Come One, Come All

Planning a family-friendly meeting or event is no easy task. In addition to meeting the needs of your corporate clients, you’ll also need to meet the needs of their entire family. While it can be challenging to keep everyone happy, there are a few things you can do to make sure your program goes smoothly.

Where to Go

“Family-friendly events can be difficult to plan because of the wide range of ages of the clients,” says Sandy Biback, principal of Imagination + Meeting Planners Inc., based in Toronto. Keeping everyone happy can be a lot of extra work. That makes the selection of venue more crucial than ever.

“Look for places that have a children’s program,” says Biback. These venues will already have preplanned activities for kids, which will take away some of your planning workload. For example, Biback recommends Great Wolf Resorts (www.greatwolf.com), which offer a number of on-site opportunities for family entertainment.

“We do a number of corporate events here and although we’re a little bit avant-garde compared to your traditional meeting venue, often times planners are looking for something a little different,” says Chris Salerno, director of sales and marketing at Great Wolf. “We like to say that we combine serious business with serious fun, and when meetings are hosted here it’s a place the whole family can enjoy.”

Theme parks tend to be a safe bet as destinations the whole family can enjoy, says Annie Revel, a certified special events professional and president of Revel Productions Inc. in San Diego.
“These types of venues have built-in entertainment and food, which makes planning a lot easier,” she says. “We once rented out an entire water park for a company picnic and everyone had a blast.”

Walt Disney World (www.disneymeetings.com) hosts so many family-friendly events each year that the staff members have become pros at working with event planners. “Just about everything we do is created to cater to families and guests of all ages,” says Anne Hamilton, vice president of resort sales and services for Disney World. “Planners will find inherent value in hosting an event here, since everything they need to customize an experience is immediately accessible — from hotels and meeting space to entertainment, specialty merchandise, staging and production resources.”

Disney also has numerous options within the resort. “We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure our six dedicated convention resorts and even the Disney cruise ships cater to attendees and their families,” says Hamilton. In particular, he adds, family-oriented groups enjoy the sand-bottom pool at Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club Resort; Disney’s BoardWalk Inn, which sits along an extensive entertainment complex and is within walking distance of Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot; and Disney’s Contemporary Resort and its Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, which are connected to the Magic Kingdom by monorail.

What to Do

Entertainment is a key factor in creating a truly family-friendly event. If your location is a theme park, the entertainment is automatically provided. But if you’re in charge of arranging all of the entertainment, seek a routine that will appeal to a variety of ages and people, says Biback. For example, she recommends circus acts.

Dance numbers can also be a hit with the whole family. And just because kids are in the audience doesn’t mean you should only plan on big Broadway-style acts.

“It doesn’t have to be ‘Greased Lightening,’” says Rudy Sanchez, choreographer of New Century Dance Co. in Miami. “You’d be surprised how much kids can appreciate all forms of good entertainment. At one event with kids, we did a rumba piece, similar to one seen on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ and the kids were just floored. Not a peep came out of them. So the point is that the entertainment does not need to be ‘kiddy stuff.’”

Brad Wilson, general manager of corporate entertainers The Three Waiters, agrees that kids and adults can enjoy the same performance. In the group’s performance, three opera singers are disguised as real waiters during the event, before eventually revealing their talent as opera singers.

“The performance doesn’t need any drastic changes when kids are in the audience,” says Wilson. “We would make slight changes like playing up the humor more or getting rid of any reference to drinking, but since our show does not have any crude humor to begin with, there are no major changes.”

But those subtle changes can make all the difference, so it’s crucial to find an entertainment act that is experienced with many audiences.

“We’ve performed in front of all kinds of audiences and our performers know how to present their act depending on who is in the audience,” adds Wilson. “Even if the event planner doesn’t ask us to, our performers will pay attention to who is in the audience and will read their reactions.”

You may also want to consider having separate entertainment for the kids and adults.

“At some events, we entertain the kids for the first few hours and then, once they leave, we do a separate performance for the adults,” says Sanchez. “For instance, we’d do a belly dance number, in which the costumes are a little riskier.”

At Disney, entirely separate entertainment can be arranged. “We’ve taken a unique approach to family-friendly events,” says Hamilton. “For example, a typical awards banquet for adults can be transformed into two parallel events — one for the adults and one for the children. The children’s banquet would be held right next door with live entertainment — Disney movies, character greetings and other age-appropriate entertainment.”

While planning family-friendly events can be challenging, the selection of your venue and vendors can help make the process easier. Bottom line? Find a venue, entertainers and caterer that will work closely to help you meet the needs of all your clients — ages infant to adult.