Inspiration Hub

It has long been understood that most business or professional conferences and trade shows have been about the 3 C’s: content, commerce, and community. These three legs of the stool for big, national events made sense. First, we aggregate an array of education and programming known as content. Next, we host a football-field-sized trade show with booths and let attendees/“shoppers” wander, looking for the right company that has what they’re looking for. And last, we’ve seen it as our job to bring a community of like-minded people together in the hope that the right people would find each other and build or renew a professional relationship.

When the sun rises on event day, you’ll already have been up since 4 am. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t get out of bed with a rush of adrenaline and excitement. This is the moment you’ve been planning for — and now it’s time to see how all your hard work will pay off.

Hotel and venue contracts for international meetings are often shorter than for those in the United States, and “may often look more like a banquet event order than a legal contract,” says Terri Woodin, CMP, vice president of marketing and global meeting services, Meeting Sites Resources. However, just because a contract is short and easy to read, it is not necessarily a cause for celebration. According to the international meetings expert, planners still need to protect their organizations and attendees. During a recent MeetingsNet webinar, Woodin laid out her must-haves for international contracts.

Delegate attendance: One of the main topics in the highly competitive world of associations where uncertainty continues to grow. Very often due to lack of expertise or resources, associations struggle to find the right ways to reach their target groups, and to develop a strategy that will allow them to maximise their delegate attendance for their conferences. So, how can it be made sure that potential attendees know about the conference and its value? And how can associations ensure the impact of their conference is effectively communicated to prompt the attendance numbers to go up?

What do delegates and conference participants mostly care about these days? A rather popular (and complex) theme is the quality of conferences. Just by monitoring the Web 2.0 world, tracking social media conversations and forum discussions, one can extract crucial insights on pressing association questions

Meetings seem to be getting some bad press lately. The June 28, Bartleby column in The Economist called meetings, “a form of torture for office staff” and compared the average employee’s enthusiasm for a meeting to Prometheus awaiting the eagle to peck at his liver every day. Bloomberg News posted a video on July 8 suggesting that reducing the number of at-work meetings boosts employee morale and productivity, and quoting Harvard University research that indicates 4 to 6 attendees is the ideal number for an in-office meeting because it promotes more meaningful discussion than a larger one.

Innovation may be a tired word. There is no doubt that innovation has become an overused and confusing buzzword. It is riddled with an excessive number of meanings from authors, dictionaries, experts and our personal experience. Ask ten people to define innovation and you’re probably going to get a dozen or more responses. Innovation is change that creates a new dimension of performance said management guru Peter Drucker. Within the conference arena, innovation is the process through which new value is created and delivered to customers.

The meetings industry is stronger than ever, but the rise in activity brings new challenges. In many cities, it is becoming more difficult to find appropriate space for large-scale conferences. Space is just not available like it was years ago, and if you’re not working nine to 12 months in advance, your options could be limited.

Brian Stapleton is the vice president of food and beverage at Aramark and an International Association of Conference Centers board member, but he started his career as a sous chef back in 1985 and worked at various hotels, including a Ritz-Carlton. At Aramark, he oversees menu development and enhancing the customer dining experience, which for Stapleton starts at the beginning of the food procurement chain. Stapleton says, “I love going to farms, I grew up on one in Elk Grove, Calif, so I always go to the distributor’s warehouse and ask where the produce comes from so I can visit.”

One of a busy event professional’s important considerations is selecting speakers that will help drive registration and engage your audiences. Whether those speakers are celebrities, industry experts, thought leaders, or professional speakers for keynotes, breakouts, panels, short-talks, or emcee roles, their responsibility is to get (and keep) your audience’s attention, provide tangible takeaways, and inspire them to share their learnings with others.  

Conferences are an overwhelming rush of discussions, presentations and educational sessions -among others-. This flux of information makes it hard for delegates to focus their attention and allocate enough time on what truly interests them, let alone its impact on actioning their learnings. Often, the post-conference time-frame makes it nearly impossible for attendees to implement what they learned back at their workplace. All those engaging discussions, interactive workshops and inspiring presentations become a memory, when they could have potentially turned into actionable plans.

