An article last week in M&IT caused a fair bit of a stir when a relatively new Event Agency claimed “There is no future in Venue Finding”. The initial reaction by many in the industry was one of outrage and certainly many independent event agencies and members of the Alliance, whose businesses are founded on only Venue Finding, were similarly concerned about such a controversial statement. Especially when the foundations of the statement were a little shaky to say the least. If you have yet to read it, then please take a look, but only if you have had your heart medication and you are already not suffering from high blood pressure! We haven’t replicated the comments the story generated as you can also see these online, but from an Alliance perspective, Nick Milas our chair responded with “After reading this article I must say that I agree with all the comments that have already been made. I’ve just one more thing to add. This approach to venue finding appears to have nothing to do with looking after the client’s best interest but everything to do with marketing and promoting the interests of the venues. One assumes venues have to pay for their venue to be listed and then pay a commission for any business placed through the website. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this model bot it would be nice to see a little bit of transparency!”
We’re all for disturbance marketing here at the Alliance, we welcome anything new and revolutionary that can make our approach to work better and more efficient for our clients, but one of the key things to remember these days is that anyone who uses any form of online communication, be it email, social media or editorial in a leading industry title, is leaving a digital footprint that will be around a long time. Reputations can be won or lost on the basis of a statement and whilst we are lucky enough to live in a democracy where we can all express our opinions, alienating the very people with whom you should be forming an alliance with is perhaps not the best way to evoke publicity. We would welcome your thoughts.