Glossary
The words the industry uses, explained without the industry.
Every term here has cost somebody money at some point because it was not understood in time. Attrition, cut-off, drayage and space-only are the usual four.
A3 terms
- AV (audio-visual)
- Sound, lighting, video and screens. On a conference budget it is usually the second largest line after accommodation, and the first to be underestimated because it is quoted for a room that has not been walked yet.
- Abstract management
- The submission, peer review and scheduling workflow behind a scientific or association congress programme. It drives the agenda, so it drives everything downstream of the agenda.
- Attrition clause
- The contractual penalty for not filling a hotel room block you committed to. Read alongside the cut-off date; the two together decide how much risk you are carrying on a forecast.
B4 terms
- Badge scanning
- Reading a delegate or visitor badge to record check-in, session attendance or an exhibitor lead. The value is in what the scan is attached to, not in the scanning.
- BEO (banquet event order)
- The venue document specifying food, beverage, room set, timings and staffing for each function. If it disagrees with your run of show, the BEO is what the venue will actually deliver.
- Breakout
- A parallel session running alongside or between plenaries. Capacity planning for breakouts is where conference floorplans usually fail.
- Buyout
- Taking exclusive use of a venue, hotel or restaurant for your group. Expensive, and occasionally the only way to guarantee privacy and pacing.
C3 terms
- Charter
- A flight or coach hired exclusively for the group. Worth modelling once a single departure city carries roughly 80 or more people.
- Congress
- A large association or scientific meeting, usually rotating between cities and organised around a peer-reviewed programme.
- Cut-off date
- The date a hotel releases unbooked rooms from your block back to public sale. Miss it and your delegates pay rack rate.
D3 terms
- DMC (destination management company)
- A local operator providing ground transport, venues, permits, staffing and experiences in one destination. Essential in unfamiliar markets; not a substitute for programme ownership.
- Delegate journey
- Everything a delegate experiences from invitation to post-event survey — roughly twenty distinct touchpoints on a three-day conference.
- Drayage
- The handling of exhibition freight between the loading dock and the stand. Frequently the most surprising line on a first-time exhibitor’s invoice.
E1 term
- Exhibitor manual
- The rulebook an organiser issues to exhibitors: build heights, deadlines, rigging, power, health and safety, freight. Deadlines in it are real deadlines.
F3 terms
- F&B (food and beverage)
- Catering across the programme. Guarantees are given in advance and charged whether or not people eat, which is why realistic numbers matter more than generous ones.
- Familiarisation trip (fam trip)
- A site visit for planners hosted by a destination, hotel or venue. Useful for judging service and distances; not a substitute for a technical site inspection.
- Force majeure
- The contract clause covering events outside either party’s control. Post-2020 wording varies enormously between venues — it is worth reading rather than assuming.
G1 term
- Green room
- The private holding space for speakers and VIPs adjacent to the stage. Its absence is felt on the day, not in the plan.
H2 terms
- Hosted buyer programme
- A structured exhibition format where qualified buyers attend free in exchange for a committed number of pre-scheduled meetings with exhibitors.
- Hybrid event
- An event with a live audience and a remote audience served deliberately, rather than a camera pointed at a stage.
I1 term
- Incentive qualifier
- Someone who has met the sales or performance threshold to be invited on an incentive trip. The qualifier profile should drive the destination choice.
L2 terms
- Lead capture
- Recording exhibition visitor interest for follow-up. Value decays fast — leads synced the same day convert meaningfully better than leads typed up the following week.
- Load-in / load-out
- The scheduled build and dismantle windows at a venue. They are contracted hours; overrunning them costs money and, at busy venues, goodwill.
M2 terms
- Master bill
- The consolidated venue invoice covering rooms, banqueting and space. Reconciling it line by line against the contract is where most recovered spend is found.
- Meeting diary
- The schedule of pre-arranged exhibitor and buyer appointments at a trade show. Published late, it is chaos; published early and unrevisable, it is worse.
P2 terms
- PCO (professional conference organiser)
- A specialist that runs conferences and congresses, typically including registration, abstracts, sponsorship and scientific programme management.
- Plenary
- The main-room session that the entire audience attends. It sets the technical specification for the whole event.
R4 terms
- Rack rate
- A hotel’s published price before any negotiated or block rate. The number your delegates pay when the cut-off date is missed.
- RFP (request for proposal)
- The structured brief issued to venues and suppliers. A vague RFP produces incomparable quotes, which is a sourcing failure disguised as a pricing problem.
- Rooming list
- The definitive record of who stays where, with arrival and departure dates and room type. It is a live document until the day of arrival, not a form submitted once.
- Run of show
- The minute-by-minute cue sheet for a staged session — speakers, video, audio, lighting, transitions and who calls each one.
S3 terms
- Shell scheme
- The basic modular stand an exhibition organiser provides. Cheap, fast and instantly recognisable as the cheap fast option.
- Site inspection
- A technical visit to check ceiling heights, rigging points, power, load-in access, pillar positions and distances — not a tour of the lobby.
- Space-only stand
- Bare exhibition floor space where the exhibitor builds their own structure. More impact, more deadlines, more compliance paperwork.
T1 term
- Transfer of value
- The record of hospitality and payments made to healthcare professionals, required under pharmaceutical industry codes in most markets.
V1 term
- Venue sourcing
- Identifying, comparing and contracting event space against real programme requirements — capacity, technical fit, commercial terms and cancellation risk.
W1 term
- Wave (arrival wave)
- A cluster of delegates arriving within the same window. Transfer desks, hotel check-in staffing and welcome logistics are all planned by wave.
The three most confused terms
DMC, PCO and agency are different businesses.
Reading a contract you are not sure about? Send it over.
Attrition, cut-off, force majeure and AV exclusivity are where the money hides. We will tell you what the exposure is in cash terms, whether or not you appoint us.
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