Products, software and advice for planning family, military, and class reunions

Featured Profile of the Month

PROFESSIONAL REUNION PLANNERS
"The Event Place"
Andrea Anderson and Katie Brinson

St. Petersburg, Florida.  Event planners, Andrea Anderson and Katie Brinson are the dynamic duo who established their company, "The Event Place" when they realized there was a need for quality and client driven reunion planners in St. Petersburg, Florida.

They had planned and organized many different kinds of events from business meetings and conferences to weddings.  This translated to the beginning of "The Event Place." At this time, they are focusing on reunion planning only.  They find that this takes much of their time.

Katie and Andrea have two people run the company on a day-by-day basis and then hire staff for the on-site events.  Their most difficult task is finding as many classmates as they can.  The other tricky part is securing the registrations and the money early on so that necessary payments can be made to the vendors.  For weddings, one party is paying, but for reunions the costs have to be shared by all the classmates.

For entertainment at their reunions they hire DJs, they have award ceremonies and depending on the requirements and suggestions of the reunion committees, they do slide shows, or live combos if the committees can afford them. They find that the more the reunion committee is involved, the better attendance they receive.  They ask the committee to take part in the entire reunion planning process from helping choose a location, menu selection, song selection, to finding classmates and encouraging people to attend the reunion.

They favor venues such as hotels, restaurants, country clubs, outdoor venues, depending on the size of the class and what type of environment the committee is looking for.

Advertising on Reunions.com, Google and Yahoo bring the results they are looking for. They love word-of-mouth referrals as they get many repeat reunions.  This makes the process much easier.  They always follow-up with the reunion committees after the reunion to get feedback to find out what worked and what didn't.

Andrea and Katie are constantly gratified watching classmates reunite and having such a great time on the night of their reunions.  Their advice is to always listen to the reunion committee and just have fun yourself!