When it’s time to party — business-style — the industry leaders around this table will make you want to pull out the noisemakers. As experts, they know how to get people to come and come back (food, anyone?). Although they help others have a good time in their business casual, they take their businesses seriously. After the hour-long roundtable, they stayed for another half hour to study detailed plans for a convention center in downtown Provo. They know their industry in Utah County is on the upswing, and they are ready for the ride.

Jeanette Bennett, BusinessQ: How is the convention and meeting industry doing in Utah County?

Joel Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: We’re not feeling the same level of impact that destinations like Scottsdale, Ariz., and Las Vegas are feeling right now, but we are definitely feeling contraction and pull back from corporate meetings and events. Some companies are on edge about how they are spending that money.

Mark Hiles, Diamond Rental: At Diamond Rental we have seen a contraction of corporate events either through cutting back or downsizing. Some companies who do four or five events a year are now down to one or two.

Fritz Black, Cowboy Leaders: Companies are spending less money on lower levels of leadership and spending more on upper management.

Kendall Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: Our corporate numbers are holding well, but the companies are spending less on the higher-end audiovisual and tent rentals. They are still having meetings, but they are downscaled.

Bennett, BusinessQ: What would you say to businesses about the importance of events and why they shouldn’t continue to cut back?

Black, Cowboy Leaders: Anytime you send someone to an event or a retreat you are hoping for a change in behavior. Executives need to understand what that change in behavior is and where you can get the most bang for your buck. One of the best ways you can institute a change is to go away from your comfort zone with people you haven’t met before. Different ideas can be exchanged where there isn’t the pressure of the daily grind. It’s really important to get away from the workplace.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: The notion of teleconferencing has its place, but business is really accomplished face-to-face. That is where you can get creative, you can brainstorm, you can look at the body language of individuals and you can feel how your meeting is going. We just hosted an event yesterday at the courthouse. What we accomplished there we could not have accomplished in a conference call. We had to hash it out and have some compromise and negotiation. We had a successful meeting.

Bennett, BusinessQ: Recently the media has painted a negative picture of some big national companies spending a lot of money on lavish events. What do you want people to understand about why meetings and events are a way of doing business?

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: There is a difference between a corporate retreat and an AIG corporate retreat. Very productive meetings can happen by getting away from the office. These meetings don’t have the distractions of the phones and copy machines or other employees coming in. There is a tremendous amount of team building and camaraderie that comes out of an event. Getting your mind away from the office and focused in an unfamiliar territory elicits new ideas.

Jack Marvell, Marvellous Catering: For the past 10 or 12 years we have done a party for the same company, and their numbers are down this year from 1,500 attendees to 1,100. But they are still going forward with the party to say “thanks” to their employees, because those employees are still working everyday. Every year, we cook steaks and the corporate executives serve them to their employees. They go around and talk to their people. It’s good stuff.

Black, Cowboy Leaders: There is something about changing attitudes that can’t be done just with policy change or a procedure change. What you really need to change is the attitude of the people, and you can only do that in a face-to-face setting. When you are sitting down, getting to know each other or breaking bread together, that is where you really share. That is when attitudes can change.

Bennett, BusinessQ: What role does food play in a successful event?

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: I have discovered that if you want them to come, feed them. If you want them to come back, feed them well. That is what it boils down to. When you feed them filet mignon for 12 years, they keep coming back — as opposed to other parties where it is a hot dog and a bag of chips. Only half of the company shows up to an event like that.

Black, Cowboy Leaders: If the food is bad, that is what they talk about. You can forget the message about the whole event presentation because they are going to talk about the food.

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: In the final analysis, it all comes down to that. The food is where the rubber meets the road.

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: I agree with everything that has been said, and I also think good food is a lot more affordable than people think. We see a lot of people in our deli area crowded around a public table trying to have a business meeting. For a few bucks more on food and a nominal room fee they can have a catered event in a private room with a staff that will care for their every need. Many places in the community are more affordable than people think.

Jared Kearns, McKay Events Center: We have an excellent Culinary Arts program at UVU. I’ve seen corporations come in and have elaborate dinners for all their employees. Then if they scale back the next time, they have less of a turnout. Food really does play a big part in an event.

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: When one company switched from steaks to hamburgers and hotdogs, we didn’t hear the end of the complaining. Everybody was saying, “Where are the steaks?” When I looked at the situation, I really didn’t see a good explanation for their decision because the difference in price between the two options was a buck or two.

Black, Cowboy Leaders: People are trying to walk a fine line between not spending too much and still trying to take care of their people. They don’t want people saying, “If things are so tight, why are you spending so much money on an extra?”

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: As things get tighter, people have the mentality of pulling in. But you have to be careful because people who are working for you need to know you care about them.

Bennett, BusinessQ: Let’s switch gears and talk about planning. What is the ideal time frame for someone to come to you and start planning an event?

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: I’m a member of the Western Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus, and every year we go to a CEO forum. Three years ago I thought, “Why don’t we host this event in Utah?” I wanted to see the economic impact come to my community. I also worked with the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Park City bureau, and we put together a bid. We had to get organized early on in the bidding and planning process.

Sharon Curley, Diamond Rental: We usually work a year out to plan an event, which gives us time to talk to the show managers and the vendors to make sure that everything is in line. Within that year of planning, I keep an open mind in case something comes up. I like to talk to the convention center early on and follow up with them. With a large expo event, we focus our attention on the exhibitors. If they aren’t happy, it isn’t a successful show.

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: At a year out, we would love to know they are coming. As we get closer, we secure bigger details. Often the menu falls into place as the last thing.

Kearns, McKay Events Center: I wish I had a year out! We have a lot of people show up two weeks or a month out wanting to pull off a dinner for a thousand people. Our clients are often first-time, local people.

Black, Cowboy Leaders: You need to understand the size and scope of your project. For small groups you can plan things on a very quick basis. And here in Utah County you can put things together in very short time span. Look at the people around this table — I don’t think there is one of us who would say no to business next week.

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: How about tomorrow? I’ll tell my wife to load the wagon, and we’ll take care of it.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: We’re seeing that the booking window is much more narrow than it used to be. Groups aren’t always planning a year in advance.

Hiles, Diamond Rental: That is a good point. We do see the time frame contracting a little bit with the economy. We really bend over backwards for a lot for these people to make sure we can accommodate their needs and get it done last minute. Utah County is great for that.

Bennett, BusinessQ: What are some of the big mistakes people make in planning an event?

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: Too often, people neglect to utilize the expertise of professionals. All of the people at this table have done this a lot. We have seen hundreds of events, and I’m surprised how often people don’t take advantage and ask us questions. We have professional meeting planners who often don’t get to use their skills because someone else is forcing an idea that may or may not work. We can take care of the little details, and we are there to make you look good. If you communicate to us about what you need, we can help. People often make the most mistakes when it comes to planning their audiovisual needs.

Kearns, McKay Events Center: The biggest thing I see is that people assume we have everything at our facility. People show up with their computers and don’t know how to run them.

Hiles, Diamond Rental: As a rental business, we see people try to cut expenses by doing it themselves. They don’t realize what goes into planning an event. We try to accommodate them as much as possible, but we do get a lot of last minutes calls about audiovisual or sound needs and lots of little overlooked details.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: I went to a tech summit in Northern California, and we had Internet connectivity problems. There were all these wired techno-geeks with laptops and Apple products, but they couldn’t get connected. We were close enough to Cupertino that it should have worked. It was a wonderful event, but the tech problems are what people were talking about. Think about the type of group you have and be proactive about the things that absolutely have to work.

Curley, Diamond Rental: As part of the planning, we need to ask the client the important questions. We ask them if they have thought about this or overlooked that. We can find out how to make things work.

Bennett, BusinessQ: After all the planning has been done and the event is actually happening, what can companies do to ensure the meeting goes smoothly?

Black, Cowboy Leaders: Watch the behavior of the people. Make sure you are getting the behavior you want to get. Get comments from people at the event and make changes on the fly.

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: What you don’t want to do is start a meeting with chaos. For a lot of people the first hour is spent running back and forth getting the last minute things taken care of. The key to an event going well is in the pre-planning stages. With proper planning and using your meeting planner, you can walk into a room that is already set up and be shaking hands at the door instead of running up and down the hall.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: When an event begins, you have to be in execution mode.

