- Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode
of #eventicons, where we get to chat with the
icons of the event industry.
My name is Audrey Gallien, and I'm going to be
the host for today's session.
So thank you again for joining us.
Today we're going to be talking about
all things transportation at events.
And I'm going to tell you exactly what that means
in a couple seconds, so let's go ahead and jump right in.
- [Narrator] It's Wednesday at 5:00 PM Eastern,
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It's time for another episode of #eventicons
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Now, without any further delay, this is #eventicons.
- Welcome again to today's show.
We're talking about transportation at events.
Transportation is key to an event's success,
either creating or easing the stress for our
participants, as we know.
And from the time you enter an unfamiliar city,
knowing how to get from point A to point B
or at the very least knowing where to get to
place to place is such an important part
of the event experience, bottom line.
And we can talk about incentive levels.
Transportation can be a differentiator
and it can be awful if it goes wrong.
So we are going to dive into every aspect
of that storyline today and hopefully have
you all walk away with some tidbits on
how to make this process a smooth ride.
Yes, pun intended.
So today we're going to spend some time with
two folks from event transportation systems
who you obviously will get to learn all about.
So I want to introduce our two guests today.
So first and foremost, we have Eric Hotard,
who is a seasoned, experienced veteran of
the transportation business actually with over
35 years on just focusing on building,
running a series of highly successful ground
transportation businesses that serve corporations,
associations, nonprofits all across North America.
Eric is all about planning, and that sounds like a headache,
so we'll learn about that.
Maybe this will be a therapy session too.
But Eric really is all about planning and managing,
overseeing the operations, the logistics.
And it's all sizes, right?
Whether we're looking specifically at conventions.
It doesn't matter the size, he's done it.
So this is growing enterprises of multimillion dollar
businesses within ground transportation.
So we are going to talk all about that.
But Eric, hello, thanks for joining us today.
- Hello, how are you doing today?
- I'm good, I'm good, I'm happy to talk.
- Same here.
- Oh yes, and so our second panelist today is Lisa Lanna?
- Lanna.
- Lanna, thank you. - You're welcome.
- Should have asked that first.
And Lisa is multifaceted.
So she is all about developing and executing
sponsorship strategy within the life of transportation.
How do we ultimately save money at the end of the day?
How do we leverage sponsors?
And of course, managing a team, negotiating a contract,
producing a video, building a website, writing a script,
also skiing a black diamond.
So we're gonna talk about that too.
But always delivering spot on customer service.
So between the two of our guests today,
I think we're going to have a really awesome conversation.
So thanks, Lisa, for joining us too.
- Thank you.
- Fantastic.
So quick reminder for those who are listening.
We are having a conversation with you on Facebook,
on Twitter, on Chatroll, using that Q&A panel.
This is about you, so if you have a question at
any time, really take advantage.
We will get to your question.
We want this to be relevant for you.
And it's a topic that we all face, really,
every day no matter what.
So I'm really looking forward to talking about it.
So if we just jump right in, we always like to
ask a nice warm up question for you both.
And I'll start with you, Eric.
But wanting to know, what got you into this industry?
And if you weren't in the industry that you're in,
what would you be doing?
- What I would be doing is a tricky question.
I have no idea.
I grew up in this industry.
My parents owned a very small bus company in New Orleans.
And it evolved into a company that provided
transportation, sight seeing tours, travel management
to groups that came in and out of New Orleans.
So I've been in this business my entire life.
- And you know nothing else.
This is what you want.
- I know nothing else. (laughs)
Whether it's what I want or not is totally
irrelevant now at my age. (laughs)
But it's been a good life for me.
- Awesome. - It's been fantastic.
- Yeah, and I'm sure your depth of knowledge,
being grown up into it, is a whole nother level.
So that's awesome.
- Yes, I drove buses for five or six years cross country.
So I've driven a bus in just about every major
city in North America.
So that was an incredible experience.
- Yeah, that's fantastic. - Yes.
- Lisa, what about you?
So what got you into this industry and
if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?
- Well, my trajectory probably wasn't as
straight as Eric's.
I grew up in New York.
I moved here in the '90s to Washington, DC.
I got my first job at the Smithsonian, where I...
- Good first job.
- Yeah, it was pretty cool.
I worked in the continuing education division
where I planned lots of lectures and special events.
So that's kind of how I, I guess, started
in getting into the events industry.
From there I went to a few different associations
and then a couple of start ups.
Mostly in kind of smaller entrepreneurial settings.
Then I met Eric at a networking event, actually,
and he had just bought Newsday Communications
to kind of integrate that as a division in his business
and he was looking for someone to manage that
whole sponsorship side of the business.
So I came on board and not only do I do that,
but I picked up kind of the marketing efforts
for both of our organizations as well as rebranding
and handled marketing operations and sort of just
kind of chief cook and bottle washer.
