By Loyd Carter

Very few industries in the U.S. have escaped the recession unscathed, and the magazine industry is no exception. A number of high-profile titles have ceased publishing this year, while others have cut back on frequency and/or shifted to an online-only model to cut costs.

The magazine industry has always been very active when it comes to conferences and events, but these have been among the casualties of the recession. Early this year, the organizers of several industry-leading shows announced the cancellations of 2009 events, including the Magazine Publishers of America’s (MPA) American Magazine Conference, one of the biggest industry events of the year.

However, some magazine associations decided that the show must go on, despite the challenging economy. One of these was the Magazine Association of the Southeast (MAGS), which held its 20th annual conference in Atlanta on April 29-30.

Moving forward, cautiously

“We were well aware of some of the major event cancellations in our industry this year,” says MAGS Immediate Past President Don Sadler. “In fact, we were shifting into planning overdrive in February when word broke about cancellation of the MPA’s American Magazine Conference.”

This was about the time that the economic storm clouds appeared the darkest. “When you see that one of the biggest events in your industry is cancelling, it definitely makes you stop and think twice,” Sadler says. “I’ll admit there were a couple of moments when I second-guessed our commitment to holding a conference this year, but everyone on our board believed strongly that we should move forward with the conference unless it just became completely unfeasible to do so.”

The result was a conference that, given the economic challenges faced by the magazine industry, can only be described as a tremendous success. Sadler says the foundation for this success was laid back in the fall of 2008 when planning first started for the 2009 conference.

“We knew that cost control was going to be critical,” he says, “so we sat down with Susan Stottlemeyer and Lenora Kopkin from our association management company to dig into the numbers and look for any and every opportunity we could find to keep our costs down.”

Stottlemeyer’s company, Your APG, manages 23 other associations in addition to MAGS, so she’s got plenty of hands-on experience when it comes to conference and event expense management. “Right now, I’m encouraging all my clients to go with the lowest risk factor possible,” she says. “You can always upgrade from chicken to steak later if you want to.”

The MAGS board knew it would be able to spend less on the 2009 conference than it did in 2008, when its conference was held at the Ritz-Carlton, Atlanta. “We were in a strong cash position in 2007 and early 2008 and wanted to make the event extra special, so we booked it for the Ritz,” Stottlemeyer says. “We knew we might not break even but were OK with that. Obviously, our mindset was different for the 2009 conference.”

New Location, Fewer Frills

The MAGS board chose the Hilton Atlanta/Marietta Hotel & Conference Center in Marietta, Ga., as the site for its 2009 event. According to Stottlemeyer, other cost-cutting measures the association implemented included:

• More RFPs and bidding. In particular, MAGS put out a strong RFP for audio/visual, which is one of its higher expenses after food and beverage. “We let respondents know that price would be a deciding factor,” Stottlemeyer notes.

• Conservative food and beverage estimates. “We watched the numbers very closely to make sure we didn’t over-order and have a lot of waste,” she adds.

• Downgraded food and beverage choices. At the GAMMA Awards Dinner, which is the climax of the MAGS conference each year, the entréte was downgraded from steak and salmon to chicken, and fancy between-session snacks (like Dove ice cream bars) were eliminated in favor of soft drinks and popcorn.

• Strict negotiations with past vendors. Stottlemeyer says she negotiated with vendors MAGS had used in past years (like the photographer and GAMMA Dinner emcee) to try to hold prices at 2008 levels.

Also, by committing before the event to holding it at the same facility again in 2010, MAGS was able to lock in 2009 room rates, as well as this year’s room and food and beverage minimums, for next year.

Numbers down but profits up

Not unexpectedly, the numbers for the 2009 conference were down from the year before: Registrations this year totaled 174, compared to 243 in 2008. But these were almost in line with the board’s projections, and the percentage decline was considerably lower than the average 60 percent drop in association event attendance this year that was recently reported by True North Consulting.

By projecting attendance and revenue conservatively and cutting costs aggressively, MAGS cleared a profit of more than $15,000 on its conference this year, shaving conference expenses by a total of more than $37,000.

