Conference Sponsorship Brokering and Contract Terms

Unsold sponsorship inventory discounts by twenty-five to forty percent inside the last six weeks before an event, and the rate card in the prospectus is an opening position we have never paid. That is the smaller half of the saving. The larger half is refusing the tiers that cannot work: lanyards, tote bags, the coffee cart, and the logo wall in a corridor people walk down once on their way somewhere else. We have never bought any of them, and we will argue with you if you want one. The number nobody puts in the business case: Booth build, shipping, staffing, travel and lead-capture hardware typically run one and a half to two times the sponsorship fee itself. A thirty thousand euro tier is a seventy-five thousand euro quarter. We model the full figure before anything is signed, because the decision is usually made against the rate card alone and the finance conversation arrives eight weeks later, at which point the contract is not negotiable. Inventory that has actually returned something: A speaking slot on the main programme, with the speaker and topic approved in writing rather than assigned by the organiser in March. A curated dinner for sixteen to twenty people you invited, on a night the organiser is not running a competing party. Badge scanning with opt-in capture. An organiser-sent dedicated email to the registered audience, from their domain, with subject line approval. Workshop tracks where the room is yours and the attendance is yours because people registered for it specifically. The attendee list clause: Organisers in the EU routinely offer the attendee list and routinely cannot deliver a lawful one. Attendees consented to the organiser. A list handed to you without a named-party basis is data you cannot email, and the exposure sits with you as controller, not with them. We strike the clause and replace it with mechanisms that carry consent with them: opt-in badge scans, organiser-sent email, session registration. This conversation alone has changed the tier we recommended on most engagements. Terms we do not sign without: An attendance make-good, so that where verified attendance falls below eighty-five percent of the figure the prospectus stated, a pro-rata credit or refund is due. Category exclusivity written against a named competitor list rather than a category label the organiser gets to interpret afterwards. Logo usage that ends when the event does. Payment tied to delivery of prospectus items rather than to calendar dates. Cancellation and postponement language written after 2020, which a surprising number of regional prospectuses still are not. Spain: We negotiate each year at SIMA and Barcelona Meeting Point on the real estate side, at Mobile World Congress and 4YFN in Barcelona, at Fitur, and at the health trade congresses including Infarma. We know which of them sell their good inventory by September and which still have a main-stage slot available in week minus four. How we are paid, which matters more here than anywhere else: By you, and only by you. We take no commission, rebate, finder's fee or media credit from any organiser or venue, at any time, and we will confirm that in writing per engagement. It is the reason we can tell you to sponsor nothing this year, which we have done. Not included: Booth design and build, stand contractors, travel, staffing, giveaway production, on-site photography. We will read a build quote and tell you which lines are inflated, at no separate charge, but we do not manage the build and we do not take a margin on anyone who does. Who we turn away: Companies with no follow-up capacity. If nobody owns the badge scans on the Monday after, the sponsorship is a donation, and we would rather say that before the money is spent than write it in the report afterwards.