Now that the warm weather is here, event planners are gearing up for a season of outdoor concerts, weddings, and retreats. And surely, no matter what type of events are on your calendar, using the outdoors to your advantage can create a refreshing experience for attendees. Assuming it’s done right.

The venue you choose and the decor you furnish it with have the power to bring your event or brand to life. Done right, beautiful event design can change the atmosphere of a venue and give your attendees something to talk about — or share on their social media. Without the elements of event design, however, attendees may feel uninspired — or worse, unsatisfied.

Can your next conference, corporate get-together, or annual meeting be fun? Yes—in fact, unless you are dealing with a truly serious matter, I would say it needs to be. Whether you’re building brand awareness, promoting a new product, or team bonding, kicking up the level of fun may be the difference between “It was the event of the year!” and your participants playing games on their phones.

One element that is constantly under serious scrutiny by event planners, is the budget. Event budgets of course vary depending on the event’s scale, however, throwing a large amount of resources into it does not guarantee  success. Cost-effective doesn’t have to mean cheap in the world of event planning, therefore experiences with a smaller budget can be equally impactful and engaging, as long as event planning is executed strategically to activate and excite attendees. After all, it is the value that needs to be high, not the price.

The term sustainability strategy refers to any measurable objective aiming at optimising (reduce environmental impact and cost), innovating to improve participant experience, engaging organisations and attendees to change behaviour and leave positive social impact and finally communicating sustainability initiatives while building brand reputation.

Consider this: in today’s world there is an abundance of information. From the latest technological developments and emerging social media trends, to engagement models and destination details, the constant barrage of information from various sources makes it more difficult for audiences to retain information overtime.

Every year, $165 billion of food is wasted in the United States; while at the same time, many families go hungry. Two events industry experts, Courtney Lohmann, CMP, director of culture at Koncept Events, and Mariela McIlwraith, CMP, CMM, MBA, director, industry advancement at the Events Industry Council, participated in a recent MeetingsNet webinar on reducing food waste in the meetings industry. Lohmann and McIlwraith focused on two strategies, reducing the amount of food that is wasted at an event, and using any extra food in a planet-friendly way.

Spring and summer are synonymous with event season. Whether it be conferences, concerts, community events or festivals, chances are we are all heading to at least one in the next few months. In honor of Earth Month, now is a great time to reflect for a moment on impacts these events are having on the environment; particularly in the area of single-use plastics, which given their prevalence in event settings as well as their difficulty to recycle & break down, present a unique challenge to attendee, venue, and planner alike.

Whether it’s managing worse-for-wear guests or forgetting to focus on delegates, every event organiser has learned a lesson or two along the way. Here, we speak to seven about their biggest mistakes made (and what they now do differently as a result).

Planning a successful event is hard enough without having to worry about how presenters are going to consistently sustain interest and buzz for large and often diverse audiences over extended timeframes. Thankfully, you don’t have to schedule 87 networking breaks, provide each registered guest a custom coffee IV drip, or hire fire-eaters and dancing horses to keep attention and conversation levels consistently high.

Spring is officially here, and with it come food and beverage trends for meeting breaks that will be popping up all over. Here are our best bets on trends you’ll be seeing at a grand ballroom near you this season.

Marketing guru and best-selling author Seth Godin famously said, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” The quote makes perfect sense, especially in the digital age where brand loyalty is earned through unique, shareable experiences and moments; where empathy and transparency win far more trust than advertising. Experts have noted that people today want an experience as much as a product or service, and research reveals that consumers are “less worried about spending money and more concerned with using it to enhance their lives.”

Creating a memorable attendee experience should be the top priority of any event. A memorable event raises your credibility, encourages future event growth, and expands your influence.  Planning for an unforgettable event means striving to meet the needs of each attendee. This may seem like a tall order (after all, how can you anticipate everyone's needs?), but it’s not unattainable.