So I do a lot of different things.
- Awesome.
- And a lot of fun.
- So where did you two meet?
What was the networking event?
- Oh, do you remember, Eric?
- No, I don't.
- You don't remember.
- I really don't.
- It was definitely an industry, an events industry event.
But I don't remember which one.
- And I think we both had mutual friends that
knew what we were looking for and that's how we
kind of got connected there.
- Exactly.
And then if I wasn't doing this, I would probably be
traveling during the summers and I would probably
be ski instructing during the winters.
- Awesome.
That sounds like a solid retirement,
so we'll get you there. (laughs)
Well good, good.
And I always like to ask because we so often
underestimate how much networking influences
our career, our path, where we go, and especially
getting event planners to go to those events.
Because it's not just about learning what the
industry is doing, but making those connections
goes such a long way.
But we're here to talk about transportation.
So let's dive in.
So Eric, I want to warm us up with another question
of just thinking about what do you consider
to be the core of a great transportation
strategy at an event?
Now, I know it completely varies with the type of
event, the attendees, where it is.
But if you had kind of the nuts and bolts to that,
how would you describe it?
- You first want to look at where you're bringing
people from, where they're staying, how many
we need to move, the venue that you're going to.
Is it conducive to having large groups
coming in and out of it?
There's so many factors to it.
The city, is the city conducive to, can you move freely?
Within some cities, you can't move because of gridlock.
Some cities it's easy to move.
So you have to look at a lot of different factors.
What activities are planned, social activities
are planned in that city.
So there's probably 30 different factors that you
really need to look at in planning and
to start executing a good plan for your event.
- What detail do you see sometimes getting overlooked?
So you have kind of your full critical questions
that get asked.
Are there any questions that you see often get skipped?
- Many planners start talking to us after they've
selected their hotels and they made all the selections
of the venues and their hotels without coming
to us before and getting our opinion on
is this venue conducive, ease of moving people
in and out of?
Is this hotel geographically desirable to other
hotels that would make for a good shuttle route?
So sometimes they come to us too late and they
already have contracted hotels.
And they added a huge cost to their budget because
this one hotel doesn't fit with the rest of the
hotels in the shuttle route.
Does that make sense?
- Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think many people
see it as a service that's reactionary to what
you book versus proactive and being part of the
process in the beginning.
- Yes.
- Interesting.
And have you seen a shift?
And Lisa, I'd like to ask you especially,
for you thinking about how you interact with
key stakeholders in the sponsorship side.
How do you all align yourself to be part of those
initial conversations and what that buy in would look like?
- Well, on the planning side, we sign multi-year
contracts with our customers.
And we help them, once we're on board, then we can
look at their, consult with them on their future cities.
So where are they going, what their hotel packages
are gonna be like.
Several of our customers are doing that now.
They finally understand how important it is
and so they won't book a hotel without us
approving whether this is a good fit or not.
And so we're finally, some people get it and some don't.
So it's been a long, it's taken a while to get
it to that point, but once they understand and see
the benefit of it, then they jump on board right away.
- Right, yeah, and incentive to be on board
with a longer contract too, I'm sure.
- Yes, yes.
- That's great.
- And the cost, I mean, the coaches, the new coaches
today are half a million dollars.
So the costs keep on going up.
So it can be on a city wide meeting the transportation
is normally the second or third largest one ticket item.
- Amazing.
- It is.
- That's incredible.
- Your decorator, AV, and then transportation
depends on if you have a lot of FMB in a program,
but transportation is third or fourth.
- So Lisa, in regards to the sponsorship side of
the story and kind of planning on a budget and
being part of that conversation, how have you been
able to bring some influence into the transportation
conversation that, from Eric, what it sounds like
is really evolving so much.
- Yeah, exactly.
I mean, with costs going up, planners are always
looking at ways to reduce costs.
And that can be in the way they contract with Eric
in terms of perhaps limiting the amount of buses
or how often they're running.
But on the other side, how can they generate
revenue off of buses.
So either through shuttle graphics or we do a lot of
sponsored video productions which play on the buses.
And it's a really compelling offering,
both for the organization in terms of generating
revenue and also for the sponsor, who gets really good
exposure as those buses are riding to and from the hotels.
Some of these convention centers, like San Diego,
for example, you walk outside, the buses are parked
right there, the attendees cross the street over
the railroad tracks, they go to lunch, they come back.
A lot of the time the graphics are
on both sides of the buses.
I have some really cool photos looking from
the city side at the convention center and you see
these giant graphics, you can't miss them.
So it's a way to get attention from pretty much
every attendee who are seeing these.
And then with video playing on the buses as they're
going around, I mean, that's a captive audience.
