How to get free meeting space

I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.
 - Pablo Picasso

Yep, free meeting space. It's easier than you think. I'm sure you already know a bunch of the tricks... the first one being:

Ask for it. No, really! If you ask your venue what their F&B minimum is to get the meeting space comped, they will tell you. Combine that with your room block, and you should only being paying for your meeting space on extremely rare occassions.

Ask to exchange marketing for space fees. If you're event gets huge marketing buzz, you might be able to negotiate additional marketing money being spent on the venue, in exchange for paying meeting space fees.

Get someone else to pay for it. Sponsors make the world go round. Just make sure to do your sponsorships right. 

Go somewhere that doesn't charge fees. Yeah, that sounds really dumb, but if you can find a venue that makes their money off of the food (which you'd have to serve anyway) or is a public venue, you can easily avoid any meeting space fees. Not so easy when you need A/V, but there are ways to make it work. You can also use unique spaces, like customer's offices or meeting facilities.

Barter your services. If your company offers products or services that could benefit your venue, offer to trade/swap/share in order to avoid meeting space fees.

The point here is to not assume that all of your meetings will have a meeting space fee. You should actually go into every venue search surprised that you have to pay a venue fee, and then work your way back from there!