The following are useful for planning meetings, events, or tradshows.  Bookmark this page to have this as a handy reference for your future meetings and events.

Break Even Analysis Calculator

Budget Development Worksheet

Exhibit Terminology

Food and Beverage Planning Tips

Glossary of Meeting Terms

Hotel Safety Tips

Meal Function Checklist

Meeting Planner Sample Timeline

As a host, keeping your guests from drinking excessively should be your primary concern.
Here are some tips you can put into practice to make your next event a safe one:

Tip 1
Event Policies & Procedures

Develop event policies and procedures, ensuring they are clear, positive and easy to update.

Some suggestions are:

Do risk assessment guidelines and post policies in a visible place review policies with staff/volunteers.  This will ensure your staff / volunteers are clear on how to deal with aggressive, unruly, intoxicated guests and understand what is expected of them.

Some policies should include things like not allowing staff/volunteers to drink on the job, ensuring that staff/volunteers are of legal age to serve alcohol and are trained to deal with difficult situations. Providing for adequate guest-to-staff ratio – have enough staff on duty to ensure the safety of your customers. Dealing with underage guests, including how to recognize and deal with false ID

Under the “Occupiers Liability”, both the organizers of the event and the operator of the location are jointly responsible for ensuring that the facility meets health and safety requirements.  Both the permit holder and the facility owner could be sued for failing to ensure that the premises are safe for both sober and intoxicated guests.

Tip 2
Have a Floor Plan

Station the bar far from the door, in a spot where people aren't always passing it Even for a small event, hire a professional bartender who has been trained by Smart Serve.  Insist that he or she use a jigger to measure spirits.  If your budget allows, hire a caterer with trained staff.  Caterers can include both independent operators and restaurants that carry catering endorsements. Provide seating, arranged flexibly, so that people can sit down to talk in groups Don't plan to have servers circulating around the room refilling people's glasses.  People often accept drinks they don't really need. Don't plan physical activities like swimming, skiing, snowmobile or skating when you serve alcohol.  People are more prone to accidents when they've been drinking. If you will be holding a large event, arrange for some type of door control to limit the number of people who enter your event.  Do not allow the number of guests to exceed the legal capacity of the premises.

Tip 3
Develop safe serving practices

Serve drinks to guests rather than offering a self-serve bar.  A self-serve bar encourages heavy drinking and denies bartenders the opportunity to assess the condition of your guests. If you have a cash bar, use tickets, do not sell multiple tickets to one guests, do not set the price of alcohol too low since this will encourage heavy drinking, make sure you have low-alcohol beers and wines in your bar selections and offer a variety of alcohol-free drinks.

Place water, soda, juice and ice at stations around the room so that people can easily “freshen” their drinks without adding more alcohol.  Check the identification of people you suspect are under 19 years of age.  Never serve minors.  In addition to being illegal, inexperienced drinkers are most likely to drive irresponsibly and cause accidents. Stop serving alcohol at least one hour before the scheduled end of the party. Continue serving food and non-alcohol beverages instead.

Lead by example.  Don't point out the bar to each arriving guest.  Take the attitude that cocktails are simply one form of refreshment, and that alcohol free drinks are just as acceptable.

Tip 4
Provide plenty of food

Provide a variety of food items, because food consumption slows down the absorption of alcohol. Place hors d'oeuvres / snack items on a table near the door, so people can begin to nibble as soon as they arrive, and before they have a drink. Don't serve a lot of salty snacks.  These make people thirstier so they will likely try to quench the thirst with alcohol, instead of water or soft drinks. Select hot and cold items as well as some foods that don't require any special temperature - like baked goods and snack mixes.  Limit food safety concerns by always keeping cold foods cold, and hot foods hot.

Tip 5
Managing Risk

Licensees, managers and special event organizers have both a legal and practical duty to ensure their guests drink responsibly, to manage risk, prepare and follow a risk management plan.

The key elements of such a plan are:

Ensure all staff (including volunteers at a social event) are trained. Familiarize yourself with the current provincial laws as well as the Liquor License Act have a Smart Serve Incident Reporting Log on hand to record details of all guest incidents investigate alternatives to driving for guests leaving your event, such as designated driver programs, subsidized taxis, local transit.

Acquire adequate insurance coverage and any necessary permits conduct a safety inspection of the premises develop an emergency action plan, which includes a chain of command and post it at obvious places on the premises communicate the risk management plan and the emergency action plan to all staff.