You've got your audience on the bus, and they're
definitely gonna see an ad that's playing
on a video program and at some point pay attention to that.
So that's a really compelling opportunity.
- Yeah, and have you seen the conversation,
and Eric for you too, but Lisa, I want to start with you,
of just a shift in the conversation with a company
like yours and not realizing how much return on
investment you can generate when it is one of the
biggest costs in the planning process.
But actually investing in how much can we get out
of this transportation system.
- Well, it really varies from client to client.
We don't necessarily have a lot of influence
in terms of how they're pricing the opportunity.
We do in some cases.
We actually do the sales in some cases.
So with one of our clients, we have more freedom
to test maybe some higher pricing on certain
opportunities or new opportunities that they
haven't tried before.
But when we're providing the graphics or just
providing the video and the client is doing the
pricing, we don't really have that much influence
over that, but I try to give some consulting
advice in terms of what I think would work best.
Some organizations will offer a sponsorships by route.
Some will do by the bus.
Some will integrate it into a gold, silver, or bronze
package, so it kind of varies from client to client.
And we can kind of see as we're working with
our advertisers, we see how much they're selling
and we see which approaches are working best
and which aren't, so we're able to kind of talk
to our clients and say, oh, we've seen this approach
really works best.
One of our clients, we started working with them
on sponsorship, or I did, about five years ago.
We have more than quadrupled their revenue
over four years, just by changing what we offer.
We definitely worked on pricing.
We introduced new options.
So we've had a lot of success with some
of our clients on strategy.
- That's so great.
I mean, it's such a simple and feels like an obvious
addition to this kind of service.
But traditionally, I'm sure, I mean, who knows?
Eric, you're looking at 35 years of the lens.
And one of the things I wanted to ask you too
was if you've seen a shift in the expectation
of the actual participant or what kind of
experience they get through their transportation
or the type of transportation that's offered.
Have you seen some shifts in that as of late?
- The Uber app has...
- Interesting.
- Given us some, raised the expectation a little bit.
And so we've developed a shuttle app.
And we put a GPS device on the shuttle buses.
And the attendees can now look at on the,
we have a link to the show app.
And they can see where the bus is.
So they can actually walk out of their hotel and say,
oh, the bus is five minutes away or 10 minutes away.
They can go in and get another cup of coffee
or do whatever or they can wait in their room
until they can see it's two minutes away
and come downstairs at the last minute.
- Yeah, and that's so great from a weather perspective,
because if it's raining outside, people don't want
to walk outside and have to walk to the curb
and wait for the bus and wonder when the next
bus is coming.
They know when it's coming and they can stay dry
until the bus shows up.
- And that's taken us a long time to develop that
because there are so many factors that (laughs)
affect the transportation system.
But anyway.
- Yeah, and that's, I mean, I think knowing where
your car or your bus is and also just accessibility.
Have you all seen a demand for buses or shuttle
services at a faster frequency?
Or is there kind of a standard for how you
spread out the service?
- We design shuttle bus systems to move the number
of participants that are staying on that shuttle route.
- Sure, yeah.
- So that's the first priority.
And then a second priority would be frequency.
And so some groups are using a longer window midday
so they can save money.
They'll take it from maybe 15 minutes
to 20 minutes to 30 minutes.
Some groups are shutting down midday service.
They're doing four hours in the morning
and four hours in the afternoon to save money.
But most of the time, the frequency window is
dictated by how many people we need to move.
Some shuttle routes we can run a frequency of 10 minutes
where another route has 500 more people staying on it
and to move everyone we have to run a
three to five minute service.
- Right, that makes perfect sense, yeah.
It all depends, but the frequency.
- But most of the time when you're looking at it,
people are planning for a 10 to 15 minute window.
For the most part.
- That's totally reasonable, yeah.
So I want to bring us to the perspective
of the attendee and think about...
Well actually, we just talked about the attendees.
So let's talk about the person who's actually
purchasing this service.
What should they be thinking about in regards to
what transportation to offer?
And I know there's 30 factors that you mentioned.
But what kind of budgeting should be kind of
put together first?
And I think you touched on it earlier, Eric,
about the fact that it's kind of, okay, we booked
everything, now let's find our transportation.
But Lisa, I do want to ask you too from the
conversations from a creative perspective too.
What are some questions that the folks who are
planning should be thinking?
- Lisa, you wanna go or you want me to go?
- You go first.
- Okay. (laughs)
For budgeting, that is...
I would start that process a lot earlier,
a couple years out.
You can get a good number from your transportation
provider in advance.
It really depends.
It changes from city to city.
Orlando, for one thing, people rent a lot of
cars in Orlando, so the number of people that
use the shuttle buses comes down a little bit,
the percentage of people that use shuttle buses come down.