According to Sadler, those who attended the conference didn’t seem to mind the no-frills approach. “Everybody realizes what’s going on with the economy and industry and I don’t think anyone expected another Ritz experience this year,” he says. “We received lots of positive comments from attendees about the overall quality of the sessions and the speakers.

“Our members really seemed to appreciate the fact that not only did we host a conference this year, but that we were good stewards with the association’s money and resources,” Sadler continues. “This stewardship and the financial success of the conference have helped lay a firm foundation for MAGS in the upcoming year.”

Read “Trade Shows Evolve” in the January 2010 issue for more on how other organizations are adapting — and benefitting — from downsizing, as well as other trade show trends.

When event stakeholders request a comprehensive ROI analysis, where do you begin? It may seem challenging to determine ROI for a new event or even for a program you’ve been planning for 10 years. The first step is a basic one: Determine your event’s essential objectives and plan every aspect of the program according to these goals. For example, if you’re planning a trade show to educate attendees about the health benefits of locally grown food, then these educational objectives should be the basis for planning your program content. From selecting a keynote speaker who is an expert in organic farming to booking exhibitors who adhere to sustainability standards, every element should contribute to your key objectives.

While education is the main goal of many meetings, showing financial ROI is usually an objective of every program. If your goal is to make a certain profit percentage, then your expenditures can be negotiated and tweaked throughout the planning process to meet this goal. If you need a certain number of attendees to achieve your revenue objective, then your marketing plan should be aligned to generate this volume.

It is also important to prioritize your objectives based on the needs and wants of your attendees and stakeholders. For many association and specialty meetings, the objective is to simply break even or have enough money reserved at the end of the event to plan for next year. While the objective isn’t to lose money, it may be more important to generate audience exposure for your niche activity than to make a substantial profit. Education and awareness are then prioritized as the main ROI while financial objectives are secondary.

Basic financial goals are easily tracked through your operating budget. A post-event analysis could be a simple profit and loss spreadsheet or a more detailed graphing of the rise and fall of expenditures and income throughout the planning process. For trade shows where exhibitor fees are a large revenue contributor, the planner might create a pie chart showing the percentage of income from exhibitor booths versus attendee admission fees and other areas of income. Line charts are ideal for events that take a year to execute and have a seasonal quality. This analysis will show which months the most revenue is generated, allowing the planner to spread out payment of expenses accordingly.

These charts and graphs can be created from an existing Microsoft Excel budget format. Simply highlight the information you want to graph and insert your desired chart type. You can customize the graph’s color, style and legend information to match the design of your overall report.

Determining ROI becomes more challenging when the objective is intangible. It is more difficult to attach a value to the goal of customer relationship building than it is to determine the ROI of a budget number. With the latter, you either met the financial goal or you didn’t; the performance percentage will show by how much you came over or under in accomplishing the goal. With the former, it is more challenging to attach a numeric value to the customer’s future likelihood of making a purchase or following through on an association’s goal based on the relationships they formed at the event.

When the ROI is less tangible, surveying attendee and customer responses immediately after the event and at multiple times during a sales cycle will provide quantitative results. Ask attendees if the event contributed to their decision or response now, in six months or within the next year. These responses can then be graphed as percentages, similar to the tracking of tangible budget numbers.

If your ROI reporting determines that you did not meet all or some of your objectives, it is important to analyze areas that didn’t work and submit solutions for improving these elements for next year’s program. If you find that some goals were not met due to internal challenges, interview all team members – staff, committee leaders and volunteers – to gain insight for future improvements. Summarize the feedback from all event stakeholders into an “Executive Summary” that will open the narrative portion of your ROI report. It will be easiest to write the summary after you’ve performed the statistical analysis. You can then include the overall performance percentages in this introduction.

The last step is inserting visual documentation of your event. From photos of the exhibit floor to the line at the registration desk, document every element that might need to be reviewed and changed for future programs. If you sell sponsorships to your event, take a picture of each company’s trade show booth and insert it into their proposal for next year. Document the design and placement of signage to assist in changing themes from year to year. Elements of your ROI report can then be customized for each sponsor to show the value of their financial contribution.

