How your guests’ eventiquette impacts event attendance
A large portion of guests aren’t au fait with the do’s and don’ts when it comes to events. Guests who chop and change their minds – either accepting your invitation, knowing full well that they won’t attend your event – or who decline and then change their mind at the last minute and arrive – wreak havoc on your event. Catering to an event attendance rate that’s suddenly different to the number you were working with isn’t just stressful, but costly too.
Guests who don’t arrive at an event negatively affect the entire event budget.
Failing to attend an event impacts on every single facet of an events budget. The costs of the venue, entertainment, décor and guest speakers are impacted by your event attendance rates too. Few guests realise that their non-attendance is costly, and feel entitled to change their mind at the very last minute.
The RSVP Agency deals with this by calling or SMSing guests a few days prior to the event. We’ll contact guests to confirm their dietary requirements, in the hope that guests will then realise that their presence has already been paid for. While this isn’t clear to all guests, it does assist in safeguarding against fewer no-shows.
Besides having people who accept and then don’t pitch up, many people decline, only to arrive.
What’s more, a surprising amount of people will bring an entourage or a plus one – even when the invitation explicitly stated that the invite was for one person only. This can be an incredibly embarrassing scenario for the client, which means that it’s best to always be prepared for any eventuality. Guests fail to realise that their unexpected arrival can have serious consequences with regards to health and safety.
If ten guests arrive, each with a partner, but your venue is already at capacity, the safety of everyone else is jeopardised. In addition, this could result in your event insurance being deemed null and void. The RSVP Agency has dealt with similar scenarios countless times. We know that there will always be a last minute change in event attendance, and are prepared to handle these changes in a way that’s professional and discreet.
Valuable data can be gleaned from your projected event attendance and actual event attendance.
Years of RSVP management have taught us that there’s value in the information gathered about guest attendance both prior and post-event. It’s therefore crucial that you’re using a service like ours in order to gain invaluable insight into your guests. Some people might have a legitimate reason for accepting an invitation but then fail to attend, while others are merely being impolite.
We’ll call the people who didn’t show up at an event the next day in order to establish the reason for their absence. If they were genuinely unable to attend, we’ll know to send them a copy of the presentation, and notify our client that condolences or ‘get well soon’ wishes are due. If, on the other hand, they didn’t attend because they had a change of heart, it can be helpful to the guest to see that their non-attendance didn’t go unnoticed – which will hopefully propel them to refrain from repeating this behaviour.
There will always be guests who are discourteous – make sure you have a professional RSVP company to deal with them.
Unfortunately, there will always be a contingent of guests who upset the apple cart as far as event attendance is concerned. As we’ve said before, assume nothing about your event attendance in order to be able to cater to last minute event attendance rates.
Ensuring that your guests are aware of the impact of their non-attendance (or attendance) is a sensitive task, which is why corporate events need to be handled by a professional RSVP management agency.
Image Credit:The Centre