And then you go to Chicago where hardly anyone
rents a car because there's so many cabs and
it's easy to get around by a car,
a hired car service, Uber, Lyft, or a cab.
So less people rent cars in Chicago.
So you have to look at so many different
factors of each city.
And like I said, some cities we have to,
we move more people, a greater percentage of the
people that are in the hotels.
In some cities, we move less.
And then you go into a city like San Diego.
If the weather's fine, most of the people will walk.
But as soon as it rains, then everybody's
looking for a shuttle bus.
And so looking at the weather patterns of the city.
Same thing with San Francisco.
People like to walk unless it's raining or cold.
So we have to take all those factors into consideration.
The time of year.
What's the rainy season for the location.
We look at how many people rent cars,
how many people need the shuttle.
So starting a year out is not too early.
Most groups want to have a budget number
a year to a year and a half out.
And so I would start a good year out.
- Yeah, and I think that one thing that's
interesting about that too is that you all are
providing that information.
Taking Orlando as an example, being an advisor
of how much service they're going to need.
I mean, that's something that is a big institutional
knowledge to know in our industry.
- Yes, yes, yes, yes.
So we are giving a bid process.
And so having that institutional knowledge affects
our numbers and how we bid.
- Exactly.
- So we do a post ridership report.
And I think every customer should be getting
a post ridership report.
Because how was the system designed that you're buying
and how did it perform compared to
what it was designed to?
If you don't know that, then you don't know,
you don't have any basis when you go to your next city.
And so we measure everything.
We measure how many people are on the buses,
how long it's taking us.
So when we go to what percentage of the room block
is using the shuttle.
So when we go to the next city and the next year,
we can really tweak it down to where we're getting
strong, we're tightening up or we need to add more
buses or we can take some back.
Do we need to run faster or slower?
- Yeah, I'm glad he mentioned the ridership report,
because I was going to bring that into the conversation
because that plays into sponsorship opportunities.
And that's the way to show sponsors how many people
exactly are riding the buses and seeing a video,
for example, or before they're getting on the bus,
they're seeing the exterior graphics or on the
bus they're seeing interior graphics that are
on the windows, we offer those, or seat headrest covers.
So yeah, I mean, the shift I would say that I've seen
since when I first started working with Eric is that
ask for the data.
The sponsors really want to see ROI.
So they want numbers.
They want to know how many people are seeing their ads.
So that ridership report is really important
to making the sale.
- Yeah, and I mean, that collection of data over time,
that must just be so cool.
I want to just sit down and read through
what you have on a city.
That's really fun knowledge to have.
- And it changes for every show.
Because show A has this shuttle or are using these hotels.
And then show B has a different group of hotels
depending on the costs of those hotels,
the financial burden.
So some groups have to use a more economical package
and some groups can use a more deluxe package.
So you can't say this is the same
for this city all the time.
It really depends on the group.
And so learning the group and learning the travel
patterns of each group is very dynamic.
- Yeah, oh, I'm sure, yeah.
- It's quite interesting.
I know this might sound trivial,
but it is quite interesting.
- Well no, I think...
- For some geeks it is.
- I'm feeling passionate about this now
and I never thought, to be honest, I didn't think
I would, but there's so much detail into it.
It's not just the service that gets provided.
But there's so many different pieces of the puzzle.
And expertise that, again, just knowing that that's
out there and that's not up to the individual
planner to come up with is really great.
I want to think about and talk about incentive programs.
So Lisa, this is definitely for you.
Just favorite examples of what you've seen to
incentivize folks to take the transportation.
- Incentivize?
- Yeah, I'm not sure I understand the question.
Sorry, to incentivize?
- So basically to, we say that transportation
can elevate an incentive program to an attended
event, use the transportation, the different layers.
And so we're wondering if you had an example of
that of where you've seen a really successful
adoption of the transportation and why you saw that.
- You're talking about for an incentive program
for a corporate incentive program?
- Yeah.
- Oh.
Yes, a lot of corporate groups.
I guess the transportation can be molded more to
the outing that they're going on.
Okay?
We can get into some exotic vehicles.
We have some vehicles now that have a,
the roof can slide open on some unique, smaller vehicles.
And so we can customize.
We can do stuff like that on a corporate meeting.
- Or trolleys, for example.
- Trolleys.
If you're going on a safari or something like that,
then you can kind of in a city in a downtown
environment it's hard to do that.
But an incentive program.
Depending on what the incentive group would like to do,
you can use...
- What is the incentive, yeah.
- An elephant to a camel.
So it's pedicabs.
They're starting to use those now at conventions sometimes.
They'll sponsor pedicabs and a corporate group
will sponsor a pedicab for the day
and let people ride it to and from the convention center.
