Hello everyone!
I am excited to share that the Conference Committee has chosen a venue for next year’s NCSLMA conference. After securing quotes from several convention centers around NC, and taking into account the feedback from the future conference survey, we are thrilled to announce that the 2025 and 2026 NCSLMA Conferences will be at the Concord Convention Center at the Embassy Suites in Concord, NC. Mark your calendars for October 8-10, 2025, and October 21-23, 2026.
In full transparency and brutal honesty, I wanted to share what led to this decision and how the conference affects NCSLMA financially.
Conferences are expensive and they are getting more expensive each year.
NCSLMA loses money every year on our conference. We rarely bring in enough money in registration and vendor fees to cover our expenses. The exceptions to this are 2022 and the virtual years. Our last year at Benton, the conference cost $120,000 and we brought in $103,000 in registration (475 attendees) and vendor fees. Last year, at Koury, the conference cost $165,000 and we brought in $115,000 in registration (435 attendees) and vendor fees. We have to make up the difference from our membership fees and our non-expansive savings account.
The cost of conferences has gone up exponentially over the last several years. We’re not doing much different except paying for more food, as that is something that we heard overwhelmingly from our attendees that they wanted that AND because the cost of food has gone up a ton. Our food minimum was $50,000 in 2024 and will be $65,000 in 2025 and 2026. Food is so much more expensive than it was even two years ago. We will end up spending about $170 per person on food if we have 500 people attend. The minimum this conference will cost is about $150,000 because that’s the current cost of a conference with our size attendance. We will spend $110,000 on the space and food, about $20,000 on AV and vendor booths, $10,000 on speaker and author fees, and $10,000 on swag and miscellaneous conference expenses. Yes, we have to pay people to come talk to us and to sign their books for us. At a minimum, we pay their travel and hotel costs, but many authors also ask for a stipend, which we 100% understand as they are giving up their time to travel to us and to spend the day with us. This is another cost of having a conference like ours.
This is why we had to raise registration costs last year, but we will not raise them again this year or next. We are raising our vendor fees slightly to begin to bring us more on par with what other organizations our size charge for vendor space. We did that last year as well. This is also why we can’t afford to give free registration to presenters. While we absolutely wish we could, free registration for 100 people is not sustainable for a conference as small as ours.
We decided on Concord for a few reasons. Their cost was one of the lower quotes we had and we were able to secure a two year contract, keeping pricing the same for next year. They have the same “all-in-one” feel that Koury had, but even more intimate, giving it a camp-like vibe, which is perfect for Lori’s “We Are Family” theme. The hotel rooms on site are very close and the meeting space is inclusive and intimate, but not tight. The hotel rooms are high quality and great for sharing. Wink wink nudge nudge. Every room is a suite, so there are one or two beds, a bathroom, and the living room with a pull out couch. While the hotel rooms will be slightly more expensive ($194 per night) than at Koury ($172) last year, they also come with that amazing Embassy breakfast buffet (and made to order omelets!) as well as the manager’s reception coupons, which will help us keep our food budget close to the minimum, rather than going way over in order to provide breakfast for everyone. They have assured us that attendees will get the best posted rate, even if it’s cheaper than the block rate and we get credit for every room an attendee books. This was an issue we had with Koury. We committed to rooms at their $172 rate, but they were selling rooms $30-40 cheaper than that, so people were reserving outside our block and we didn’t get credit towards our commitment. We 1000% understand saving money on a hotel and do not begrudge anyone who did that. But that almost ended up biting us in the foot because we had to cover the difference between the rooms we committed to and the rooms that were booked in our block. We are grateful to Duke Energy taking all of those rooms at the last minute, saving us from a potential $10,000 expense.
The future conference survey results overwhelmingly showed that you preferred the conference to be in the middle of the state and I intentionally added Concord and Charlotte to that because we had already requested quotes from there. While things to do in the area were not high on the benefits of a conference, it will be nice to have options for dinner while you’re at the conference. There are numerous restaurants within a five minute drive of the convention center. Concord Mills Mall is right there, and IKEA is not far. There are also two restaurants, a spa, a coffee shop, and a pool at the hotel.
There are quite a few conference-specific benefits to Concord. This is the boring part. Feel free to skip. There is a built in registration table and office space attached to it, allowing for storage right there. So we won’t have to threaten to buy Heelys so we can get back and forth faster. There are three rooms that are slightly removed from the session spaces where we can finally have our getaway room, a makerspace room, and a collaboration room. I am particularly excited for that! We’ve wanted to do that for years, but haven’t been able to find the space. We will have the convention space to ourselves on Thursday and Friday. So we won’t have to worry about wandering into a room that isn’t an NCSLMA session. We did ask for wifi to be included in the cost of space. While wifi is provided for free for hotel attendees, we do understand that not everyone can stay there. We have pre-purchased wifi for a set number of devices and will have a code for a limited number of people who are not staying at the hotel. There is a parking fee at the Embassy, but our attendees will get 50% off of that for the next two years. The current fee is $8 per day.
That is everything I can think of without going into mind-numbing boredom. This is already a ridiculously long post. Kudos if you’re still with me! As always, feel free to send me an email with any questions or concerns you have. The conference committee is very excited about this venue and we hope to see as many of you there as possible.
In Librarianship Solidarity,
Kristy