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: It’s showtime!

Bennett, BusinessQ: Are there any misunderstandings about the options in Utah Valley? Do you see businesses going to Salt Lake for meetings when they don’t necessarily need to?

Black, Cowboy Leaders: Absolutely. I think people look outside of Utah County first. We’ve got some great businesses here, but they look to Denver or Las Vegas or Salt Lake City. They figure they have to leave the county to get what they want, but they don’t pay attention to what is right here under their nose. If you want to cut money out of your event, cut your airline ticket. If you cut that you can spend more time and more money at your venue.

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: The accessibility of areas in Utah County are much better than in Salt Lake or other outlying areas. The ease of parking and access from I-15 makes a big difference.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: We in Utah County can do much more than people give us credit for, but we do have limitations. We have limitations of the size of groups and meeting space. Many network marketing companies hold their events in Salt Lake where they can handle 7,000 or 8,000. In Utah County, we only have about 3,000 hotel rooms.

Bennett, BusinessQ: What about tourism in Utah County? How do we entice people from out of state to come here to host events?

Black, Cowboy Leaders: The majority of our business is out of state. We host small groups that come to our outdoor setting where all of our meeting facilities are open air with all the modern conveniences you would expect to have. People come and spend time in the mountains — just a half hour out of Provo — and then they say they want to bring their families back. It boosts tourism.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: Meeting attendees are definitely future tourists. I can’t tell you how many individuals who attended my conference a week or two ago had never been up here, and they are already planning a trip to bring their families back. We’re talking about Utah Valley, which is great, but high tide raises all boats. When outdoor retailers comes to the Salt Palace, the attendees will cross lines and come down to Thanksgiving Point, or come down to the Provo River to fly fish.

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: We’re seeing a lot of businesses bringing families with them to conventions. We’re seeing corporations taking it into consideration — What is there for my family to do? Mom or dad are going to the meetings, so the kids are finding avenues to explore.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: It’s become a trend to tack on a vacation at the end of a business trip. It’s also a trend for people to stay closer to home — the “staycation.” Our state park numbers are up this year because Utahns are visiting. Timp Cave, Camp Floyd State Park and Utah Lake State Park are spiking in the number of attendees during the summer travel season. People are bringing their families and tacking on one or two extra days. Some people may not think of Utah County as a true tourism destination. Our goal is to help people understand what additional things they can do here. Whether they have come here for a purpose or a specific vacation at Sundance, for fly-fishing on the Provo River or golf at one of our 11 incredible golf courses, we have a lot of things to do.

Bennett, BusinessQ: What are some of the trends in conventions and meetings? What things are big right now in food and decor?

Curley, Diamond Rental: Utah County is very conservative. We have seen a lot of weddings scaled down. But a lot of them like to use lighted canopies. Décor-wise, they use lighting to give more flow. As far as conventions, we use the standard tables and chairs. A lot of times the exhibitors want to upgrade to different linens to add to their booth packages.

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: It’s been interesting to me to watch the trends in food over the past 20 years. I would attribute most of it to the Food Network because people are now aware of food. About 12 or 15 years ago, there was a little barbecue place down by Albertsons, and it didn’t make it. Now we have seven or eight of them in the valley. People want to taste what they see on TV — chipotle this, Asian that. The Food Network has changed things dramatically. We still serve a lot of the traditional kinds of things, but all the time we see requests for things they’ve seen on TV. In Utah Valley, we’ve become very international as it relates to food.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: We’ve got some good ethnic restaurants here, so I would agree with that.

Kearns, McKay Events Center: The trend we’re seeing is toward athletics. We had the Utah Thunder start up, and we have the Utah Flash. Throwdown does a few events, also. And, of course, we have UVU athletics. The trend I see is more and more people coming out to support these athletic events at the McKay.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: I admire your programming ability. You’ve got to be on top of things to pull off everything that happens in your facility.

Bennett, BusinessQ: Let’s look forward. What are some of your predictions for trends in your industry for the upcoming years?