Planning a picnic, wedding, fun run, or other special event? Don't leave overflowing garbage cans behind at the end of the day. The California Integrated Waste Management Board and the California Department of Conservation, Division of Recycling have come up with some easy things you can do right away to reduce and recycle waste at your event. You may even save money while helping the environment. A list of helpful contacts is provided at the bottom of this page.

Six Simple Tips

Design for Waste Reduction and Recycling: Plan for food menu and event decorations to leave less waste and allow recycling and composting of leftovers. Select “finger foods” that can be served in just a napkin, like a hot dog or burrito, or use food as serving containers, like a salad served in a cut fresh melon. Use live greens and plants for decorations. Consider renting washable/reusable plates, cups, serviceware, and linen rather than throwaways.

Choose entertainment and games that produce little or no waste. Save paper by printing invitations or registration forms on both sides; better yet, e-mail them and also save postage. For reoccurring events, make banners and signs that can be used again. Hire event managers and caterers who do “minimum waste events,” and write recycling tasks into all contracts with vendors and concessionaires. See your event facility manager, waste hauler, or local government officials for advice on pick-up services for recyclables and compostable materials. Most waste haulers or a local service club will take your recyclables at no charge.
 

Purchase Wisely: Purchase supplies in bulk-sized containers to reduce packaging waste. Choose products with very little or no packaging. Buy things in packaging that can be recycled. Rent—don't buy—equipment and tools. Ask for deliveries like bread in returnable trays. Precut vegetables and meat save time and leave less waste. Ask your recycler and composter for a list of acceptable products to guide you in shopping. For example, when buying single use products, such as cups, plates, bowls, bags, napkins, towels, and food wrappers, don't choose nonrecyclable plastics, styrofoam, and metal or plastic coated papers. Instead, pick products made from paper or cardboard so they can be composted. Close the recycling loop by making sure the products you buy are made with recycled materials.
 

Recycle: Typical materials to collect include beverage bottles and cans and cardboard. Plan ahead to donate leftover unserved food, paper napkins, plates, condiments, and decorations to local food banks and charities. Contact your facility manager, waste hauler, or local government for advice on other materials to collect and the loan or rent of recycling collection containers. For best results, be sure to put a well-marked recycling collection can next to each trashcan. Using clear plastic bags as can liners makes it easy to check for unrecyclable waste.
 

Compost: Typical materials for compost are kitchen scraps and plate scrapings. Most composters will also accept paper or “bio-plastic” plates and cups, lawn and leaf clippings, and recyclable paper and wax-coated boxes mixed in. Be sure to keep large amounts of plastic and any glass out of the compost mix or the composter cannot accept it.
 

Switch to Nontoxic Cleaners: Avoid cleaning products made with hazardous chemicals. Look for products marked “biodegradable” or “nontoxic” when buying dish detergent, disinfectants, toilet bowl cleaners, drain cleaner, floor wash, polish, glass cleaners, and laundry detergent. Reduce your use of bug killers and insect foggers at outdoor events.
 

Educate Event Workers and Guests: Tell guests about your “green event” and ask for their help in making it a success by recycling right. Train all your event staff and volunteers in how to reduce waste and collect the recyclables. Celebrate your success by announcing during the event, and in thank you notes later, how much waste was kept out of the landfill.

Limo Rental Tips

It's always best to have the limousine or Sedan service provide proof of insurance before you rent a limo.

Does the limousine service belong to any organizations like the National Limousine Organization?

How many limos does the company have or own?

Find Chicago's Planner Preferred Limo and Sedan companies on Hereschicago.com, Chicago's Meetings and Special Events Directory

Southern California is home to some of the nation’s biggest attractions. One more unique attraction has been found in Laguna Beach, who is dealing with intoxicated pelicans.

On Thursday, June 26, a pelican crashed through a car windshield on Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, CA, with suspicion of being drunk. Other pelicans have been suspected of public inebriation by how they were found in local backyards or wandering in a daze.

The pelicans are suspected to have eaten poisonous algae. The algae contain a domoic acid, which alters the bird's state of mind. Authorities are waiting for the results from the bird's blood tests which will take about three weeks.

Some Important Disclaimers that you should know about the Alexa Ranking system.  I know that a few internet advertising/publishing companies that use their Alexa Ranking as a benefit of advertising.  However, the Alexa Ranking is a small sample of the total internet population and really doesnt make sense to advertise to a sample of the internet population, does it?

