3 ways to brighten the hotel conference and meeting experience

Conference room features are important to revenue - boosting business customers and there are some simple and inexpensive ways to make improvements, writes Andrew Hennigan

Hotels are always looking for ways to drive fresh revenues, and one of the most effective ways to do so is to host meetings and conferences.

Not only do customers pay for the use of the meeting rooms, food and drink, they often also book many guest rooms for conference attendees and order other services. Exactly how this impacts overall revenues depends on many factors, but estimates are that conference business contributes 15 to 50% to hotel revenues.

Attracting such business is partly down to marketing but it’s also about having the right facilities. On this score, new build venues have the upper hand as they are using new technology to make their spaces more appealing. With high-efficiency colour LED lighting that can be controlled with a few taps on an an iPad, London’s new 8 Northumberland Avenue event venue is a good example of this new tech-driven approach.

“We are the first venue in Europe to install the new amBX lighting technology, which can create dazzling light shows, make lights intuitively respond to music, presentations or videos, or bathe a corporate event in precise brand colours,” says Lindsay Marshall-Ward, Head of Venue.

If that seems a step too far the good news is that there are some simple steps and inexpensive ways to make meeting rooms more appealing to event organisers without breaking the building or the bank. Here are some ideas:

1. Brightening faces: Look at event photos shared on social media and you will often see pictures where the screen is bright and the speaker is in shadow. Fixing this problem isn’t rocket science and just requires some inexpensive lights on the ceilings or walls that can be pointed at the speakers.

“LED lighting is an excellent solution as power requirements are minimal,” says Mark Morley, a stage lighting expert at White Light Ltd, who argues that the best source of illumination is a ‘profile spotlight’.

Lighting specific areas, these spotlights keep light on the speaker and off the screen. Most of them have built in dimmers and simple controls; some can be controlled through wireless links.

According to Morley, the ideal lighting angle for a presenter is in front of and approximately 60 degrees above their head, so that an audience can clearly see their face, but unwanted shadows are kept to a minimum. “Two spotlights, one each side of the presenter, is the best choice,” he says.

2. Lens shift & short throw projection: Perhaps worse than leaving speakers in the dark is to have a projector shining in their eyes, which is annoying for the speaker and leaves shadows on the projection screen. Some people avoid the projector beam by standing in a corner in the shadow, which is hardly an improvement.

According to John Sullivan, a projector expert at Projector People, where the ceiling is high enough you can fix this problem with a brighter ‘lens-shift’ projector that beams the image from above by moving the lens to one side. In smaller rooms with less headroom the solution is to use a ‘short throw’ or ‘ultra short throw’projector, which can be fitted to the ceiling closer to the screen. This beams the light down behind the speaker, leaving no shadows and allowing the speaker to walk around the stage as they wish. Short throw projectors usually have fixed lenses and need careful placement at the right distance.

3. Flexible stage furniture: Some customers want an empty stage, others want a small table for glasses of water, others want a speaker’s lectern and many want a small side table for the speaker’s laptop. What nobody wants is furniture that is fixed or hard to move. Another simple but effective way to please event organisers is to ensure there are different options to choose from. Consider tables on wheels that can be pushed aside and make sure that any cables can be tucked neatly out of the way without tripping anybody up. Sometimes event organisers don’t know exactly how their speakers want the stage until they arrive, so a little flexibility is greatly appreciated. This apparently minor detail actually makes a big difference. People can work around awkward furnishings, but they will remember it next time they choose a venue.

With small, affordable fixes any meeting room can be much more functional. The result: customers make come back and pictures shared on social media will look much better, indirectly advertising the venue.

Images: Courtesy of 8 Northumberland Ave

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