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ElCheapo

Here's what's actually needed for an event to not suck:

- Plenty of free water

- Plenty of food, preferably free

- Plenty of seating space

- Plenty of bathrooms

- Clear indications as to where all of those things are placed

I'll attend almost any event if I can sit down with a drink, some food and make small talk with people and maybe even network! And even if your presentation is empty and boring (as most of them are) I will still remember your event as a decent one because I was able to enjoy it my way and get something out of it.

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If offering food intended to serve as a meal, organizers should ask for food allergies and make sure those people are covered, including proper labelling of the food that's offered. This usually affects other attendees too, since it just sucks to know a colleague will have to go hungry until he can get McDonald's at 11pm because no one knows what may or may not contain nuts (or worse, gets wrong info and ends up having an anaphylactic shock)

Same with mobility impairments. Organizers should make sure every important space is accessible if they have attendants in wheelchairs etc., including toilets.

It’s not enough to just make the event accessible to those with disabilities and make the food accessible to those with dietary requirements. You need to advertise it. If you don’t advertise it you’ve done it for nothing.

Nobody is going to rock up in a wheelchair unless they know they’ll be able to get in the door.

If you aren’t saying what dietary requirements you are catering for in event descriptions then anyone who has them is going to eat beforehand.

If in order to make your event to be accessible you require extra actions before the event on the attendee then it’s not accessible.

Airlines are the worst at this. At so many of them if you have dietary requirements or accessibility needs you have to make phone calls, send emails or go to obscure desktop only sections of their website after booking. If you want to be accessible then provide the information upfront and learn the right things to ask for in order to make requests seamless.

When I'm involved in running an event, my number one priority is an abundance of decent food and a variety of beverages. You don't want your guests feeling anxious about whether they'll be able to snag a bag of goldfish crackers before they run out. Also, even if you're trying to throw a healthy event, it's good to have at least some of the provided food and drink be decadent. For example, buy several cartons of sparkling water, but at least one carton of coke. Once a few people start walking around with a coke, other people will see it and suddenly feel thirsty, even if they have the impulse control to grab a water instead.

And not just diet Coke.

For my daughter's birthday party I bought a case of coke, diet coke, and dr pepper free, just to cover the sweetener preferences of all the parents. That's on top of reduced sugar juice boxes and plenty of sparkling water varieties. Off course we had to cancel the party because of preschool germs, so now my trunk is full of party supplies...

But definitely not diet Pepsi

Coke Zero actually ruined two events for me.

How so? Did you have it in place of Diet Coke? Diet Coke drinkers are addicts and will get mean.

It messed up my digestive system. And apparently I'm not alone:

https://blog.coreyh.com/2005/06/29/coke-zero-and-diarrhea/

Lack of seating (outwith the conference rooms, I mean) is the absolute worst! Actually, I don't think I've ever attended a conference where there were enough seating and tables, which is super annoying at lunch time.

And stop blocking off exits for crowd control when the effect is that everyone's maps, which never list the blocked off exits, are useless.

Blocking off exits? Is that even legal?

Exits to the outside get left open (probably because of those legal or fire code restrictions) but such things as exits to another level get blocked this way. Even just doing this to entrances has the same problem--the maps aren't going to say that the entrance is blocked, and there's seldom a good enough sign to make this known.

No. In my experience, this does not stop organizers from doing dumb things.

And a wifi that works and scales with the number of participants if you are at a conference.

And hot coffee all day long, not just breakfast!

- goody bag (preferably including a decent bottle of booze).

Please no goody bag. Hand me a drink and a goody bag and now I’ve got no free hands. Carrying around tat not a way to have a good time.

Went to a great Google event where you got a bag only as you left. In fact I wasn't even aware there was a bag until I was leaving and one was nicely passed to me. Had some nice bits to share around the office, and also some things I still have to hand. And a Google home mini - a chunk of the people who came with me moved to the Google home devices after that event, after being amazon people before.

100%. Only on leaving.

Not sure if english is your first language but you can say 'no thank you' or shake your head for no.

Ah, but you don't know if the bag of tat contains vital information (event schedule, car park code...) until you've already left the registration desk.

That doesn't sound like a "goody bag". Also wouldn't having nothing be the same?

You go to the conference registration desk, you tell them who you are. They hand you your name badge, and a bag.

The bag contains various things - printed schedule, lanyard to hang your badge from, and whatever assorted tat the conference sponsors have paid to have put in there.

For some conference attendees the bag is convenient, because when they visit vendors' stalls and get handed leaflets and brochures and free pens; and if they didn't have a bag it'd be inconvenient to carry.

Of course, different conferences have different norms - free-entry trade shows will often offer attendees bags as talking to vendors is the whole point. Academic conferences won't. Fan conventions might or might not, it depends. Beer festivals will offer beer glasses instead. Cosplayers never have visible bags, although they sometimes have giant suitcases.

What part of this makes sense of someone saying "there shouldn't be bags at conferences because it takes up my only free hand when I'm drinking" ?

Personally id prefer not to have a bag of useless sponsored crap that is probably just going to get thrown out, but maybe that is just me.

My only rule with goodie bags is that the sponsor items should be things that people will need anyway and that need to be replaced often or you need multiple of.

Good examples are pens and spiral notebooks, one can never have too many. Really bad things I have gotten are rubber wristbands and a "phone holder" that was supposed to hold the phone in place while charging.

Also emphasis on the "replaced often" part. Most people will probably use a bottle opener or a keychain thing, but they only need one. What is the chance that they needed one right before the event and that they will keep using the one the event gave them? Or for example, water bottles seemed like a cool idea when I first got one from an event, but now I have 5 water bottles with sponsor logos and I still only use the one that came with my carbonated water maker.

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