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For meeting planners, being interrupted by competing priorities is a way of life. But did you know it takes, on average, 23 minutes to refocus your mental effort and energy on a task after being interrupted? (According to a study by the University of California.)

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.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation focuses on the rights of individuals over their personal information and how companies use it. It will have a huge impact on the industry, affecting event professionals, agencies, technology providers, and associations across the globe and not just in Europe. It applies to the collection and processing of data of European citizens, which means compliance is required by any organization hosting events attended by EU citizens anywhere in the world.

Is there a way to balance tradition with refreshing twists and draw a congress away from its stale or old-fashioned status? As stagnation is a fast train to declining attendee numbers, it is paramount to freshen things up occasionally, not only to revive your congress format but also to restore engagement. Having access to comprehensive reporting is a prerequisite, and once you put your hands on congress data, it becomes much easier to uncover your delegates’ desires and identify patterns in behaviour that will drive greater engagement.

We are hearing a lot about mindfulness  — the act of being present and purposeful in our actions, including our actions at work, as a way to work smarter, rather than harder.

Micro-influencers have smaller, more niche followings and a much deeper sense of connection with their audience. They engage in buying conversations 22.2 times more often than the average consumer. Conversations they could be having about attending and recommending your event.

Are you reaching everyone you could be on social media? Or have you been stuck in a millennial bubble? If you think social media is just for millennials, you’re missing out on a large market — and lots of ticket sales. The facts show that audiences of all generations are active on social. According to Pew Research, 78% of adults aged 30-49 are now on social media. And so are 37% of those who are at least 65 years old. But just because all generations are on social media doesn’t mean they behave the same way on those platforms. When you look closer, you can parse exactly where and how generations spend their time on these channels.

Over the past decade, the term sustainability has caught on in event venues, meeting rooms and office environments. A growing number of associations and corporations are integrating sustainability into their operations including their events, and although some might argue that the concept has reached the mainstream, there are plenty of opportunities abound for implementation.

Every generation has its own set of stereotypes, but Dianna Carr, vice president of Resonance Consultancy thinks that their “2018 Future of U.S. Millennial Travel Report” helps dispel a few enduring millennial myths. As a demographic, millennials range from 20 to 36 years old, and far from being a homogenous group, they are in fact, “a huge kind of cross-section of humanity,” Carr told Convene.  There are “some that are still on the sofa and some that have kids and families.”

Each year, along with the numbers we collect for the annual Meetings Market Survey, we ask respondents open-ended questions, including this one: What’s the biggest challenge facing the meetings industry?” The responses are illuminating, showing us not only the most common pain points, but spotlighting new challenges. Amid with the perennial concerns with coping with rising costs, we spotted a new worry in the responses. A number of people mentioned competition and a saturated events calendar as the biggest challenge, a response that we’ve seldom seen before.

Looking for a way to attract more millennials to your event and increase your revenue? Exciting new research commissioned by Eventbrite shows you can do both – by giving them an excuse for a mini break. We already knew millennials would rather spend money on experiences than on physical goods, so we decided to investigate their willingness to travel to find these experiences. We teamed up with consumer insights platform Attest to survey 250 people in the UK, aged 22-36, about attending events that require an overnight stay. The results were surprising and present some real opportunities for event organisers.

Event planners are the some of the busiest people that I know. We work hard, and we equally play hard. However even the best of us have trouble finishing our work and putting the finishing touches on an event. Maybe it is the perfectionism taking over. Other times, our aim to control every little thing leaves us paralyzed only to complete nothing. In an event we need to overcome these situations and keep ourselves focused on finishing what we do.

Managing an event may not require rocket science, but successfully engaging with attendees does require manipulating the properties of neuroscience, the study of the nervous system, particularly the brain. In the last 10-15 years we have learned more about our thinking brain than in all of human history combined. Many of these discoveries have a huge impact on best practices for holding meetings and conferences, and, in turn, how we think about what it means to be engaged in a meeting setting.

One of the key components of producing a sustainable event is transportation to the event itself. Too often this important factor is overlooked or, in the case of air travel, ignored like the elephant in the room. We will leave air travel for a subsequent blog and today focus on ground transportation. Savvy event hosts know the importance of selecting a destination with mass transit from the airport to the meeting venue and to accommodations. 

People or organizations who are passionate about something and put their hearts and minds into it, typically also want to leave something behind after their work is done: a best practice, a new approach, a better future for others or the earth … or maybe even create a building, a song, or a work of art. Something that says “I/we were here” and “ I/we tried to leave things a little bit better.” In other words, passionate people and organizations often want to leave a legacy.

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.”

Legacy, diversity and innovation – all global hot topics that are reverberating across the meetings and events sector. These issues top the agenda at the highly topical EduMonday at IMEX in Frankfurt this year. An expanded programme of immersive education forms the backbone of EduMonday, a full day of free education taking place the day before IMEX in Frankfurt, on Monday 14 May.

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. 

As an industry partner of The ICEBERG – a joint project between the Joint Meeting Industry Council (JMIC) and the Technical University of Sydney- we at tmf dialogmarketing, are one of the ambassadors of the current international hot topic “Legacy” . A successful “Call for Destinations to Join the Movement” should therefore also be supported by us!

Marketing a conference means being everywhere at once. You want the professional world abuzz with anticipation, your event’s name popping up everywhere they turn. That sort of cultural infiltration takes more than basic social and web presence. Especially if you’re still building your conference brand, you have to infuse your marketing with extra oomph.

Here are 10 conference marketing tips to help stand out from the slew of conferences all around you this year: