Kingstad Meeting & Events

Courtesy of conworld.net – the Global Meetings Industry Portal:

“At AIBTM in Baltimore, Meeting Professionals International(MPI) released the Business Value of Meetings study which identifies key benchmarks in the measurement of the business value of meetings including: percentage of businesses who measure, barriers to implementation, crucial programming elements for organizational success and key skills needed for personal success.

The study is available for download here.

“This research enables our members and industry colleagues for the first time to assess their own practices against established, global benchmarks,” said Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of MPI.

“We now have the critical data to direct the development of tools and resources our professional community needs to speak the language of business and advance best practices in value measurement.”

The study, conducted by Association Insights, was funded through an investment by AIBTM into the MPI Foundation’s Thought Leadership program last year.”

What’s the business value of your meetings?

I’ve recently had some friends that are thinking about going off on their own because they feel unfulfilled in their corporate jobs. The reasons vary, but the common theme is that they’re at an age where they feel they want to do something where they make more of a difference and they’ll feel more valuable. Isn’t that what we all yearn for? To feel valuable.

As a free agent myself, I’m finding a great deal of fulfillment and value in putting my experience to work helping people find the right solutions  for their challenge. In hindsight (which of course is always 20/20 right?) when I had my own business, I was mostly trying to convince my potential customers that we had the solution for them and that we could make it work. And it often did. But sometimes it didn’t and they’d end up not choosing us.

As a free agent, with being able to offer my clients such a wide variety of choices, I now help people find the perfect fit every time. In this way, I feel that I bring value to both my clients and the vendors that I work with. Very fulfilling, and very liberating.

We recently helped a client place a three day program for a 150 person conference at a downtown venue. In sending out requests for proposals to some different AV providers for the group’s AV needs, we experienced something truly remarkable:

The three bids came back with a substantial difference in pricing, although we sent the exact same information to all three companies:

Bid # 1 – $1,750.
Bid # 2 – $3,900.
Bid # 3 – $9,650.

WOW! What a range in prices!!

The client eventually chose Bid # 2 as they were able to offer the level of quality and service the client was after. But it re-affirmed a lesson my father taught me at a young age – ALWAYS GET THREE BIDS!

Eric Kingstad is pleased to announce the formation of Kingstad Meetings & Events, a professional services firm that offers an efficient one stop service for booking facilities and services for meetings and events throughout the Pacific Northwest. With hundreds of partner facilities and service providers throughout the area, Kingstad can meet the needs of almost every client and budget.

Kingstad also offers assistance in connecting with professional event and conference planning, production, management and consultation. And with extensive experience in facility and destination management, Kingstad offers consulting services for facilities and venues needing management services and assistance.

Eric Kingstad was the founder and CEO of Kingstad Meeting Centers for sixteen years. Kingstad Meeting Centers was a chain of conference and event centers in Portland and Seattle that focused on small meetings and events for the local markets. Eric is a 30 year veteran of the meetings and events industry, having spent 13 years with Marriott Hotels & Resorts, as well as two stints at Convention Bureaus in Oregon. Kingstad also owned the Kingstad Center, a large arts center in Beaverton that featured the largest art gallery in Portland, and showcased hundreds of live performances of music, comedy and theater on it’s three stages.