’s of this phenomena, from a guy on eTurbo News with two knee replacements and an unfortunate and unexpected change in seat assignments. A snip:

As far as I can tell, most airlines try to honor seat assignments, once made. However, as noted, they don’t guarantee assignments. And when an airline has to change the type of airplane, it may or may not be possible to retain the original or equivalent assignments:

With variations among the same narrow-body family of planes, such as among different 737 variants, different Airbus 319-320-321 variants, 737-757 changes, or even Airbus-to-Boeing changes, seat mapping is generally consistent: C and D seats are always aisles, and such. But even within these families, direct substitution is sometimes not possible. For example, some Continental models do not have row 11, some others do not have rows eight to 15, so if your initial assignment is in one of those rows, you can’t keep those same seats in a switch.

So, there is a method to the madness. But we still don’t have to like it (especially claustrophobes like me who go nuts when stuck in a middle seat).

For more offbeat airline news: Canada Gives Obese Fliers an Extra Seat for Free. Wherever you stand or, er, sit on this one, ramifications from this ruling may be coming to an airline near you.

When you’ve been on the road a while, the thought of going out for yet another restaurant meal can be daunting. So some enterprising person put together this wiki on how to cook food in a hotel room. The recipes seem to center around using a coffeemaker and/or an iron, neither of which is going to earn a place in my kitchen any time soon. But hey, if you’re desperate enough, I guess coffeepot oatmeal might start to sound good. Me, I’ll go for room service, thank you very much!

Speaking of thanks, a big one to Nancy for the pointer.

American Airlines Now Charging Fees To Non-Passengers (The Onion). Go ahead and read the whole thing—it is hilarious! A snip:

“American Airlines, which posted a $1.45 billion loss in the second quarter of 2008 alone, claimed that the new fees—including the Taking A Shower Fee, the Knowing What An Airplane Looks Like Fee, and the Eating E.L. Fudge Cookies While Watching A Rerun Of House Fee—will help the company rebound. According to internal projections, the airline will recoup $500 million in the next three months alone, with nearly 80 percent of that revenue coming from citizens asleep at home…

“‘American Airlines charged me for cleaning out my attic,’ said 74-year-old Samantha Pratt, a New Jersey resident who has not left the state since 2005. ‘Sure, I didn’t have to wait in any long lines, or go through invasive security searches, and I got to clean out my attic, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for weeks, but come on now.’”

Thanks to the MiForum listserv for the pointer!