Today's news blog feature is Board Members Speak featuring Jim Bove and the fourth installment from the Professional Development Seminar, " Bringing the Purple Cow to the Market: Tapping into the Experience Economy," from Lara Bazant.

Every year SNAG members ask "how are the conference dates selected?"  To be sure it's a juggling act.  Roughly four years ago we conducted a member survey asking what months members wanted us to hold our conferences.  The resounding response was April and May.   So that helped us set some parameters.

First we talk to the most important people involved in the conference, the co-chairs, about their schedules, asking them to tell us what dates work best for them in April and May.  When the co-chairs are studio artists, we work around their show schedules.  When the co-chairs are academics, we work around their school schedules.  When the team is mixed, we find what works best for both (or all) of them.

We then take those dates and send out a Request for Proposals to all the hotels in the host city that can accommodate a group our size and are centrally located (see last week's RN for more about that). In response, the hotels tell us what weekends they still have space available; it's not unusual for other, often larger, conferences to have already secured the most attractive hotel space.  We take those open dates back to the co-chairs and research what other events might present a conflict on those weekends.  These days it's nearly impossible to find a weekend without any conflict, so our focus is on those without the most direct conflicts to our audience.

After we've come to agreement about the best possible weekends, Kate Lichter of Meetings a la Carte talks with each hotel further about the specific needs of our conferences and negotiates to find out which site will give us the best overall package, always including the lowest room rate for our attendees. 

It's difficult to schedule the conference each year at a time that meets the schedules of so many attendees.  Some people love going to the conference over Memorial Day weekend, others do not; and airfares are historically higher that weekend.  It's particularly difficult to schedule the conference around every school's finals because they are not on a synchronized schedule.  With a strong percentage of educators and students coming to our conferences, that's a tricky dance.  Admittedly we succeed more in some years than in others.

Having said all that, the board has decided it would be best for SNAG to hold its conferences on the same weekend every year, as others do, for consistency and better planning.  Right now our 2014 conference is April 23 through 26, and our conference is May 20 through 23.  So beginning with the 2016 conference, we will hold our conferences the weekend BEFORE Memorial Day.