Inspiration Hub

Headlines about airplanes failures, inconveniences on the way to the gate and the idea of being stuck on a plane full of unpredictable strangers can put the planner brain on high alert, but it doesn’t have to be a white-knuckle experience. With busy holiday and conference travel season in full swing, here are some easy tips to manage in-flight anxiety.

Event planning veteran Brad Weaber, founder of the eponymous Brad Weaber Consulting Group, has some news for meeting professionals who may have written off destination organizations as not relevant. “It used to be all about heads in beds; now CVBs are involved in subjects ranging from advocacy and safety to climate change; the role of a destination organization has changed dramatically,” he said.

Accessing and sharing information among various event, venue, agencies and organizations is challenging, but necessary for developing effective situational and operational awareness, and your information must be “consumable” and “actionable” to be useful. Here are some helpful steps to establishing communication with your safety and security team and how to empower them to situational assessment.

“We’ve been trying to get an online educational initiative off the ground for (2, 5, 10+) years...we just don’t know where to start.”

Sound familiar? More and more, having some kind of formal education in place for members isn’t an option, but a must-have. Education is a major join reason, it’s something that your organization can uniquely offer, and (if you want to get real savvy) it’s a huge opportunity to generate some non-dues revenue. And with the all learning management tools out there, you can easily make that program available to all members, all the time.

Even the best planned events can fall prey to emergencies. And whether this emergency is an active shooter, a natural disaster or a medical issue, those responsible for the event are responsible for the well being of all attendees and speakers.

When it comes to entertainment ideas for corporate events, things have pretty much been done a billion times over. There’s the photo booth, cooking classes, live bands, not to mention the escape room. Aimed at creating bonding opportunities for employees, sharing company culture initiatives and sparking collaborations, corporate events usually have strong mandates in mind, yet one of the biggest challenges is that people are pretty much dragged into going there, and end up either leaving early, leaving drunk and/or missing the point entirely. 

Would you like to be seen as an event professional whose opinion is valued and can have a permanent seat at the table where strategic decisions are made? Howard Givner, founder of Event Leadership Institute, shared the secrets to attaining trusted advisor status in an exclusive interview with Smart Meetings.

Wi-Fi is an intangible meeting requirement that can be the Fairy Godmother of your event—enabling attendees to use your app, participate in polling, and download educational materials. It can also be an evil spirit, causing complaints from guests who can’t check their email and disruption for presentations requiring an internet connection or access to audience devices.

Virtual and augmented reality continues to make big waves in marketing, thanks to its positive effect on consumer engagement.

Expos and trade fairs offer brands the perfect opportunity to get their name out there and pull in new customers. The catch? There are often hundreds of exhibitors competing for attention, meaning standing out is imperative.

Most of the people I work with across the meetings and events industry know that I’m a huge fan of investing the time to develop deeper relationships. For instance, I always encourage suppliers to evolve from a transactional relationship with clients into the role of trusted advisor whenever possible. And while it’s unrealistic to become a trusted advisor for every client, I urge people to put in the extra effort in any instance where it seems the relationship can be elevated and maintained over time, and they’ll certainly reap benefits from that.

It was April 2005 when the thought first struck me. I was in Hall 8 of Messe Frankfurt, walking down one of the aisles of IMEX—the international trade show I was working for at the time. It was 3 p.m. and the noise was incredible; everywhere I looked people were interacting: discussing, debating, gesticulating, negotiating, smiling, sharing, influencing and convincing and it was then, as I surveyed this sea of human connectivity, that I realized what powered the most successful global business events.

Marketing an event is all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time, and if there’s a medium that has withstood the test of time—it’s definitely email. While it’s among the oldest channels out there, almost half of marketing specialists consider it is still the most powerful channel to hype up your event.

Organising events is a stressful job — and you can’t do it alone. But growing your team can also be stressful, especially when you’ve already got a million things on your plate, and you need to interview candidates.

So what’s the key to making the hiring process as efficient and quick as possible? Start with a go-to list of interview questions that will make it easy to find your next team member. 

IMEX, the Worldwide Exhibition for Incentive Travel, Meetings and Events, held last month in Las Vegas had a major focus on sustainable events and green event planning.  

Going green is a win-win-win that can begin with even those small decisions that come with planning and attending an event. Before the event even kicked off, the organizers behind IMEX suggested that attendees bring reusable drinkware and choose food that generates less waste and use less water. 

Value is at the core of member retention. If a member doesn’t feel like they’re getting value from your organization, they’re likely to let their membership lapse. But on the flip side, if they do feel like they’re getting value from your organization, they’re likely to renew - and engage more with your offerings. 

A report released by ECPAT-USA at the end of September finds that many major travel-related companies and associations promote specific policies against human trafficking and exploitation of children to their employees and members—but far fewer have conducted training in the past 12 months to ensure that employees and members who travel for business can identify potential trafficking situations and report them to initiate a swift response.  

You know how many hotel rooms your attendees need, and which educational sessions they are looking for. But how much time do you spend thinking about what they need to really feel welcome and cared for? For some, finding almond milk at the coffee station is enough; for others, a great deal more planning is needed to make them feel fully welcome and able to participate at your events. 

More and more people are engaging in - and even seeking out - remote work. It’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. 

But even though working from home has its advantages (for both employers and employees), it also comes with its own disadvantages. For example, if you do have one or more offices where a number of employees work, it can be easy for your remote employees to feel left out. 

To mark World Tourism Day, Ending Child Slavery at the Source (ECPAT-USA) released a landmark survey of 70 travel industry companies and found that, while more than 70 percent of companies surveyed have anti-human trafficking policies in place, the overall score of 38 percent leaves room for improvement. The Stamping Out Exploitation in Travel report graded efforts based on policies and practices that prevent and respond to human trafficking in the tourism industry.

More than 3,300 scientific and medical sleep professionals representing more than 75 countries are converging this week in Vancouver, Canada, to present new findings, data and theories on this crucial health topic.

The congress included a 2-day expo hosted by World Sleep Society and was open to the public, during which attendees asked their own questions about all things somnolent. Though you may have missed the expo, you can satisfy your own curiosity with sleep resources provided by their professional members.

As an event organiser, you are always looking for ways to add that extra wow factor to your event. A brand activation might just hold the answer. We share ideas that will boost your attendee’s experience.

Your event description is often the first (and only) chance you get to grab potential attendee’s attention online. And thanks to modern consumer behavior, you have only 5.59 seconds to do it before they abandon your webpage and move on to the next thing.

So how can you make the most of those five seconds you have to spark readers’ attention and turn them into attendees? Here are our top tips for writing ones that drive attendance.