04-19-26
Commentary by Michael Robinson
If you’ve ever been to events such as small concerts, recitals, classes, presentations held at a church of civic venue, then you may be accustomed to seeing amenities offered to guests like bottles of water, tea, soda, coffee, cookies or punch offered after the event at a reception or at the beginning of the event as a welcome gesture.
Over the years, I’ve attended many events at a variety of venues from small churches to large conferences held in big cities like San Antonio or Dallas. The accommodations offered for attendees varies. What I have found as you may have also, is smaller venues tend to offer the best welcome accommodations opposed to larger, elegant churches or venues located in big cities. Similarly, budget to middle priced motels/hotel chains offer more free amenities and niceties than four-and-5-star hotels. Those elegant large churches to luxury level hotels tend to not have any complementary amenities.
Within about a seven-day period, I accompanied my wife to a Sunday afternoon recital of portions of Handel’s Messiah at a large prominent church in San Antonio. We purchased tickets to attend so it wasn’t free. While the singers and orchestra were performing, I started feeling sleepy and quietly exited the sanctuary to see if there was any coffee offered. When I looked around and then asked, “Hey, do you have any coffee?” The answer was “no”. There were no water bottles either although if one walked down a long hallway, one could find a water fountain.
This isn’t the only church or event in San Antonio where no accommodations were offered to attendees.
At another large denominational church in San Antonio, the staff was actually confrontational to me when I asked if they had any coffee or water where a concert was about to be held. What was even worse was my wife was preforming in the musical group.
Both of these large churches probably operate on a 3+ million-dollar yearly budget.
Contrast that to Uvalde’s El Progreso Memorial Library’s Music on Main concerts. The library always offers a generous table with a punch bowl, a variety of cookies and bottles of water after the event.
My wife and I attended last Tuesday night. Although this is a small Nazarene church and the support group is attended by about a dozen people, the church offered coffee, bottles of water and some cookies.
I have noticed that even at other events in Uvalde held by other organizations most if not all offer something to guests. Although Uvalde is a small town, the welcome mat is generally large.
I was told that the reason nicer venues and four-five-star hotels don’t offer any welcome pleasantries is because just attending such prestigious venues and being “seen” is enough.
Nice destination hotels do offer full breakfasts at a price and many offer valet parking and concierge services most if not all of these services are for a price and a handsome tip is expected.
While I’m not attending these events for the free amenities, these small offerings do make the overall experience a more pleasant and warm experience.
Motel 6 isn’t close to being in the same league as a five-star hotel, but I can always count them to leave the light on for me.
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