- Yeah, there was one group I read about,
one sponsorship where those electric carts
were on the trade show floor.
And so a sponsor was able to put their salespeople
driving around on the electric carts and picking
people up and driving around and giving their
sales pitch while they're driving them around
on the trade show floor.
So that was kind of creative.
- What is the wildest transportation that you've offered?
(laughs)
- Wow, wow.
- It can't be a Segway.
- No.
You have to be somewhat, a little more reserved because...
- That's fair.
- Of the liability aspect of it.
- Right, the whole safety thing, yeah.
- Yes, yes, and so the wildest, oh my gosh.
(laughs)
Probably the pedicabs.
We've done golf carts on the trade show floors.
But probably the pedicabs.
You really, as a sponsor, if something happened
and you sponsored it, then the company, the sponsor
can also be liable.
So you're not gonna get into hang gliding on cars
and stuff like that, because if something happened
and then they're responsible.
- Yeah, or hot air ballooning. (laughs)
- Yeah, I mean, you'll do that on
an incentive program, incentive trip.
And you have all the disclaimers.
But on a program where you have a city wide convention,
it's hard to offer those types of things.
Unless it's a chosen, they choose to do something
like that through the spouse or guest program.
- Okay, and Lisa, have you ever gotten
an outlandish kind of, we really want this to happen
and we're gonna sponsor it, can you do it, situation?
- No, not really, not really.
I mean, one of our clients is always pushing us
to come up with some other type of transportation
related or outside the convention center.
A lot of the times, they have these organizations
will hire third party groups to manage different
parts of the sponsorships.
So sometimes we're only allowed to handle certain things
and so they're always just, they are pushing the envelope,
but they haven't come up with anything too crazy
that we haven't been able to do.
- That's great, that's great.
So I know that we've seen a big push in the
green movement, going paperless, cutting down emissions,
all that good stuff.
So has that been in a conversation when you talk to
potential sponsors to you, Lisa, is just how do
we make this as green as possible?
- Not really, no. (laughs)
Yeah, I mean, there are the material is the material
that you have to use to put on the buses.
And yes, unfortunately we do have to
throw that away afterward.
There's not really any way to make that greener.
On Eric's side, in terms of being green,
I think they do ask a lot of questions about
transportation and the vehicles.
- Using MotoCoaches for transportation
is the most efficient way to go.
Most of the vehicles average around eight miles to
the gallon, 10 miles to the gallon.
So when you're moving 50 to 55 people,
you're taking 10 to 15 cars off the street for every bus.
So that is the greenest mode of transportation,
even if you see a little black soot.
That still is the greenest transportation there is.
- Got the most bodies in there.
Yes, that makes perfect sense. - Yes, exactly.
Right, it is, when you break it down per gallon
per mile, it is the most efficient way to move people.
- Awesome, so you're green, you're done.
- Yes, we are green, yes.
- There you go.
- Even though I have a blue shirt on, I am green.
(laughter)
- Love it. - Anyway.
- So let's talk about the ride share.
I know you mentioned Uber impacting that.
Now you have that GPS integrated.
But have you seen more folks opt into their own
transportation because it is more easily accessible
or are they more likely to take what's provided
as it's just simply part of the event experience?
Has that impacted your business at all?
- I don't think it has.
I think younger people are more willing to just
hop in a car with an Uber driver without having
I don't want to say proper credentials, but I know
Uber really has changed the per capita car ride service.
Before you had a lot of regulations by states and cities
and so you had certain parameters that you had to
stay within, and now Uber has kind of changed that.
So on the per capita side of the business,
it has changed a lot.
It's really hurt taxi cabs, sedan car companies.
Although the sedan car companies are starting
to see a resurgence of their business coming back.
- Oh, interesting.
- Because of the professionalism of the driver.
The driver's in coat and tie, they have a clean car.
Where an Uber driver, you don't always know
what you're getting.
And so you have a lot of the liability issues.
So there was a lull there for a little while
where Uber was hurting the professional limousine
companies, but now you're starting to see it
come back off of that.
- And are you all seeing with that just kind of
putting different people in different services
or different vehicles, so having exclusive
executive sedan service for a VIP population
or is it more kind of shared service generally?
- When we are providing VIP service,
it's pretty much for one person.
One of our groups will provide sedan service
or SUV airport transportation for their top exhibitors.
And sometimes we will share, if their flight's
coming in at the same time, they'll share that car.
But most of the time, those groups, those individuals
don't wanna wait for another flight or you can't
have, if you set up one car and one flight's delayed
a half an hour, then someone...
It's just too cumbersome to try and have
somebody waiting for somebody else.
So they'll schedule different cars.
Unless they're on the same flight.
If they're on the same flight, then obviously
we can put them in the same car.
But if they're two different flights 10 or 15
minutes away and today's schedule, someone's always late.
