A couple of years ago, it was possible to organize and host a team event in a week. Not ideal, probably challenging, but definitely possible. However, these days, if you want to plan and run a team building event that’s worthy of your team’s time, it’s likely impossible with the current supply chain disruptions.

Thought leadership is a big part of many organizations’ communications strategies. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2020 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study found that 48% of survey respondents spent at least an hour a week consuming thought leadership content. 

There is no one route to success when it comes to starting and building your career in event planning. It may feel like you’re always faced with the same question: “What event planner experience do you have?” Aside from gaining a certification, there are numerous other factors to consider before hitting “apply” on that application. 

We have put together some smart steps to get you on the road to your dream career as a successful event organizer. 

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the events industry was forced to quickly pivot to an alternative format incorporating video and networking software, and virtual events soon became the norm to keep the industry moving safely.  

Now that venues have reopened, and a pathway to normality is forming, hybrid will continue to play a crucial role in allowing organizers to combine the best features of virtual, such as global accessibility, with the elements that make live events so popular, like networking. 

Virtual and hybrid events have matured and evolved a great deal over the last couple of years, and they will keep connecting us long after the pandemic is over. Even as businesses move into pandemic recovery, events and conferences—a more than trillion-dollar industry—will largely remain virtual or hybrid for some time. Professional event planners will need to find virtual event solutions that provide a great attendee experience and are highly customizable.

There’s a certain energy on a trade show floor that is wildly thrilling.

Live event production is still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Event professionals have had to explore other kinds of touchpoints since 2020. One such option has been drive-in events, providing a unique, convenient and memorable way to engage attendees from the safety and comfort of their own car.  

Creating a safe and successful drive-in event during a pandemic is not the easiest thing to do. These three strategies can ensure your drive-in event is a smooth ride.

1. Plan around local guidelines and regulations. 

There’s an interesting debate raging at the moment. It’s focused on whether hybrid events are here to stay or if the world will merely return to business as usual and resume in-person events.

It’s an important conversation as the “return to normal” continues running up against new COVID variants, but the decision doesn’t need to be a binary one.

Even as in-person events make a comeback, companies can and should include a virtual component in their events. It’s a relatively easy—and cost-effective—way to “upsize” smaller events into larger ones that reach more people.

Today’s marketing teams are focused on engaging with the thousands of prospects and customers in their contact databases to generate awareness. Once you have that prospect engaged, the next step for any customer in their journey is education.  

Customers need to evaluate the companies they want to work with. That process includes attending trade shows, corporate events, webinars, one-to-one meetings, sales meetings, expert meetings and executive meetings. But sessions are where prospects learn more about a product and specific use-cases.

Humans love to measure things and put names to them. We create measurements for individuals such as IQ and EQ as well as organizational maturities of all kinds. So, it only makes sense to add one more to this ever-growing list of quantification: data maturity. An event organization’s data maturity is the level of the staff’s understanding, adoption and utilization of available data to guide decision making, ideation, product development and procedural improvements. It may just be one of the single most important measures you can assess.