I’m a wedding logistics coordinator weighing an offer to go in-house at a downtown hotel. Their standard load-in is a 90-minute window via one freight elevator and a 30-minute ballroom flip at 8:30 p.m. — if you’ve made this switch, did venue-controlled timelines simplify your week or just move the stress to constant enforcement?
At my last hotel, the stress dropped once we took ownership of the freight elevator schedule: we split the “90-minute window” into three 30‑min vendor slots, required names on a shared dock sheet, and engineering held the elevator key so enforcement felt procedural, not personal. The only caveat is the “30-minute ballroom flip at 8:30 p.m.” only works if you pre-stage racks in the service corridor before doors, so build that into the BEOs. Do you get control of the dock calendar and key, or does ops keep it?
Going in-house simplified my week, but — the stress shifted to gatekeeping. For a single freight and a “90-minute window,” we issued timed dock passes (no pass, no lift), used a simple SignUpGenius link for vendor slots (https://www.signupgenius.com), and enforced a 10‑minute “clear aisles” buffer before the “8:30 p.m.” flip to roll in pre‑staged dollies. Do they give you elevator key control and security at the dock?