hibit fees, advertising income, and “services-in-kind” agreements
with suppliers. All these efforts should be under the direction of
the marketer and should be coordinated to fulfill the financial
commitment the association staff has made to its board of direc-
tors. If a convention, for example, loses money, the association
staff may be highly criticized for using dues and other funds to
make up the difference and pay the convention bills. The effect of
this is that monies intended for other purposes are being used to
subsidize an event that not every dues-paying member can attend.
The political issues are obvious.
Attendance provides still another stark contrast between most
corporate and association events, and one that is simple to under-
stand. When a corporation has a new product sales conference, for
example, the sales staff is told to be there. The marketing effort
here is to convey the message and purpose of the event, but not to
encourage attendance. The boss will do that.
Attendance at association meetings is as voluntary as the invi-
tees themselves. They will decide whether to spend the time and
money to attend. No one can force them to come. As a result, the
marketing team’s primary responsibility is to use all the marketing
disciplines described throughout this text to generate attendance
and participation in all the event’s components. Without atten-
dance by an enthusiastic, excited audience, the quality of the
event itself becomes academic.
The same can be said of the events’ functions themselves. In
the case of corporate meetings, participants are generally required
to show up at all events. It is not unusual for the company to mon-
itor employee attendance at seminars, new product introductions
and descriptions, or sales meetings and discussion groups. They
attend as part of their job responsibilities. Therefore, function par-
ticipation is mandatory by the nature of official corporate meeting
components. The attendees are being paid to attend, just as they
are paid to be in their offices on certain days. This means that
rooms will be full, guarantees will be precise and achieved, bud-
gets will be accurately estimated, and the schedule tightly
controlled.
Associations are voluntary. Their attendees are paying a regis-
tration fee to attend and can essentially participate in event func-
tions to as little or great a degree as they wish. Food and beverage
guarantees will carry much more guess work (and a great deal
Defining the Differences 133