Open Forum

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

The American Museum of natural history would be a great resource for you. They have an events department that deals with all of this that you ask. You can email Youn Lee and ask her all your questions. I'm sure she would help. 

good luck!

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Leslie Martinez
Brooklyn NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-05-2017 03:53 PM
From: Diane Gutenkauf
Subject: Managing rental activities

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

Diane,

We see this situation frequently and help institutions work through the challenges of earned income via events including pay scales and management.   If it is something that you would like to discuss in more detail, please feel free to give us a call.   As a note, we did some work for you several years back so we do have a baseline, to begin with, and we could easily update as well as give an opinion on the best course to pursue.  

------------------------------
Jeff McNeal
Principal/Partner
Manask & Associates
Arcadia CA
818-557-0635
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-05-2017 03:53 PM
From: Diane Gutenkauf
Subject: Managing rental activities

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

Original Message------

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

Hi Diane,

Historic New England hosts functions at many of its historic homes. We pay our staff a base pay. We have sales folks and service folks. Each site is unique but the goal is for the sales person to be the sole contact for the function for the client and all the vendors. By the day of the function we expect every bit of the event to be detailed and confirmed with the client and the vendors so that the service staffer can take it and run with it. Our goal is to have a small team of part time service staff to work the actual events so the sales staff can focus all of their time on selling and managing the pre-event process. 

Happy to help answer specific questions on any part of the functions business. It's a solid revenue driver for us! I am at bblanchfield@historicnewengland.org. Also, feel free to check out historicnewengland.org/functions for a bit more on our sites, pricing, vendors, and the rest.

Good luck!






------------------------------
Bill Blanchfield
Functions Manager
Historic New England
Waltham MA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-05-2017 03:53 PM
From: Diane Gutenkauf
Subject: Managing rental activities

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

Hi Diane, 

I am a Rentals Coordinator at an outdoor museum. Most of our rental facilities are outdoors and we stay very busy with weddings and company events during the warm months and are pretty slow in the colder months. I am a full time salaried employee paid on a regular pay schedule not on commission, this makes the slower winter months much easier on me! I am the main point of contact for all facility rentals but I do not stay for the events. We have some maintenance staff members that are hired specifically for events and a couple regular maintenance staff members that fill in when needed. I stay pretty busy with managing facility rentals but I do serve as back up help for our Visitor Center and manage a couple of our social media sites. As any good museum employee knows: no one does one job. 

Thanks!

------------------------------
Kerri Donnelly
Rentals Coordinator
Frontier Culture Museum
Staunton, VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-05-2017 03:53 PM
From: Diane Gutenkauf
Subject: Managing rental activities

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

Thanks for all the replies to my original question, both on and off list. It's been very helpful as we figure out what model will work best for us. 

Regards
Diane

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-07-2017 04:56 PM
From: Kerri Donnelly
Subject: Managing rental activities

Hi Diane, 

I am a Rentals Coordinator at an outdoor museum. Most of our rental facilities are outdoors and we stay very busy with weddings and company events during the warm months and are pretty slow in the colder months. I am a full time salaried employee paid on a regular pay schedule not on commission, this makes the slower winter months much easier on me! I am the main point of contact for all facility rentals but I do not stay for the events. We have some maintenance staff members that are hired specifically for events and a couple regular maintenance staff members that fill in when needed. I stay pretty busy with managing facility rentals but I do serve as back up help for our Visitor Center and manage a couple of our social media sites. As any good museum employee knows: no one does one job. 

Thanks!

------------------------------
Kerri Donnelly
Rentals Coordinator
Frontier Culture Museum
Staunton, VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-05-2017 03:53 PM
From: Diane Gutenkauf
Subject: Managing rental activities

Hi all. 

Our museum is rented often for weddings, luncheons, and special events. For reasons that predate me, we use a contracted special events manager who receives a percent of our rental fees as compensation. The more events we host, the more she earns. Our contract is ending and she would like to spend more time with her young family. This gives me a great opportunity to evaluate how we structure future events. 

I'm interested in examples of how other sites hire special event (rental) managers. Do any of you pay base plus commission? Operate on straight commission? Pay salary versus hourly? 

Please feel free to email me directly at the address below. 

Thanks, 

------------------------------
Diane Gutenkauf
Executive Director
Ella Sharp Museum Association of Jackson
Jackson MI
dianeg@ellasharp.org
------------------------------