So recently at Confex, we had a great panel of techxperts, hosted by James Morgan of Event Tech Lab, presenting a quick-fire round of 10 Top Tech Trends in Exhibitions, Awards, Galas and Corporate Events. My focus was on Exhibitions and I had 60 seconds per slide. I’ll try to summarize, in as few words as possible, to share some different perspectives for you to explore.
10. Marketing as a Service
Event technology is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of different technologies - think event management platforms, ticketing solutions, digital signage widgets and apps, beacons, virtual and augmented reality apps, AI-powered event chatbots, and more. Technology is literally shaping every aspect of the event experience.
There’s, however, one prevailing problem with new and innovative event technology and that is adoption. In order to reach meaningful adoption levels, event tech needs to satisfy the needs and expectations of both the organizers and participants.
For many corporate marketing or event departments, getting approval to add employee headcount is close to impossible. You may only have enough work to justify a part-time resource, or your events may be seasonal. Hiring a contract event manager can be a great way to make sure you get what you pay for, without excess overhead.
What — you have some doubts? Let us guess: “But will they do as good of a job?” “How hard will they work, if they’re not officially part of the company?”
“We bend over backwards to make our clients happy.”
How many times have you heard that saying? And what does it really mean?
Assigning actions to these words is vital to a company’s success. At the end of the day, after the work is done and the event is over, people don’t remember the technology or equipment you provided, they remember how they were treated. That’s why it’s so important to make customer service a priority.
This is the final piece in a three-part series recapping a conversation I had with Sue Falcone, Founder and CEO of Remarkable! A Speakers Bureau on how planners can strategically build relationships with speaker’s bureaus. Part one introduces the value of the speakers’ bureau, and part two talks about event speaker trends.
The best events transcend engaging the audience – they make the subject matter and entire experience come alive. An increasingly popular method is projection mapping, a technique that upends all our memories of flat-screen home movie projections and creates 3D experiences like those at the Courtyard by Marriott Super Bowl Sleepover in New York City.
The Millennial audience is a subject of interest and wielder of influence for good reason. A Brookings Institution study predicts that Millennials will account for 1 in 3 American adults by 2020 and up to 75 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2025.
Event strategists always start with the end in mind. They know the core principle in strategic planning is that all actions and decisions must support the event goal. When it comes to choosing speakers, it can be easy to get distracted by celebrity status or choose topics that may be personally interesting but not right for your target audience. Engaging the professional skills of a speaker’s bureau allows you to add an expert to your team at no cost to you, saves time and will potentially introduce you to people and topics you may not have otherwise found.
Bringing new tech to your event is easy; you just go to the event tech store, pick out what you want, take it home, unwrap it and press the big green "on" button.
If only.
Clearly there's more to it, and there are more opportunities for things to go awry, mistakes to be made, and issues to occur.
We've put our heads together and came up with eight "dos" and "don'ts" for implementing event technology at your events. If you're ever had a problem with tech at your events, there's a good chance you made one of the mistakes we're going to address below.
Having just reviewed my numerous hotel and airline accounts, I was reminded of how much I traveled in 2017. Most of my trips were visiting and training clients, helping conduct booth sales or attending industry shows.
Event professionals spend a great deal of time on the road to prepare for and attend their events. Over the years, I have developed a few ways to cope with life on the road. Hope these tips help you in 2018 and beyond!
Staying Organized
