Plan Your Meetings

Homeless drifters, deceiving muffins and trips to the emergency room: Salisbury, Md.-based The Knowland Group released its Top-Five list of bizarre meeting planner complaints about group events.

1. Bankers and beggars. At a banking convention, one planner struggled with vagrants, beggars and drifters, who were drifting in from the bus station next door. “The drifters came into our rooms and helped themselves to the buffet, approached the conference attendees for money, and also stole several items from some of the vendors.” The hotel called local police, but the planner said the intruders were not deterred.
2. Muffin of deception. An event coordinator refused to return to a hotel because she felt as if the hotel’s catering staff purposely deceived her. What did they do? They included an apple muffin with the breakfast selection. “I thought it as a bran muffin when I picked it up,” said the event coordinator. “I was quite disappointed.”
3. Itchy session. A South Florida hotel’s unruly chigger population disrupted an annual, weeklong training session for an automobile manufacturer, biting attendees indiscriminately. “Maybe the hotel needed to spray,” the planner commented.
4. Fishy situation. A banquet at an upscale waterfront hotel ended with several attendees being rushed to the emergency room. “There was a big problem with the main fish entrée,” the planner explained. “Two people got tiny fish bones stuck in their gums, one attendant got a bone stuck in the roof of their mouth, and three people had some stuck in their throats!” Luckily, none of the injuries proved serious.
5. Crummy cookie platter. After ordering the “cookie monster” platter from a venue’s catering staff, an event planner was horrified to find out, on-site, that the monster platters only held a few cookies each. “There were over 200 students that attended the event,” the planner recalled. “I had to keep ordering more cookies while conducting my program.” Due to the cookie stress, the planner said she never would use that location again.