Black, Cowboy Leaders: I predict people are going to start making decisions to do things they have been putting off. Rather than saving money, they are going to say, “No, we’ve got the money so let’s go ahead and do an event.” People are going to start breaking loose with dollars for conventions and training. They are going to look for more value for their dollar — whether it’s the quality of the food, the quality of the facility or the quality of the training. I strongly recommend to anyone who is going to hold any type of event that you look at the quality of the change you hope to make. Decide what outcome you want, and go to a place that will give you that outcome in buckets. If it’s food and pleasure, certainly go to someone who is going to give you the kind the food you’re looking for. If it’s training, then look for a company that can train. Whether it is sales training, leadership training or relationship training, find those things that are going to have a profitable outcome. People are going to be looking for that.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: Our infrastructure is going to change dramatically in Utah Valley. The venues we have are going to improve and increase. There have been groups who would love to come here but haven’t because we can’t meet their needs. Once the economy turns and the airlines are looking toward small carriers, we’re going to see scheduled service at the Provo Airport within three to five years. When we have a carrier that connects to Las Vegas or Denver, we’re basically connected to the rest of the world. Some facilities have been announced and we have seen efforts toward developing them such as the Frank Gehry Project in Lehi and the John Q. Hammons project in Pleasant Grove. Utah County has talked for a number of years about developing a smaller convention center in downtown Provo. I got three phone calls yesterday that said they are moving forward. It’s very exciting because if we wait before the economy rebounds to start this facility, we’ll continue to miss opportunities. This facility could be built in the next two years. We’re going to start getting a better piece of the pie. Hopefully, the regional corporate meetings, events, monthly training meetings and fly-in weekends that are currently being held elsewhere, will be held here. So we’re going to see incredible growth and much improved infrastructure.

Wimmer, Thanksgiving Point: We anticipate continued growth at Thanksgiving Point. This year, our food service numbers have been down, but our venue numbers have been higher than last year. It’s been good to see the locals come out and take advantage of local opportunities. As we start to get back to business, there will be a return to old business practices. People are understanding — particularly on the wedding side of the business — it’s not a whole lot cheaper to try to pull something off by yourself than to use one of these venues. The cost of a tray of fruit might be more than you would pay at Albertsons, but after you factor in tables, chairs, linens, glassware and canopies, you get a-la-carted to death. You end up spending a lot of money, not to mention the headache involved and not really enjoying the day you’re supposed to be enjoying. We continue to see talk about the quality of life here in Utah County. I think that will continue to attract businesses, and businesses will continue to build in this county. Transportation is huge. When UTA’s Front Runner goes in, that will be huge. I think it’s a very bright future for Utah County.

Kearns, McKay Events Center: I’m more in the entertainment industry. There continues to be more entertainment and better quality. I think of the Orem Owlz and the Utah Flash. Businesses come for parties and entertainment. Businesses are using these different venues and avenues to bring clients in. Utah County is developing these areas, which they haven’t in the past.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: The days of nothing to do are long gone.

Kearns, McKay Events Center: Right! There is always something to do here.

Curley, Diamond Rental: As Utah County continues to grow, there will be more tradeshows and conventions coming to Utah County.

Marvell, Marvellous Catering: I don’t even suppose to know what’s going to happen in the industry. I just know that we have recently moved into a new facility and we’re keeping ourselves in as good of a financial condition as we can. We’re going to ride this thing out, and we’re going to figure out how to sell some food. When the economy comes back, we’re going to be ready.

Hiles, Diamond Rental: I’m excited about the new facilities that will come in and bring more business. As Fritz was saying, people look for a bang for their buck. In Utah County, we don’t have a Salt Palace or a South Towne Expo Center. But I think UVU offers a great venue for the expos, especially for the smaller ones because you get a better bang for your buck there. I’m excited Utah County does have enough to offer. We just need to continue to get the word out about what is available here.

Racker, Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau: If we can get folks in Utah Valley to be thinking about how they can become an ambassador and bring events here, there are organizations to help them. And the Convention and Visitors Bureau is one of them.

Bennett, BusinessQ: That’s a positive way to end. I’m excited about the future just as all of you are. Thank you for your time today.

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