- Yeah, yeah, that's true.
- And for companies that are sponsoring, like IBM
or some corporation is having their own meeting,
they will use buses when we can.
And then we'll use mini buses or sedans or SUVs.
They want to use, provide airport transportation
because it controls their cost.
They know for sure what their costs are fixed
for the most part.
They're not getting hit at the end with a lot of
taxis or Ubers or whatever.
So they are very adamant about providing airport
transportation for their attendees.
- That makes sense.
- Where an association, they're not overly concerned
about how somebody comes in and some people might
rent a car and stay for the long weekend and
go driving around afterwards.
So it's too hard to try and provide that
for that type of group.
- So I want to take us to some basic questions
for folks who may be thinking about, again,
having these conversations for the first time,
knowing that you need transportation and just trying
to figure out, okay, if we know that there's
transportation already set up by the hotel shuttle,
is it worth our time to provide a shuttle
that is sponsored.
Lisa, for your lens of is it worth the visibility?
And I'm sure it all comes back to someone's budget.
But if there are kind of the basic transportation
needs that you should offer, kind of the fundamentals,
what do you see as those kind of first steps?
- Well, sometimes your hotel shuttles will work.
But you have to look at how many people you need
to move and the time frame that you need to move them in.
A lot of these hotel shuttles will provide an airport
transfer or shuttle to a convention center
once every 15 minutes or 20 minutes.
They only have one vehicle.
And it's okay for moving ones and twos and threes
and fours, but if you gotta move 100 to 150 people
and they only have one vehicle.
So you really have to understand your circumstance.
- That's fair, absolutely.
So have you seen kind of your positioning in the market
change over the past five years with, of course,
the Ubers of the world helping influence the
technology that you use?
But it sounds to me that you also have turned into
a service that is really advisory
and providing nice advices.
This is the city you're booking in and here's what we know.
Is that an expectation now?
Is that overtly advertised?
I would love to know how you've evolved as an organization.
- Well, we do advise.
We're similar to an architect, a contractor,
and a builder, because we design the system
that you need and then we provide, we contract
the vehicles, whether it's a coach, a mini bus,
a sedan, and then we provide on site management.
So it's a one stop shop.
But we all are, we're all of those things built into one.
And so some people have used us as an advisory capacity
to if they want to track their other vendor,
if they're in a contract and they want to check
the other vendor, we have done some consulting work.
Just plain straight consulting work.
So obviously we don't, this is where we prefer to be
is we want to do everything, but anyway.
- Yeah, and Lisa, have you seen shifts in
kind of what people are asking for with their sponsorship?
And if people are thinking about kind of the
fundamentals of what activations or different pillows
or whatever you have, what are those kind of go to
asks that you get?
- Yeah, I don't think that's changed too much.
In terms of the graphics that hasn't changed too much.
We offer a variety of different sized graphics
that can be packaged together differently.
Sometimes people will buy a graphic that covers
a whole side of the bus and the back of the bus
or the full bus or just a banner.
I think when you get into shifts, it's probably
video content, the type of content that's being
offered or being shown.
Video is so popular now and is really being integrated
in the full marketing strategy for many organizations.
So actually makes it easier for us to reach out
to the organization.
We do both, like we'll produce a full video production
with a team either before the show or on site.
But we can also do a simple stitching together
of existing content.
So a lot more organizations now have really good
video content, so that's where I'm seeing a difference
and just making it easier to produce something.
I'd say that's where a lot of organizations they're
probably not doing the video offerings as much as
the graphics, but it's so easy to do that because
you can take that video content that you have
and grab bits and pieces of that.
You can just make simple slides that are reminders
for attendees to sign up for the fun run or visit
the advocacy booth and find out what's going on
or go to this booth and join a committee.
So you can stitch together a real simple program
and sell that as a sponsorship opportunity.
And that's where I'm seeing a lot more interest now
in terms of putting that type of program together
that plays on the bus.
- It's kind of more of a static ad.
And then some of them don't want the audio.
And so it's just images that are scrolling on the video.
- But that it's also taking existing content
from the association, which these days they have
a lot more of, so they can grab a video that they've
produced already and give it to us and we can
edit that together with, as Eric said, more static slides.
There are lots of fun things that organizations can do
like with man on the street videos.
I saw a really fun video where actually it's a producer
that I've worked with before.
And he has a great video where he went out on the
street at a, I think it was a travel industry convention.
And he asked just random people on the street
what the definition of a particular word was.
I don't know if it was like disintermediation or some.
And so people just came up with, I don't know,
and they came up with really funny answers.
And then it would end with a board member or an important
stakeholder giving the actual definition of that word.
I mean, there's so much fun stuff you can do with video.
- 100%, yeah.
