Simple Cost Savings: Staff Meals
Event planners are always trying to shave the conference budgets, and in this economy every penny counts.
A small, but often frivolous expense can be found by reviewing a summary of your room service tab - you may find you have more than one Room Service Foodie on payroll. Staff, often exhausted, and vendors or speakers who are given permission to order food can create very large bills without meaning to do so. You've been there before - all you want to do is go back to your room at the end of a 16 hour day - not visit the hotel restaurant for 45 minutes.
Three simple solutions come to mind to lower this cost. A classy option is to provide generous gift baskets (or a "supply kits") that include crackers, cheese, fruit, granola bars, water bottles, and maybe wine in the rooms of those who are "on the tab".
Another option, provide your vendors/AV teams with the same meal as your four hundred guests. You can do this before the event starts or set up a staff room with several options, perhaps set as a buffet, in a pleasant "private room." They'll probably enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and the option to stop in that room for a quick bite/drink before heading up to bed.
You can also add your own health bars and candy to the staff break room, as well as provide plenty of pitchers of water (rather than $$ bottles) to save a few more dollars.
If you have 10-50 on staff, these little measures add up. Have other ideas? Please SHARE them on the new SHARE Section. Avoir.
budget savers, conferences, staff meals in Corporate Conferences 
Reader Comments (1)
I agree with what you say.
I would like to add two more ideas:
- Closely related to what you say: in the restaurant/catering I work in, we get either the rests or if we have to eat before the night, the chefs prepare some food with what is left from the preparation of the nights menu. We are quite happy with that as its good food, no matter what it is made of, these options are free so to say.
- If you are having a non-food event, you might just be happy with a buffet. Ask your local Dominos for a deal for instance. Often you can offer an all you can eat buffet for less than £5 per person and people will be more than happy. If I have events with 20 people staff or less, I tend to do this buffet myself. Some salad, some pasta sauces (veg, non-veg), a wee dessert, bread, water in pitchers and you're set. And for £100, it will become easy to cater 20 people.
However, I would suggest not to save money in a way your staff gets low-quality or untasty food. If your staff is happy, your customers will notice that.