The Colour Of Wales

For one short, but necessary paragraph let us sum up the reality of today’s conference market. The majority are taken at faceless hotels in city centre locations, where every room looks the same, the menus are similar and you can be treated as ‘Just another conference’. The reality is that you could be in any one of 100 or so hotels and you would not know the difference. And yet, we all expect those that attend to face the conference with the enthusiasm and open mindness that your company lacked in booking it! Whilst I am ranting, if you are using a DMC (Destination Management Company) to do the work for you in finding and booking a venue, it could be possible that you are paying 3 – 4 times more for this lack of imagination too! “Tidy”, as we say in Wales, “it is not!”

So here is our Activity Wales guide to booking the conference with a subtle difference. A conference where you’ll be looked after, have a sense of place, your employees will be grateful, all at a great price and most importantly – learning will happen!

The Formality Barometer
As a company the training budget is usually one of the first to be scrutinised and cut, if it even exists. Therefore, it is initially important to make sure whatever money is spent training and developing teams and individuals, it is spent effectively.

So getting the balance between formality and play is vitally important. At times a conference is booked to deliver a formal and serious message. At other times it can simply be a reward for hard work and comes under play or a ‘bonding session’. But the majority of the time there is a serious message to be delivered, interspersed with play. But how do we get this balance right?

Take a blank piece of paper and at the top draw a horizontal line. On the left write ‘formal’, on the right write ‘play’. Underneath number your objectives 1 – 4, (If there are that many), and how you plan to deliver them. Then on your horizontal line, place numbers 1 – 4 along the axis. This will then give you a rough guide on how to set your tone.

As a rule we find a mirrored day and night approach works well. Eg If you have a formal day, then a light approach to the evening works well, if you have a day of activities then maybe a black tie dinner is called for in the evening.

Inspiring Locations
Lets lose the beige conference for a moment. The UK is full of amazing and wonderful locations, and Wales has its fair share. Make the location part of the learning experience. Pembrokeshire has wonderful coast path walks and beaches, Snowdonia has stunning mountains and mountain bike trails, so build this into the programme. If you can get the adrenalin flowing and exercise the body the ideas will flow in the classroom!

How many will there be on the conference? 10 or 500? Try to keep venues and locations where you are the focus and not part of 6 or 7 other conferences. Maybe you do not want a hotel? A picturesque guest house on a lake or a cottage overlooking the beach maybe more inspiring. Do you need to cram the conference into 1 day? Can you afford 2 to 3 days?

If you ask yourself some of the questions raised today and you are serious about conferencing and getting the balance right, then the only constraint will be time not money. As you probably will find your budget will now go at least twice as far.

Feedback and follow up
Gene rally this is the most overlooked part of any conference. The feedback and follow up is vital to any successful co nference.

What was the venue like? What were the trainers like? Did you learn any of the objectives? Did you learn anything else?

At Activity Wales we encourage our clients to send postcards to the delegates 2 weeks after the conference with 4 of the key points from the programme. Conferences are not about attending, they are about learning, changing and implementing ideas into the workplace and our daily lives.