Here are some important things you should know about the “Alexa Ranking”.   

1. The Alexa traffic data is based on toolbars that users download onto their desktops.  Not many people have these toolbars on their desktops, do you?

2. The following sentence is directly from the Alexa website “Alexa data, which may not be a representative sample of the global Internet population is only a small population of users that have an Alexa Toolbar installed on their website.

3. Alexa's data come from a sample of Alexa Toolbar users ONLY; this is not large enough to accurately determine the rankings of sites.

4. Generally, Traffic Rankings of 100,000+ should be regarded as not reliable because the amount of data Alexa receives is not statistically significant.

So, next time any internet advertising company shows you their Alexa Ranking, let them know it is a very small few people that have participated in installing a tool bar on their desktops to count toward the Alexa Traffic Ranking.  And, it is a very small sample of the internet population to make a decision on value for your advertising dollar. 

The “windy city” was rockin’ as Hard Rock Cafe Chicago celebrated its 20^th anniversary with an event that will go down in music history.  On Monday, June 12, the Chicago cafe hosted an exclusive 20^th birthday party, featuring a live performance by legendary rock group Styx, known for the hits, “Renegade,” “Miss America” and “Too Much Time On My Hands.”  Hard Rock Cafe Chicago continued to rock through the night with a V.I.P. after-party at Hard Rock Hotel Chicago. You can not take for granted the amount of fun you can have at the Hard Rock cafe Chicago.  I attended the event and took the following photos to share with you.    

Photos Courtesy of Hereschicago.com

Visit Hard Rock Cafe Chicago. Hard Rock Cafe Chicago is a Planner Preferred Vendor Restaurant on Hereschicago.com and guaranteed to show your group a unique special event in Chicago!

Author, Jim Grillo, CMP, General Manager of Online DMC, Inc. and Hereschicago.com, Chicago's Meetings and Special Events Directory.  Hard Rock Cafe Chicago is a Planner Preferred Vendor of Hereschicago.com.

Photos Courtesy of Hereschicago.com

Jay Emerich is one of the original pioneers of Rush Street's hot spots including Jay's of Rush Street and the world famous nightclub “FACES”. 

After forty years in the business, Jay Emerich decided to retire, which lasted all of six months.  His dream of owning a charming upscale Italian restaurant and lounge has now become a reality. Yes, he's done it again and celebrating his grand opening with Jay's Amore Ristorante and Lounge!

Jay's Amore Ristorante and Lounge is located at 1330 W. Madison and is conveniently located near all major downtown hotels.

Jay's Executive Chef chooses only the finest ingredients to prepare his incredible dishes, such as Veal Saltambocca, Chicken Marsala several Pasta and Seafood dishes and much more.  Not one dish pales in comparison to another. And let us not forget the “Jay's Amore” signature dessert HOMEMADE TIRAMASU!  

Jay's Amore Ristorante and Lounge is a Planner Preferred Restaurant on Hereschicago.com

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Picnics In Chicago (PIC) provides fantastic interactive, all-inclusive outdoor or indoor picnic packages at the best venues throughout the Chicagoland area. PIC also delivers you with a highly engaging and entertaining environment for employees and families of all ages. Bring your employees together for a private interactive picnic (indoor or outdoor), barbeque or softball tournament that is truly a unique experience. Enhance employee morale, camaraderie and goodwill; enhance relationships between families and provide an event that delivers a much higher value than a traditional summer picnic. During the week or on the weekend, WCF caters to all demographic groups - children, 20 to 30 yr olds, adults and seniors.

Picnics in Chicago is a Planner Preferred Vendor of Hereschicago.com, Chicago’s Meetings and Special Events Directory featuring special event venues, services indoor and outdoor picnic facilities.

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Chicago's most luxurious cruising vessel has recently undergone its most spectacular renovation ever. This elegant vessel offers three climate-controlled decks and an outdoor observation deck. Odyssey Cruises provides a unique setting through personalized service, distinctive cuisine, live music, and spectacular views of the world famous Chicago skyline. Lunch, Dinner, Moonlight Jazz Cruises, and Weekend Brunch Cruises are available.

Odyssey Cruises is a Planner Preferred Vendor of Hereschicago.com, Chicago's Meetings and Special Events Directory.