A few years ago, I organized some events abroad in Vienna, the participants were from several CE countries and it was easier to bring them all there. Candidates for the honor of hosting us were large hotel chains, but as I did not know what kind of rooms they had and what was the offer, I started to look for information and send a lot of emails.

Finding the right room for a one-day event rapidly turned into a mega project: the information was scanty, the communication was cumbersome, plus the unexpected amount of bureaucracy for something that seemed quite simple.

In some cases you couldn’t find pictures on the hotel website with their conference rooms or there were pictures, but you did not know what room it is, how many seats it had in various arrangements (amphitheater, classroom, U Shape), you had to check with the location every single thing (Do you have a podium? Or a microphone?), then they answered you with the details, they made you an offer, you also checked that everything was included, and you didn’t forget anything, like the coffee (God forbid!).

Finally, when the time came to pay the advance, I ran into a different problem, because the hotel wanted us to pay by card, and our accounting wanted a transfer order, so a ping-pong started between us and them, until we managed to solve it.

For about 2-3 months, I only took care of this project, which was supposed to turn out perfectly. I had a lot of emotions, I checked and rechecked every detail, prepared the materials, bought plane tickets to arrive there one day in advance, to have time to check that everything is fine. On the day of departure, on the way to the airport, I receive a notification from the agency: the flight was canceled! The pilots had gone on strike for I don’t know what reason, there was chaos at Departures, nobody told us anything. We were a bigger group but only one person managed to fly that day with a different company. Everyone else got tickets for the next day.

Not only did I not arrive early to check that everything was OK with the conference room, but I arrived exactly when the conference started! Talking about the ”perfect” event… I didn’t even know where to start first! The moral is you can’t control everything no matter how hard you try, but you can make your life easier by using services specially designed for this: a single interface for dozens of meeting rooms, easy booking directly from the phone, a single bill for everything.

What kind of things are you looking for when you need a room for a meeting or an event?