Review your report at multiple intervals as you plan the next event. Even if the program is different, you can apply the experience of crafting objectives and analyzing solutions. Your ROI report then becomes a template for planning successful events.

• Cut breakfast and do a more lavish dinner. Or cancel lunch and encourage attendees to experience the community or the venue’s on-site restaurants.

• Downsize meals. Serve lunch portions for dinner. Everyone is cutting back and calorie conscious these days anyway.

• One planner suggested talking to the behind-the-scenes hotel staff for some great, cheap eating spots. She arranged an impromptu lunch outdoors with the help of a taco-cart vendor recommended by the hotel’s housekeeping staff.

• Another planner invited attendees to create their own “haute dogs,” providing a selection from turkey dogs to Polish sausages with an array of toppings.

• If the property has a specialty coffee shop, cut out the coffee during the morning break, especially if you’re serving a continental breakfast before the program starts.

• Cut pastries and snacks in half to make them go further and cut down on waste. Carb-conscious attendees will do it anyway. At one recent event, the giant cookies were broken into halves and quarters by attendees.

• Giorgi Di Lemis, vice president of corporate F&B for Gaylord Hotels, suggests planners move away from lengthy meals to more action stations, where attendees can mingle and sample. At a recent event, Gaylord Hotels showcased regional samplings from its four resorts with fried alligator sliders, portobello mushroom sliders, crab sliders and Kobe beef burger sliders.

• Comfort food continues to be a crowd pleaser—creamy mac and cheese and local fare, like fried green tomatoes or Boston baked beans with brown bread.

• Chefs are moving from primary cuts to secondary cuts, creating new twists on forgotten recipes—shanks, presented with fresh herbs and root vegetables. Bold flavors at a lower cost are a winning combination.

• Use themes to stretch your meeting budget, incorporating inexpensive props and decorations. One example: Cheap, plastic mirrors were placed in envelopes and taped to the underside of chair seats as a surprise gift to reinforce the event’s message—“Look at Yourself First.” Another idea: Inexpensive, bright fabric was stretched over two chairs around the meeting room, creating a colorful atmosphere and delivering the meeting’s message—“Working Together to Stretch Budgets”—as soon as attendees entered.

• Use your theme at the table, too, says creative consultant Dianne Devitt. She works with the caterer or chef to put together a color-coordinate meal that is showy and memorable, yet inexpensive. For breakfast for a meeting of women, she suggests raspberry oatmeal, strawberry pancakes and cranberry yogurt parfaits.

• Create multiuse settings. Instead of going to three different venues for meals or events, create three different experiences using the same room. Design the room for breakfast, turn it over for lunch and again for dinner. Inexpensive lighting and props can create dramatic effects.

• If you’re meeting in a hotel, ask about plants, linens and other items the hotel will let you use at no charge.

• Instead of a sit-down dinner, have a buffet dinner with games.

• For a 1950s theme, one planner found diner booths that were cheaper to rent than exhibit booths, used a juke box to play 50s music, and gave away pies, along with bottles of Orange Crush and root beer.

• For an inexpensive teambuilding activity, supply attendees with dried pasta and marshmallows (mini- and regular-size) to build towers.

• Create a chef’s tour for a spousal group; have them accompany the chef to the local marketplace as he picks out the ingredients for the event’s main dinner.

• Offer smoothies with protein powder between sessions, rather than the usual sweet treats.

• Thumb through home decorating and fashion magazines to see what colors and patterns are hot now.

• Movies and television shows provide easy, popular theme ideas.

• Go green by using online registration forms, document downloads, e-mailed bar-coded receipts that can be printed and presented at the door, and post-conference electronic surveys. All save paper, costs and time. You’ll be helping the environment and employing new technology—a marketing bonus that appeals to attendees, especially younger groups.

• Ask attendees to be green and bring their own bags for collecting handouts and goodies.

• Have fun! Most planners we talked with agreed that the challenge of being more frugal and creative was fun. While they might miss the spa events and built-in conveniences of resorts, they were energized by the back-to-basics attitude required by today’s economy. Your attendees will be, too.