My company is the IS/IT geeks to IEEE, IETF, IGF, etc. So thanks goes out for those who say the networks, work.
Having a great network is not a want, it is a need. Members who attend events, tend to attend many events all over the globe. They are away from home offices and must do double duty by being a member of a group working on a standard and stay connected with the office as work must move forward.
I wish I could get all the work available, but that is not possible. The best recommendations I would give are:
1) References; require a possible vendor to produce references from similar or larger events with similar needs (Wi-Fi, Cyber cafe, audio video streaming, dictation, etc). You dont want to be teaching someone you are paying.
2) Billing; Your first event with a new vendor should have a detailed description of services with start end date and time, number of engineers onsite, response time for after meeting hours. You need to know the final bill before you engage the vendor.
3) Hardware; Enterprise hardware is a must. Working with a larger IT firm will make sure hardware stays currents as they will have enough clients to always afford upgrading to best of breed hardware.
4) Staffing; Not all IT geeks are created equal. Proper planning reduces the head count for onsite staff, also seen it, done it, made it a turn key product makes it so our typical meeting is staff at 1 geek to 250 attending members, now this number will be higher if audio and video streaming, or other special needs are requested. As an example IEEE 802 with 1300 attending members is staffed with 5 VeriLAN staff.
Contact VeriLAN http://www.verilan.com for additional information.