- So yeah, so that's where I've seen a lot of shift.
- Yeah, and what do you, do you all,
are you thinking about 10 years from now
the future of what the asks are going to be
for transportation?
Are we seeing more and more about an experience,
even if it's a 10 minute ride?
Its it sticking to fundamentals?
What do you kind of see as if you were to predict
the future, Eric, what would you say?
- Wow. (laughs)
On the incentive side, you can raise the expectations.
I see on the city wide convention where you're
just going from point A to point B.
Stick to the fundamentals.
Because people just wanna, when that exhibit hall
closes, people want to sit down.
They wanna get off their feet.
- Right, yeah, yep.
- You wanna go back to the hotel and have a cocktail
or dinner or whatever.
And so I don't see it changing too drastically.
It's a commodity service that groups need.
And if it's done badly, it can be devastating
and if it's done properly, it can be very rewarding.
Most people do not, they let you know when it's going bad.
But we do get a lot of praises on good transportation.
So many people go to different meetings.
We get a lot of compliments on shuttle bus systems.
And they can see how well it's organized
and if it's running smoothly or not.
- Right, at the end of the day it's about the execution.
- It really is.
- Whether or not you have waterbed chairs.
- Right, right.
And things happen.
We had a building that caught on fire during a show
and it shut down the street.
And how well you react to those type of things
is transparent to the people.
And so things happen all the time.
And so you have to be able to adjust and move
and go with the flow.
- Right, yeah, and emergency planning is probably
a huge element.
- Very much so, and that's also key in the company
that you're hiring is how well do they know the city.
How well can they make adjustments on the fly
if need to be.
You're paying us to develop a strong plan.
But you're also paying us to have a strong
adjustment to that plan if something does come about
that needs to be changed.
- Right, how often do you see changes in the plan?
Is that to be expected throughout the course
of a single service you're providing?
- It depends on what's going on in the city.
We had a convention in a city and there was a
student festival going on.
And so the city streets, we had no idea where
people were going to show up.
And so we would have to call the local police department
and say, okay, we're having trouble at this intersection
with buses coming through.
And so it just, that doesn't happen very often.
But it doesn't happen enough to where you've
gotta stay on top of it.
- Right, yeah, pay attention.
- And working with the local city officials
and knowing what to anticipate.
One city has a fun run every year and it runs
right in front of the convention center.
And it shuts down the shuttle bus system
for three or four hours while it's going by.
And just executing that, communicating it
to the attendees, letting everybody know what the plan is.
That avoids a lot of problems.
Changes on the fly.
Every now and then we have a gas, I mean,
a water main will break and the street gets shut down
or a fire, accident.
With our GPS system, we can push out now to the
attendees that the transportation, the shuttle stop
has changed because of this.
And so we can push that, we have that technology
now to push out those last minute changes to the
attendees, so that's making it a lot easier to do that.
- Right, yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.
So Lisa, I want to make sure I'm asking you
the future question.
So if you were thinking about the future of sponsorship
for event transportation, what do you think?
- I don't know if it's gonna change too much.
If I had a wish, and I don't know if maybe I
should mention this, because maybe someone else
will run with this idea.
But figuring out how to live stream to the
video monitors on the buses, that would be really cool.
- Oh, I love that.
- That would definitely be good, because then whatever's
going on in the convention center could be
live streamed onto the buses.
And that would be pretty neat.
- Well, with the 5G technology,
that might not be that far off.
A lot of buses now have a Wi-Fi system.
So it's not consistent enough throughout the
whole system across North America to promote that.
But a lot of buses do have its own Wi-Fi system.
- That's great.
- Yeah, so maybe in another five years we might
be able to do something like that.
- That might be our next project.
- Yes, yes.
- Stay tuned, everyone.
- Right, right.
- Have you seen companies or sponsors want to do
kind of mini sessions during the course of a
10 or 15 minute drive with objectives?
Or is it really just focused on getting from
point A to point B?
- No, I haven't really seen that.
But there could be some opportunity for something
more interactive going on on the buses.
Maybe that would work in the morning with people
going to the convention center.
I'm just not so sure about the trip home
when people are kind of done with their day.
- They just want quiet.
This is what I'm hearing.
We just want safety and taking shoes off.
- But that could be a possibility.
I thought about some opportunities for that,
maybe having a comedian or some sort of
sponsored interactive session on the bus.
Maybe we'll test that sometime.
- That could happen more on an airport transfer.
If we have a sponsored airport transfer.
- Yeah, or going to a special event.
- Yes, yeah.
- Yeah, you could put little mini foot massage
jacuzzis under every chair.
(laughs)
- That's a really good idea, I like it.
- I think that would be a little messy.
- Yeah, that makes...
- We're just throwing out the future.
