A Multi-Day Corporate Holiday Celebration in Downtown Columbus
Hotel, venue, travel and event night, coordinated from first arrival to final departure.
At a glance
- Returning client: Second consecutive year with Meridian 360
- Client: A large legal services firm
- Program: Annual employee holiday celebration
- Format: Arrivals across two days, one event night, departures the following morning
- Setting: Downtown Columbus, Ohio
- What we delivered: Air travel coordination, hotel sourcing and contracting, venue sourcing and contracting, airport transportation, culinary and bar coordination, décor and floral, a photo experience, AV production, locally sourced guest gifts and on-site management
The challenge
The client needed far more than a ballroom and a dinner. Guests were flying in from multiple cities across two days, staying downtown, attending one signature evening and flying home the next morning. Every piece — flights, hotel rooms, airport transfers, the venue, food and beverage, production and gifts — had to line up around the same travel pattern.
The plan changed shape during planning. Early proposals were built around a different date and a different venue. When a late change required moving the program to a new date, Meridan 360 coordinated the necessary changes.
Three operators, one timeline. The hotel, the convention venue and the venue's exclusive caterer each came with their own contracts, deadlines and terms. Someone had to be the single thread running through all of them, at Meridian 360 was up to the task.
A headcount that kept moving. Guest counts shifted through the fall. Every cost on the program — dinner, bar, centerpieces, gifts — is priced from that number, so it had to be managed right up to the final deadline.
What we delivered
Hotel sourcing and contracting. We issued a formal request for proposals to downtown hotels, consolidated the responses into a single side-by-side comparison — rates, taxes, concessions, parking and amenities — and negotiated the room block, including concessions beyond the rate itself. Hotel sourcing was included at no cost to the client.
Venue sourcing and contracting. We secured a downtown convention-center ballroom with pre-function space and a green room for a full-day license — enough time for load-in, décor installation, gift assembly and the evening itself in one space. We held the venue contract in our own name and carried its operational requirements.
Air travel coordination. Guests booked their own flights through a Meridian 360–managed booking platform, within travel guidelines set by the client. We handled traveler support and kept the arrival manifest current as flights changed.
Airport transportation. Looping motorcoach service between the airport and the host hotel on both arrival days, with greeters and branded signage at baggage claim and staffed loading. On departure day, coaches left the hotel every 30 minutes across a seven-hour window.
Culinary and bar. A seasonal plated dinner with a children's option and full bar service, coordinated with the venue's in-house caterer and finalized against the confirmed guest count.
Décor, photo experience and production. Ninety seasonal floral centerpieces, a green-screen photo experience with custom backgrounds and prints, and a full stage and AV package — screens, lectern, live speaker video and presentation playback.
Locally sourced guest gifts. Gift bags filled with Columbus-made treats and keepsakes, assembled on site by our team before the event.
How we built it
We split the contracts on purpose. We held the venue license; the client kept direct ownership of its hotel room block, which we negotiated on its behalf. The client keeps the hotel relationship it will want in future years, while we carry the venue's obligations, its requirements and the caterer coordination.
The comparison is the deliverable, not the request for proposals. Anyone can email five hotels. The value is in normalizing what comes back — taxes that differ by a point and a half, concessions worth more than a rate difference, parking that quietly costs guests every night — and then negotiating the terms that actually show up on the bill.
Additions went into one agreement. As the program grew to include dinner, bar, production, transfers, décor, the photo experience and gifts, everything was added through a single addendum rather than six separate vendor contracts. When the guest count moved again, there was one document to update.
The result
One partner, one agreement, every moving piece — from the first flight booking to the last airport departure. Hotel, venue, flights, three days of transfers and a full holiday evening, without the firm's team juggling a single vendor.
Planning a holiday celebration or multi-day employee program in Columbus? Tell us your dates and group size, or call 614-321-7585.
