A World of Experience
in Professional Meeting Management
Venue West Conference Services offers over 37 years of expertise in the organization of successful meetings both locally and in destinations worldwide. A solid, professional track record and dedication to service excellence make a decision to work with Venue West a decision well made!
As a Professional Congress Organizer (PCO), Venue West has had the privilege of being a creative part of numerous outstanding academic, technical, medical and scientific meetings. From small, intimate workshops and forums to large national and international congresses, clients count on us for the consistently high level of service and experience required to ensure seamless, successful events.
Venue West offers a comprehensive range of services that include, but are not limited to the following:
- Bid Preparation and Support
- Needs Analysis, Return on Investment Assessment
- Critical Path/Timeline Development
- Budget Development & Monitoring
- Site/Venue Selection
- Hotel/ Supplier Contract Negotiations
- Registration & Accommodation Management
- Secretariat Services
- Congress Promotion/ Attendance Building Marketing Plan
- Sponsorship & Exhibit Management
- Audit of Potential Sponsors/Exhibitors
- Speaker/Presenter Coordination
- Abstract Processing & Management
- Coordination of Poster Presentations
- Graphic Design and Print Coordination
- Web site Creation & Development
- CME Accreditation Coordination
- Audio Visual & Communications Arrangements
- Translation Services Arrangements
- Menu Planning and Catering Coordination
- Special Event/Social Program Development
- Pre/Post Congress Tours
- Youth/Companion Programs
- Transportation Logistics/Coordination
- Highly Skilled, Multi-lingual Project Managers and Personnel
- Management of Onsite Logistics and Registration
- Detailed Financial and Post-Meeting Evaluation Reports
- Shipping and Freight Forwarding
- Customs Brokerage
- Advance Warehousing
For further information or to request a detailed proposal customized to the unique requirements of your meeting please contact us. It will be our pleasure to assist you!
Press Release
Multi-tasking Daugulis finds time to purchase Venue West
Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, January 31, 2008
WE'LL GET YOU TALKING: Former Bull Housser & Tupper managing partner Nils Daugulis still heads that firm's five-litigator maritime practice. If he needed another job, there's the 810-hectare grain farm near Fort St. John his Danish-immigrant parents bought in the late 1940s.
Also busy is Hamilton-born wife Sue, whom he met on a Whistler chairlift in 1975, when she was handling accommodations, accreditations and registrations for Vancouver's global Habitat conference. The University of Western Ontario psychology grad and football quarterback and centre tackle -- "I never left the field" -- had managed integration programs for Toronto's eight-tower Saint Jamestown housing complex. Later, she served a decade as the now-defunct Gray Line firm's marketing director.
Indeed, the Daugulises could retire to their Whistler home on an Emerald Estates lot that cost Nils $300 in 1974, when lakeside sites fetched a heady $500. Instead they took the ever-risky step of buying a personality-oriented business that had thrived under a high-visibility principal and could have languished after her death.
That's Venue West -- www.venuewest.com -- the global conference-organizing outfit Betty Fata founded in 1970 and ran for 34 years. Some multi-branch European firms reportedly bid for it, but Fata's successors chose local buyers who would maintain the name and longtime managers Michelle Jones and Peggy Shepard.
Why did the Daugulises buy a firm that, after a sharp dip, inched back to near $1 million in revenue last year?
"One is Susan," said Nils. "She is known in the game right around the planet. Two, Venue West has an excellent reputation, and is one of the most respected [firms] worldwide. Three, the new Trade and Convention Centre will accommodate conferences of sizes that could never come here before. And, four, the Olympics will do for Vancouver what Expo 86 did -- draw world attention."
From 15 events in 2007, Venue West should organize 20 this year -- including the World Congress on Gas Hydrates -- and have 30 generate some $1.5 million in 2009. Meanwhile, it's lucky the Daugulises didn't sell the farm. Drought in Australia saw canola double to $12 a bushel in three years, Nils said, while wheat rose 40 per cent and the cost of fertilizer tripled.
Still, "Farming is a wonderful reality check," he said, grinning. "Being a big-time lawyer down South doesn't cut it when you go to the local elevator."