- Yes, there you go, there you go. (laughs)
- Well, I'm conscious of our time together
and if anyone who's tuning in live,
do make sure to get your questions in.
And I think we've covered such great ground.
I mean, I just selfishly, this has been so interesting
to learn about I think a piece of the puzzle that
all too often we just take for granted.
Okay, I'm gonna hop in a shuttle bus, good.
But there's so much detail that goes into it.
And it's just, it's really, truly, it's fascinating.
Just for fun, Eric, want to put you on the spot.
What city in the most complicated to navigate?
- The most difficult to navigate?
Boston.
- Boston.
Those tunnels?
- Just the narrow streets.
- Okay.
- Yes.
The easiest to get around, I would say, would be San Diego.
But the most difficult is Boston.
Chicago and Boston are two cities where the
convention center's far away.
So right now they do have the cost of operating
a shuttle bus system in Chicago is very similar to Boston.
If you were same size group to same size group
from one city, from one year to another the same group,
it would be similar cost wise.
- I could have sworn you were gonna say San Francisco.
But going in those steep hills, if that's something
that adds a factor or not.
- Well, just when we go up Nob Hill is the only
time we have that opportunity.
But for the most part, we stay out of those steep sides.
- Okay, good.
I guess that's part of the strategy, right?
- Right, right, right, right.
- So at the end of our sessions, we always like to
make sure we get to two main questions.
And the first is, if you had any piece of advice,
your kind of golden gem of advice,
thinking about our event planner listeners,
what would you say?
- I would say speak to your shuttle management company
as soon as you, when you first start going to
look at a city.
- Right away.
- Yes, communicate with them right away.
The convention service people are the sales people
for the city of San Francisco.
They don't always understand the hotel packages,
in all honesty.
Chicago or Boston would be a better example
where one hotel might be three blocks away,
but you just can't get to it by bus.
And so it's so important to understand
the flow of these hotels.
And sometimes the hotels that are recommended by the
city just because they're a member of the bureau.
And so it doesn't mean whether, and it doesn't
take into consideration whether it could fit
for a job or not.
So get with your consultant earlier.
And get those ridership reports post
so you know what you're doing the next year.
- Awesome, that's great.
Lisa, what are you thinking in regards to the
sponsorship front, whatever?
- I guess I would just say if you're not using
your shuttles as a sponsorship opportunity,
you should be.
- Yes.
- Awesome.
- Yeah, we have one group this year that we've been
working with about eight years now.
And we're almost gonna give them a free shuttle.
The actual cost of the shuttle will be covered
by the sponsorship.
- That's amazing.
- The revenue is generated from the sponsorship, yes.
- And you're able to provide that information up front
or how does that conversation look?
I mean, that must be an awesome surprise for them.
- Well, we don't know what the sales are gonna be like.
But we have from working with them through the years,
we kind of have a track record of knowing what it's
gonna be like.
The cost of that shuttle changes from city to city.
So this next year they'll almost get a free shuttle.
- Awesome.
- Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
It's very exciting to see.
- Yeah, that's a really cool ship.
So for you both, any new, cool, interesting
resources that is kind of your go to?
It could be industry knowledge, it could be outside,
books, gadgets, apps, anything that is just really
floating your boat right now?
- Well, I'm gonna take the opportunity
to promote our resources.
We have a couple on our website.
We have an RFP template that meeting planners can use
to send out when they're looking
for a transportation provider.
And we also have a sponsorship checklist.
So I would recommend taking a look at both of those.
- Awesome.
Eric, what about you?
- Our GPS system is, it tracks riders,
it tracks the number of people getting on at each stop.
It's the attendee app that goes along with it.
It's a very in depth tool.
And it's proving to be very, very beneficial
for the customer and for us, for everyone.
The attendee, the organizer, and us
in becoming more efficient in managing our system.
- Yeah, and this is now just the standard.
That's awesome, it's so cool.
- It will become the standard, yes.
- Yeah, okay, so the lesson of today is to go
on your website and get all of the resources
that are available and think about how you can
make this transportation of events something that is
not just a service that you provide,
but an actual opportunity, right?
I mean, at the end of the day.
Awesome, well we are right about at the hour,
so I want to say a huge thank you to you both
for taking time to be on the virtual platform with us
and talking about something that, frankly,
I just don't think we talk about enough.
So thank you both.
- Well, thank you very much for the opportunity.
We appreciate it.
- Absolutely. - Yes, thank you.
- And thank you to everyone who listened in today.
Just a reminder that these are recorded live
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And every following Tuesday, this is released on iTunes,
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And of course, you can go to event-icons.com
then to get the show notes, links to the resources
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So thank you again for joining us and we will
see you next week on Event Icons.
Take care.
- [Narrator] Thank you for joining us for another
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