If your alma mater lacks an alumni association, which is the case for most public schools, how do you plan a class reunion? The answer is easy: Hire a reunion planning company.
The benefit of hiring one of these companies is that they take care of every detail. They book the ballroom, hire a disc jockey or band, send the invitations, collect the money, man the reception table and find the hundreds of classmates that will make the event a success.
Planning a class reunion is a detailed process that, depending on class size, takes between five and 12 months to organize. So you’ll need to hire a reunion company far in advance, especially if you want a Saturday night party at a favorite venue.
The most work you will have to do is to form a small alumni committee (ideally, between four and eight people) and interview the reunion companies. Spend plenty of time talking to the company representative who will be in charge of your reunion. Get a copy of the company promotional brochure and, more importantly, a sample contract. The company should have a reasonable cancellation clause and a reunion ticket refund policy.
The only other effort required of you is to provide the company with a master list of alumni names (just ask your alma mater for help) and to loan them a yearbook (so they can duplicate the photos for name tags).
Other than interviewing the companies and providing the master list, there’s little else a committee has to do. The members can now choose to do nothing or to devote their time to personalizing the event by putting together trivia quizzes, skits, slide shows or memorabilia tables.
But besides the significant time saved, the biggest benefit of hiring a reunion planning company is the freedom from financial risk. The company signs the ballroom, disc jockey and photographer contracts. They estimate, based on years of experience, the minimum guaranteed attendance required by hotels and banquet halls. The alumni committee is not required to advance or pay any money out of their pockets (except for their own tickets) and are not liable if there is a lower than expected attendance. Reunion companies are also less likely to overpay for services than first-time committee members trying to organize a reunion on their own.
Another valuable service reunion companies perform is the alumni search. Working with CD-ROM directory software, Internet people-finder databases and phone books, they can manage to find a considerable number of your former classmates. But the search will only be as good as the researcher, so ask for their track record. For large public high schools, the average is around 50 percent.
Each reunion company has its own quirks, which you should ascertain before you sign an agreement. Most will not do college reunions. Some will do grammar schools, but prefer only multiyear reunions if class sizes were small. Some will let committee members assist with alumni searches, others will not. Some won’t consider doing your reunion unless it has a sit-down or buffet dinner. Some will only do traditional ballroom-type affairs, while others will help plan full weekend reunions that include a picnic or school tours. Some accept credit cards in advance and at the door, others don’t take them at all. Most avoid reunions held in five-year intervals.
“If someone’s had a reunion just five years ago, it doesn’t bring a very good turnout,” says Liz Beck, president of Reunions Ltd. in Northbrook. “Some people who went to the one five years ago won’t come to this one because it’s too soon. You start splitting your class in attendance. If it becomes a negative experience, it’s hard to get the momentum back again.”
There are some downsides to hiring a reunion company. High ticket prices averaging between $55 and $65 a person can have a negative impact on attendance. If you begin by finding only 50 percent of your class, you run the risk of pricing out up to half of them depending on the demographics of your class. Alumni will be less likely to bring a spouse or travel from out of town. Of course, there are some alumni who will balk at any price. Keeping in mind that you can’t please everyone, the focus should always be maximizing attendance because that is really the bottom line of a reunion.
“Our goal is to have as many people and to keep the cost down as much as possible,” says Alyse Burman, co-owner of Sentimental Journey Ltd. in Morton Grove. “What people don’t understand is that there’s a lot more to coordinating a reunion than just a dinner. We have to pay people to do research. And then you’re paying for the printing of the invitations, the questionnaires, lost lists, reminder postcards, the alumni directory, the decorations, name tags and the disc jockey. It all adds up. If a hotel dinner alone is $35 (a person), not to mention the sales tax and gratuity, which adds on another 25 percent, it starts to become expensive.”
Another possible disadvantage to hiring a reunion company is the issue of control. Each company has its own proven way of doing things. Although they will always try to work with you, they will only bend so far. You will need to prioritize early which issues you can compromise on and which you cannot.
One area of contention is inviting faculty members. There seem to be two camps on this issue. The first is that faculty should pay the same price as everyone else. The second is that faculty deserves to be invited either free or at a discount. Some companies charge faculty the meal-portion of the ticket price only or offer free or discounted admittance, but only after dinner.
Free faculty dinners get a bit trickier and require negotiating. One method is to increase the ticket price for all alumni by several dollars to cover the cost of a select number of teachers. Another method is to ask alumni to sponsor a teacher’s ticket with an additional donation, but the cost of sponsored tickets should be agreed on in advance with the reunion company.
Finally, don’t be surprised if your far-out ideas for location are steered toward more conventional ones. One company might agree a riverboat casino is a great place for a reunion that just won’t stop. Others may discourage an idea and be absolutely correct to do so.
“There are some venues that just aren’t conducive to class reunions, such as amusement parks,” says Rick Parra, director of reunion services for Taylor Reunion Services in Dallas. “Those kinds of places may work for corporate events where people see each other daily and may need entertaining. For a reunion, people seeing each other is the entertainment.”
If you hire a reunion planning company, remember your final ticket price will include the resources and expertise of professionals who are absorbing the event’s financial risk and allowing you the time to be a guest at your reunion. And it’s hard to put a price on that kind of intangible.
WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP WHEN PLANNING A REUNION
Here are the four reunion planning companies serving the Chicagoland area:
– Alumni Systems Inc., P.O. Box 440, Crystal Lake 60039; 815-477-0858. E-mail: Reunions@alumnisystems.com. Web site: www.alumnisystems.com. Area: Northern Illinois and northwest Indiana. Reunion cost: $40-67 per person.
– Reunions Ltd., P.O. Box 4641, Northbrook 60065; 847-229-1123. E-mail: ReunionsLB@aol.com. Web site: members.tripod.com/Reunions-Ltd/index. html. Area: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Will and McHenry counties. Reunion cost: $50-67 per person.
– Sentimental Journey Ltd., P.O. Box 431, Morton Grove 60053; 847-329-0111. E-mail: Funreunion@aol.
com. Web site: under construction. Area: Greater Chicago area. Reunion cost: $52-70 per person.
– Taylor Reunion Services, P.O. Box 597, Dallas 75221; 800-677-7800. E-mail: Reunions @taylorpub.com. Web site: www.taylorpub.com. Area: Major cities in 24 U.S. states, including the Chicagoland and Peoria areas. Reunion cost: $57-70 per person.
