4 Clauses to Re-Examine in Your Meeting Contract

As if convention and exhibition planners don’t have enough things coming at them, there’s this: On average in 2023, 45 percent of conference attendees delayed registering until four weeks or less before an event, with 20 percent registering between one and 14 days out.

That’s according to a new Registrations Insights Report from Maritz that examined 360,000 attendee registrations across 30 trade shows over the past few years. (Read a detailed analysis of the report here.)

This registration trend complicates the work of planners as they negotiate contracts for room blocks at hotels. Barbara Dunn, partner at Chicago-based law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP, represents many nonprofit groups and trade associations in their dealings with hotels and venues; she says the Maritz data comports with what her clients are seeing.

Here are the 4 clauses to re-examine:

1. 30-day room-release cutoff
2. New baselines for calculating attrition
3. Pre-paid attrition
4. The right to dispute charges

Read the full article from MeetingsNet to learn about each of these clauses and what you need to be on the lookout for.