Class Reunion Planning 101 (High School or College Reunions)

About a ten months before the reunion you should decide on where to have the reunion. Once that's decided, you'll need to figure out how much to charge for a reunion ticket so you can start selling tickets immediately. You will make the decision based on a number of factors: Basic Charges 1. Price per person for food. 2. Open bar vs. Cash bar 3. Tax and service charges _____________________________________ Say food is $50.00 cash bar is 0.00 Tax in NJ is 7% 3.50 Service Charge at our hotel is 21% = 10.50 ____________________________________ Price per person is: $64.00 So is that the amount you charge your classmates? NO!!!!! Because you have to take in account all the other costs involved in reunion planning Ancillary charges (try to get as much for free here as you can...

About a month before the reunion, you'll want to check in with the banquet manager and review the details of the menu, the layout of the room, the location of the bars, the check in tables and any special needs you may have like multi-media playback. Hotels will provide projection systems and screens for a price, (and not cheaply, I might add.) The specifics of the menu can change up to about a week before (double check this with your banquet manager,) but you'll want to make the initial choices a month before. Things to consider: 1.Long before you've planned the menu, you've decided on whether to have a Cash Bar vs. Open Bar or something in-between (maybe wine and beer only.) This is because the price you charge for reunion tickets a year before must reflect the cost of food and drinks, if you are not having a cash bar. Double check that soft drinks, juice and water are free. That said, I believe a cash bar is the fairest way to deal with alcoholic drinks since not e...

A friend of this blog asked me today if planning a class reunion was similar to planning a family reunion. "Well," I answered, "planning a class reunion is no picnic." I believe school reunions are more challenging than family reunions. And I believe family reunions, for the most part, are just that - "picnics." 1. Class reunions are much larger. My class, for example, was 620 people, and it's a huge management effort to coordinate communication, databases, bank accounts, ticket sales, teams of people, etc. Planning the class reunion is a big management gig. 2. Classmates are not connected by family ties and therefore are not easily found, especially when women marry and change their names. That, in itself, makes a huge difference. Thankfully we have social networking tools - huge resources for finding classmates - like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Classmates.com, and Google to find people. 3. Once we found the right location, (in our case a hotel with...

Lou posted a comment after the article Should I Be the One to Organize the Reunion? about all the fun activities he planned for the entire reunion weekend I agree. Why limit the reunion to four hours on a Saturday night? Make an entire weekend of it, making it especially worthwhile for those who have traveled a great distance and may be staying in the hotel. Here are some ideas to extend the festivities: 1. A Friday night pre-party bash. It could be simply drinks at the hotel lounge or a pot-luck picnic at a local picnic grove. Perhaps you'll want to get together at a local hangout of 'yore. Create a simple "pay as you go" experience for those who wish to attend. No reservations. No money collected in advance. Keep it simple and have fun. 2. Saturday morning. Be creative. Plan a golf outing, a hike, a basketball pickup game at the courts, a brunch, a trip to the zoo or a botanical garden. Small groups can assemble for inexpensive get-togethers. Find creative, inexpen...

A contract is a legally binding agreement between you and the venue, be it a hotel, a restaurant, a resort, a caterer or other organization that's providing services . You will be committing to pay for "x" number of people at "y" price. If your contract specifies a minimum number of people that you guarantee, then you will be responsible to pay for that number. So if our minimum is 125 people and only 100 show up, the signer(s) of the contract is/are responsible for paying for those 25 people. At say, $50.00 a head, that would be $1250.00 you would still owe the venue. You don't have to pay tax for those 25 people, nor the tip (as much as 21%) on those 25 people. But you do have to come up with $1250.00 This is why negotiating to lower the minimum number of people to hold the room is very important. Now suppose you have a reunion planned and a contract signed and for some unforeseeable reason you have to cancel it. Well guess what? You are still responsibl...

Your contract with your venue represents an agreement between the you (or your team) and the facility/venue. It outlines the specific conditions and services to be provided. Most contracts are negotiatiable so think of it as a "work in progress" that can be changed and adapted based on several conversations with your Event Sales Manager. And keep in mind that during these times of economic uncertainty, venues are tending to be very flexible. The idea is to create terms with which both sides are happy. So don't feel like you have to sign the very first document they put in front of you. I remember our last contract went through about 5 revisions back and forth before we signed. The following are points that can be negotiated: 1. The rate and the number of hotels rooms that will be held as a block for the classmates. Go for the lowest price you can and compare the price to other hotels in the area. The more rooms you can hold the better, depending on how large your class si...

The place for the reunion is much more than a box to house "x" number of people for a party. Think about the following when you choose your location. 1. Keep your location relatively close to your school location, say within 20 miles. 2. Consider the advantage of having the reunion in a hotel that can accommodate people before, during and after the party. This is particularly helpful for classmates coming from a distance. 3. While the room isn't going to make or break the party, be aware of dingy lighting, run down appearances and by all means, check out the rest rooms to make sure they meet your expectations . 4. If you expect to serve liquor and food, make sure the menu suits your needs and don't forget that tax and gratuities must be added to the price per person. 5. Does that hotel offer other venues for getting together? Bars/pubs/lounges for Friday night. Restaurant services for brunches in the morning. You may want to schedule a whole weekend of activities ce...