7 Tips for Hosting a Multi-Day Event for Tile Installers
Regional, multi-day events for tile installers can be a fantastic opportunity for tile stores and suppliers to showcase products, build relationships, and enhance their reputations. For store owners or managers who find the prospect of a multi-day event daunting, the following tips from Lance Latham, who manages and handles outside sales at DeSoto Sales in Fresno, California, may provide some reassurance.
Latham has plenty of experience hosting and helping others host events for tile installers. In an interview the day after THASIE 2024, he talked about the most essential considerations and provided the following list. If you are thinking about hosting an event, utilizing the concepts in this list will empower your efforts and help ensure it is successful.
1. Set a Sponsorship Deadline
Securing financial support is crucial to the overall quality of an event, from promotions to event plans to cleanup. Communicate a clear deadline for sponsorship commitments with plenty of advanced warning and stick to it, no matter what.
Latham says, “Make sure you have all your donations from your sponsors. Unfortunately, sometimes smaller companies will want to drag things out a little bit. You have to have a deadline for when the sponsorship can be cut off.”
Actively engage with your sponsors between the day you commit to having the event to the sponsorship deadline. When that day comes, that’s it. You’re done thinking about sponsorships.
2. Stay Organized
Organization is the centerpiece of a successful event.
“Things can get shuffled around pretty quickly,” Latham says, “so, you want to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” He provides this example: “If you have a bigger place and you start stashing pallets away, you can start losing things. Then, vendors and sponsors start losing trust. You always want to make sure that whatever they send in is there when they show up.” It sounds easy, Latham warns, but “when you’re doing your job day in, day out” you must be purposeful about staying organized.
Utilize any organizational tools and strategies that will help serve the purpose: project management tools, deadlines, lists of responsibilities, and a detailed timeline with milestones. Delegate tasks to team members. Check in on progress, as needed.
3. Ensure Clear Communication
Effective communication with all stakeholders, from sponsors and vendors to attendees and your event team, is extremely important. Of these, the most important line of communication is with your own team. Latham says, “I have a good crew… very adaptable to things. They always know that I won’t get them into anything that they’re not going to be able to handle.”
Almost everyone on Latham’s team has been working together for two decades. That’s not to say you must have that kind of history with your team to have a successful event.
Consider what kind of team you have. Do they feel confident in you and in each other? If not, you’ll need to identify the gaps in trust or understanding. Resolving any communication problems ahead of time can help ensure that everyone has a clear picture of their roles and responsibilities for the event.
“Align everybody together,” Latham says.
4. Avoid Alcohol
While offering alcohol at events can be tempting, Latham suggests it’s often best to avoid it, especially in a professional setting like a tile industry event for installers. Latham explains, “You definitely don’t want to compromise your company or your business for them to be able to have fun.” (He uses air quotes.) Latham says that before any agreements are made or anything is posted or any contract is signed, everyone needs to be on the same page about alcohol.
“At the end of the day,” Latham points out, “you’re hosting an event for 2-3 days, but you have the entire rest of the year that you have to protect. Unfortunately, sometimes people… will get wrapped up in the fun of hosting and the hoopla and all that. You still have to build and run your business.”
Ditching alcohol can help a host avoid possible unprofessional behavior, safety issues, and liability concerns. Latham encourages hosts to keep this attitude in mind: “It is my house. It is our place of business. And at the end of the day, it has to be my rules.”
Of course, a host can choose to disregard Latham’s advice and offer alcohol. Regardless, there should be a variety of non-alcoholic beverages made available to keep attendees energized and hydrated.
5. Arrange for a Dumpster
Latham recalls being unprepared for proper waste management at his first event for tile installers. It is an often overlooked but very important factor to consider. He suggests renting a roll off dumpster, “otherwise you end up with a mess.” In the aftermath of an event, there are also modules to break down. Latham says, “I would definitely say a dumpster is the way to dispose of the trash.”
Ensure attendees and staff can easily access your dumpster. Schedule timely pickups to avoid overflow, as needed, according to the size of your event.
6. Provide Porta Potties
Another thing that caught Latham off guard it his first event was the necessity for adequate restroom facilities. “Porta potties,” Latham says, “are another essential because most businesses only have maybe two restrooms. If you have 150 or 160 people, you need to have somewhere for them to go. So, we learned that the hard way.”
Determine the number of units based on expected attendance. As with the dumpster, strategically place porta potties. This will help minimize the burden on your in-house restrooms. Verify that the rental company provides cleaning, restocking, and waste removal services.
7. Plan for a Two-Week Lead Time
Give yourself at least two weeks of lead time, Latham advises. This period encompasses everything from the initiation of event preparations to the final teardown and cleanup.
For THASIE 2024, Latham says, “we basically emptied out 90% of the stuff we normally have in our main warehouse, and then we had to just work around everybody the whole time while they were here.”
The Value of Micro Events
Several vendors approached Latham after THASIE 2024 to say they really appreciated him hosting the event at DeSoto Sales. They expressed how different smaller, installer-led events are from larger events like Coverings, The International Surface Event (TISE), or Total Solutions Plus (TSP), where they spent more time talking with business owners than installers. Latham says the vendors found it “really invaluable” to “get in front of [installers] and make a connection with them to show them little tricks that they don’t know about.”