Hurricane Katrina's Impact on the Event Industry
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those impacted by this disaster. Opus Solutions employees have contributed generously to the American Red Cross, with each dollar matched by the company.

As event industry professionals, we have been kept apprised of the impact of the hurricane on our industry. In short, all events scheduled to use the Convention Center before January 1, 2006, have been canceled, as well as all city-wide conventions through March 31, 2006. Many other 2006 events have not been impacted, which is wonderful for the industry and city, and evidence of the drive to rebuild this great area.

The New Orleans CVB publishes updates regularly to their website. Please click here to read more about the current state of business.

For other industry updates, you can read updates at a weblog hosted by Meetings.net. Click here to visit the weblog.
Source: New Orleans Convention & Visitor's Bureau/September 2005

Most Common On-Site Problems...And How to Prepare for Them
No matter how well you and your team have planned for a meeting, there are going to be unexpected surprises on-site. Isn't the challenge of solving problems one of the reasons you do events in the first place?

No matter what your response, it helps tremendously to know what types of on-site problems you're likely to encounter, and what to do about them.

Click here for the seven most common on-site problems.
Source:The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meeting and Event Planning, published by Alpha Books

The Perfect Host – Hospitality Events
In the interest of better bonding and greater impact, event marketers are turning the traditional hospitality event inside out.

Read full article
Source: EventMarketer, August 2005

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The Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers - Seattle, WA



The Sheraton Seattle is located in the heart of the financial and business district, which makes this venue an easily accessible location for special events, meetings and conferences. High end shopping, exciting nightlife and fine dining are all in walking distance from the Sheraton Seattle.

Already regarded as one of the Northwest's premier hotel and meeting facilities, the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers is currently undergoing a $112 million renovation and expansion. The new 25-story tower will boast 415 new sleeping rooms, 31,000 additional square feet of meeting space (75,000 total), 22 new meeting rooms (47 total), an 18,000 square-foot Grand Ballroom and a 10,000 square foot Junior Ballroom.

Elevators and escalators provide quick and easy access to meeting rooms, there's plenty of room for signage and the Baby Grand piano outside the West Ballroom gives the second floor a genuine feeling of flare and elegance. Hotel employees are available around the clock to provide fast, attentive and courteous service and their attention to detail is first class. The Gallery Lounge and Pike Street Café are currently available on the first floor with a variety of dining choices and a cozy environment. Two new signature restaurants will be added after the renovation and the lobby and lounge will also be refurbished.

The expanded ballroom space opens in July 2006 and the new tower will open Spring 2007. If you're going to be in Seattle, consider the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers for your next event.

Please visit the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers website at: www.sheraton.com.

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...of the five senses an attendee uses in the meeting environment, the most critical to the success of the presentation is hearing? If the attendee cannot clearly hear the audio, spoken or recorded, they will leave unfulfilled.

When determining a meeting's audio needs, you must decide whether to use the built-in house sound system or bring in a portable sound system. Both options have their pros and cons, and will be discussed in further detail below.

In-house System: Budget often dictates that a meeting's need to use the built-in system. If the only sources of sound are microphones and walk in music, a built-in system is fine. The advantages to the in-house system are ease of use, quick set up and lower cost. The disadvantages can be quality and flexibility of use.

Portable System: If the event is very important, for example the CEO is speaking, or if there's music involved (for more than walk-in or have audio from video or computer), it is always recommended to use a sound system. There will be a noticeable difference in the clarity. The advantages to a portable sound system are in quality and flexibility of use. The disadvantages can be cost and time to set / strike.

Lastly, when using a lavaliere microphone, always confirm the sound system (whether built-in or portable) has an equalizer, or other form of feedback elimination. This allows the sound to have "maximum gain before feedback" which allows the technician to turn the mics up louder and avoid the dreaded feedback noise.

For more information, please contact Tim Neill at 971.223.1104 or tneill@opus-solutions.com.



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