Conventions have become conventional. It used to be that if you were going to a convention, you were probably a veteran or a salesman.
These days, there’s a convention for virtually everybody. You could go to an industry association convention related to your job or your hobbies (like hunting, boating or books). There are homeschooling conventions. Some churches hold conventions. There are fashion conventions. Do you work in the convention industry? There are conventions for convention planners. Some comic book conventions, like the Comic Con International in San Diego, and the New York Comic Con, routinely see more than 100,000 visitors. And the major political parties are holding their conventions this summer.
But from ticket prices to travel costs, you might easily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to attend a conference. So if a convention is on your calendar, and you don’t want to destroy your bank account, try these strategies.
[See: 10 Money Leaks to Shut Down Now.]
Book early. Generally, you’ll save money the sooner you make your reservations.
“Most conferences offer killer early bird rates and deals for booking early. This also allows the traveler or travelers to book their hotel or hotels and flights early as well,” says Christina St. Pierre, a Boston-based corporate marketing events manager who produces the business-continuity and disaster-recovery conference, ZertoCON.
Don’t automatically stay at the convention’s hotel. Usually, there are hotels adjoining a convention center, and often, that arrangement gets you a discounted room.
But even with the discount, “a lot of those hotels end up being very expensive,” says Allison Hester, publisher of eCleanMag.com, a resource for professional contract cleaners.
Hester, who generally attends four industry conventions a year, says she recently began looking for hotels near the convention instead.
“If there’s a less-expensive hotel to stay — especially within walking distance — it’s not a bad idea, especially if it offers free breakfast,” she says.
[See: 12 Frugal Ways to Save on Vacation.]
Volunteer. Sure, the tickets aren’t hidden costs. Still, if you can lower or eliminate the ticket price, you’ll better absorb the other expenses that are hidden.
“Many convention organizers are looking for volunteers to do things like work registration, hand out goody bags and other simple tasks,” says Karen Horting, the Chicago-based CEO and executive director for the Society of Women Engineers, which hosts the largest conference and career fair for female engineers. “Volunteers can work for even just a few hours, and oftentimes will receive discounted or free registration to the convention.”
Min Fang, who co-owns Harper Partners, LLC, a receivables financing company in Los Angeles, says he recently attended a San Francisco conference that cost over $2,000. But he was part of a graduate school club that volunteered and got free tickets.
“We spent a couple hours each day helping the organizers with social media, setup and logistics in exchange for free passes,” he says.
Transportation. If you’re flying to the conference, you may want to rent a car once you’ve landed. There are so many hidden costs to rental cars that you’ll do well to see if there’s a free shuttle from the airport to the conference center and presumably the adjoining hotel. But at the same time, don’t jettison the idea of renting a car either.
“In San Francisco, it didn’t really make sense to rent a car. Uber and Lyft are everywhere and getting around was a breeze,” Fang says. “I tried the same thing [with a conference] in Scottsdale but came away with a much different experience.”
Basically, he found the public transportation lacking — one taxi ride cost him over $70 — and wished he had rented a car.
If you do rent a car, Hester points out that rental car insurance can add a lot to your bill, a needless expense if your own insurance covers rentals. Hester once rented a car when attending a conference and the salesperson incorrectly told her that her insurance company didn’t insure their vehicles.
“It was after hours on a weekend and I couldn’t call and check, so I ended up paying for the insurance,” Hester says. “My $130 rental ended up costing me over $350.”
Food. Typically, especially if this is a conference aimed at the general public, assume that the cost of food will be in line with what you’d expect to spend at a baseball stadium or amusement park (and if you over-budget for food, there’s no harm done).
Many attendees recommend bringing granola or protein bars to keep you going. Whatever you do, “plan and budget your meals in advance,” says Sharvonique Renee Fortune, who owns an animation studio based in the District of Columbia and organizes T-MODE, an anime, gaming and Japanese culture convention in the DC metro area. She suggests researching the area to look for nearby low-cost eating options, like grocery stores.
But if you’re souring on the supermarket idea, Fortune points out that “some conventions make arrangements with local restaurants for their attendees to receive meal discounts.”
[See: 12 Ways to Save Money on Food.]
Souvenirs. These can decimate your budget if you haven’t done your research, especially if you’re, say, taking the kids to see their favorite celebrities at a sci-fi convention. You’ll want to visit the convention’s website and try to get a handle on what the prices are before attending. You don’t want to discover in line that you can’t really afford to pay, for example, $60 for an autographed picture of your child’s favorite star.
And, of course, your children or teenagers may want posters, books or some other random piece of merchandise. Fortune suggests shopping at the last minute, if you’re sticking around for the entire convention.
“Vendors and artists often have sales and specials on Sunday for merchandise that didn’t move over the weekend. It’s a great opportunity to score some last-minute deals and save some bucks,” she says.
And do try to keep your head on straight. Welmoed Sisson, a home inspector who works in Boyds, Maryland, and attends many conventions for work and fun, warns that when it comes to souvenirs at pop-culture conferences, “so many of the things offered for sale are what I call contextual. That is, they make perfect sense in the surrounding of their event. But when you get them home, you really wonder what you’re supposed to do with them.”
She recalls going to Awesome Con, a pop culture convention, and seeing “some incredible leather accessories, like potion flasks that attached to leather belts. They looked awesome in the display, and there were people walking around wearing them, but would I ever use one of these outside the context of such a convention? Probably not.”
But try explaining that to your kids.
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The Hidden Costs of Conventions originally appeared on usnews.com
