What made you smile today?

With your documentation (bless your record keeping heart) I say threaten to sue. If they still won't honor their contract, follow through on it. Business only works when you can depend on contracts and spoken agreements.

A threat to sue sometime in the future does you no good if your event is impending. I would park my butt in their office (with a good book) and demand to see the boss. You want the space you contracted for. Don't leave until the cops haul you away in handcuffs...or until they come up with another offer.

Yes, connection; it's a need that people rarely acknowledge.

Tell them you've already made known to your many friends in the event planning industry this location's questionable and unreliable practices and would love to be able to tell your friends how willing the facility manager was to correct the mistake and make things whole for everyone.

Tell them you would like to work things out in order to not have to resort to suing to recoup your losses. Tell them you want them to pay for any difference in costs for the new location, extra costs for changes in catering and wait-staff reservations, the costs of reprinting and mailing invitations with the new location, sending out corrected press releases, and any other added costs you will incur, such as having someone posted at the old location at the time of the event to redirect people to the new location.

Tell them you'll go to the press if they don't make things right. Surely there's some sort of a crusading consumer affairs reporter in Columbus. Probably a few of 'em. Drop their names. Here, we'd say, "I'm gonna make a visit to Hank Phillippi Ryan. I bet she could fit in the story of how difficult you were on the six o'clock news."

Thanks guys. That did make me smile, all that rushing to my defense, I appreciate it.

I still have not decided what I'm going to do. Here are some of the factors, though:

- We had no idea, when we started planning this, how many people we would get. 60-120 is the range for this kind of event, depending on a whole lot of things. I wanted to allow for 120 if possible. However, there were a lot of competing private events (like a wedding we didn't know about that was scheduled a year ago), and we have only sold about 60 tickets.

- The original venue carried a minimum food order to get the space free. That minimum was well above what we earned from ticket sales, meaning this event would be in the red. (Next event, I'm getting corporate sponsorship first. But that's not how this organization has done things in the past and I went with tradition. I have the corp sponsor for the next event all lined up and everything tho.)

- The new location would fit the size of the event better, and they've waived the minimum -- making the food order more commensurate with how many attendees we expect -- so we stand to break even and maybe even make a profit. It also has a natural stage area, which was a problem I was dealing with for the other location (needed a stage, and getting a stage is expensive). It's a nice location that would cost $500 normally, a cost that they're absorbing.

- I have 'em on their heels in terms of negotiation. Basically, there are three people involved. They are partners in a catering and event co. Those three people are: the main person I've been dealing with, who I'll call Abbie; her husband, "Bert"; and a third partner, "Craig." Bert called me last night to break the news that Craig had booked another party for the location. Abbie is extremely apologetic and is claiming (as of this a.m.) that she just found out. Abbie is doing things like throwing in free beverages and saying her staff can help take care of notifying people, including going to their houses if need be (deaf attendees means harder to reach).


So, at this point, I'm tending towards going with the new location and negotiating the heck out of things. But nothing is decided for sure yet. I go see the new location in just a bit, will know more after that.

Anyway, thanks for the defense-rushing and sympathy.

Oh absolutely. Use it to your advantage -- they don't need to know that it works out better for you anyway. It sounds like one of those dern blessings in disguise after all.

Taking the day off.

I would suggest though, Soz, that you appreciate that some of us occasionally screw-up. It sounds like A+B+C did and they have acknowledged that.
You could milk that for all it is worth.
I would be inclined to work out something that makes your event successful without coming across as mean. Next time you have an event, if A+B+C have a shot at arranging it, they will remember your decency.

low 70's + sunny in southie today...

That's pretty much what happened. I milked it but we parted on good terms. I got a LOT of concessions which probably (the final numbers haven't been tallied, waiting for my treasurer) means that the event at least broke even rather than ending up in the red.

Oh and the event space turned out to be very, very nice. A bunch of attendees asked me about it (cost etc.), they were thinking of using it for their own events.

I did get several cancellations but they reimbursed us for those.

Overall the event went fine, I got some very good feedback, there are things I wasn't happy about but it wasn't a travesty and was never meant to be a big money-earner (more of a transitional event between one model and another).

And I smiled HUGE when the whole thing was over. Whew.

Butrflynet and I smiled big time because our recently repaired windows survived the hurricane-like winds without any damage that are moving across the country.

BBB

Glad it turned out well. However, as an event planner, there's no way I'd give them another chance with a future event. They booked YOUR space for a bigger event, to make more money for themselves. Totally unacceptable. Totally unethical.

Still, sounds like it worked out in your favor, so I'm glad you can smile.

I woke up feeling sad and hopeless but after talking with two friends on the phone, and laughing about this and that, I realize that it's only the gloomy weather and once the sun comes out tomorrow, everything will look much brighter.

When looking through 6,000 books and all the other hundreds of bit and pieces ... I found a mao of Russia (from 1941/2) where my father noted the places he'd been during the war.

That makes it a lot easier to allocate hundreds of letters he wrote to my mother during that time.
(Unfortunately, it doesn't make it easier to decipher them - though he was only a medical corps sergeant in those days, his handwriting was already "doctor-analogously".)

.... that I re-found after more than 35 years about 100 LPs and singles I owned (when clearing my late mother's house).

What a wonderful find. I love those old albums.

Butrflynet and I took Dolly and Madison doggies to the vet yesterday for a checkup. Both are fine. Madison should lose a pound or two.

BBB

A root canal.

Because your tooth no longer hurts?