The Devil's in the Details

By the time you read this posting, we'll have just returned from our trip to Baltimore, MD and several days of "final walk-thru" meetings with all the various partners, hosts, suppliers and coordinators of our upcoming 2010 National Sports Forum conference (www.sports-forum.com). It won't be long now – in fact, we're just about exactly three months away from "Show Time"!

This will be my second trip into Baltimore in advance of our annual conference/trade show. And the reason why is that we want to make sure that EVERY DETAIL that we can think of has been taken care of. Oh sure – stuff always comes up. Always will. But as the headline above says: "The Devil's in the Details". We want to do everything we can to make sure that there are no surprises come our third and final trip into Baltimore next January.

And these details affect not only those operational components for our event – but making sure that all the special needs our sponsors are going to require are addressed and taken care of. Budweiser, for example – is our senior-most sponsor and they sponsor probably our highest traffic'd event, The Budweiser Gala. Got to make sure that the big details as well as the "little" details have been taken care of. (For instance, we'll be making arrangements to have all of Budweiser's competitor's tap handles removed from the hotel and at M&T Bank Stadium – the site of the Budweiser Gala.) We can't have Bud's competitor's stadium signs taken down, but we would if we could.

Another one of our sponsor's just signed a major sponsorship deal with one of the club's hosting us in B'more. We want to make sure that their new "product" is featured as part of the Stadium tour. One of our exhibitors, Fan Cans, supplies special "themed" trash cans for the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Well ... since they're an exhibitor of ours … we'll want to make sure that their trash cans are prominently featured around the stadium that our attendees will all see during the Budweiser Gala tour.

Yes we have to make sure the buses are on site when needed ... and that the Printer has all of our copy for the Official Program ... but to this, we'll be keeping our sponsor's interests equally forefront in mind when we conduct our final walk-thru. No surprises makes for happy sponsors. (And happy sponsors renew!)

See you when we get back!