Welcome to the mantra behind a massively successful new revenue growth strategy we call Branded Hospitality.

Lots of companies use hospitality as a tactic to win and retain customers. And most of the time that takes the form of sitting in some sort of stiff corporate luxury box at a sporting event or concert or even just going out to a dinner. While those can offer opportunities to connect with customers and prospects in a personal way, there’s a growing thought that it’s a tired strategy that doesn’t really work.

It’s not working because our expectations as humans are rapidly evolving.

It’s more difficult to get our attention and things we perceive as fun, engaging and worth it are harder to come by. Simply put, with more luxuries in our everyday lives (ie. on demand services, conveniences, high quality experiences etc) we just expect more today.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear someone offer for me “to come to a corporate luxury box” I immediately think ughh… this is going to feel like work. It’s going to be stiff, have crappy food and be boring as all hell. I’ll probably even get some product brochure that I’ll undoubtedly throw in the trash.

Branded Hospitality ensures that’s never how attendees feel. It most often happens when a company puts on an exclusive activation surrounding a larger event (i.e Super Bowl, Olympics, CES, Formula 1, etc). Instead of just giving people tickets to these events and sitting next to them, the most successful brands are producing their own experiences.

They are brand immersive. They are engaging. They’re catered to the attendee. They are designed to “wow” and create brand enthusiasts.

There’s no doubt that Branded hospitality works. The challenge is that a lot goes into making these experiences.

Want to learn more? We’ll dive into the subtle but critical tactics that are needed to make your hospitality turn into a revenue generation engine. Look out for Part 2 coming soon!

When it comes to event planning, most of us know how to put on a great event. However, measuring the return on investment (ROI) for each event can be a challenge. And given the significant costs and time investment required to organize events, it’s crucial to know how your efforts are paying off.

In our most recent virtual event, “Crafting the Event Experience – Part 7,” Ryan Costello, co-founder of Event Farm and Chief Strategy Officer at MemberSuite, and Gizzella Diaz, Marketing Manager at Event Farm, explored how event planners can approach their events with a marketing lens that turns great experiences into great results. This blog is designed to ensure you are making the most of your event planning process, getting great results, and establishing a funnel of potential customers for your products or services. Here are five ways to prioritize pipeline and ROI  in your event planning.Missed Crafting the Event Experience PT 7?

1. Understand the Platforms You Need

Having the right systems in place is key to making sales and ROI a priority in your event planning. Because of this, you should look to integrate and connect technology platforms that make the entire sales pipeline run smoothly. At a minimum, your setup should include a CRM system, a marketing automation platform, and an event platform. 

The CRM system (like HubSpot or Salesforce) helps you track campaign performance, leads, opportunities, sales, and pipeline generated plus keep all data related to past and current customers in one place. It allows your sales team to better manage communication with leads, customers, and partners throughout the sales process.

Event Farm Integrates With Over 1,000 Apps

The marketing automation platform (like Hubspot or Pardot) helps you segment and target contacts with relevant messaging and content. This will ensure that you reach the right people with the right message. It also helps you nurture leads through automated email campaigns, drip campaigns, landing pages, and other types of marketing strategies. 

The event platform will help you promote, manage, measure, and drive engagement at your events. Moreover, it facilitates the creation of event websites, social media promotion, captures registrations, and generates reports on how events are performing.

These systems empower you with the engine and insights you need to keep sales as a top focus of your event planning process.

2. Select an Attribution Method

When it comes to prioritizing sales and ROI in your event planning process, understanding how to count and attribute your efforts is key. Marketing attribution is the practice of determining which marketing efforts are driving a sale or desired outcome. Here are a few examples: 

• First touch – this represents the first action a prospect engaged in to become a lead. 
• Last touch – similarly, this is the last action a prospect took before converting into a lead.
• Multi-touch – takes into account each touchpoint in the customer journey and the value of that touchpoint. While this method does tell a more complete story of the customer journey it is also more complex and choosing the right multi-touch (Linear, U-Shaped, and Time-Decay) modal to use depends on your current business and which efforts you’ve found to be most impactful at bringing in new clients/customers. 

Attribution is necessary for  identifying the impact of activities and where to invest resources to drive sales and ROI. It also reveals where customers are in the funnel. Without it, efforts may be wasted on strategies that don’t actually make a difference.

Ryan compares how email marketing is analyzed (every email’s effectiveness is measured by responses, clicks, and conversions), and urges event planners to do the same with their events.

 As Gizzella noted, each event can be seen as its own marketing channel, and there are many touchpoints within each event that must be understood to optimize performance.

3. Create a Replicable Event Process 

Creating a replicable pre-event process that includes campaigns and a marketing focus will help you get in the habit of focusing on results. When you have a step-by-step process that you can use for each event, you can easily track the success of your event and make sure you’re doing everything you can to increase your sales and return on investment. For best results, your event process should include the following flow: 

1. Define your event goals and marketing plan, including features, special offers, promotion channels, and follow-up processes
2. Create the event as a campaign (in your CRM)
3. Create event registration (in your event software)
4. Segment your audience lists, and build detail if you have multiple products or services
5. Design and send promotional emails to target your audience
6. Allow the sales team to review and compare to their own account lists
7. Lead outreach efforts to engage or invite leads that may be attending
8. Create automated attendee arrival alerts and notifications to let your sales team know an attendee has arrived

“We as event organizers don’t spend enough time doing this,” said Ryan. “We don’t spend time nerding out and wiring up the systems to prove it —but when we do, it just makes it self-serving because we get to do more experiences. The thing is, we know it drives business outcomes.”

4. Track Your Metrics

Measuring the success of your events is critical to understanding the returns your efforts are generating, That means that you’ll have to generate data to look at it objectively. To do so, you’ll want to track a few metrics for every event you produce. 

1. How many (new) leads have you added to the company database or CRM
2. Total event revenue
3. Total social media reach/impressions/ hashtag usage
4. Relevant press or media mentions
5. Interactions with prospects or clients
6. The overall pipeline, from leads to MQLs to opportunities
7. How the existing pipeline was influenced, if at all
8. Any relevant survey or event ratings
9. The number of deals won during or as a direct impact of the event itself

Tracking these metrics will give you valuable insights into how successful your events are and where you should focus your efforts in the future.

 5. Turn Leads into Customers

When it comes to event planning, turning leads into customers is an important factor in achieving the desired ROI, and it all comes down to the touchpoints you have along the way. In fact, you have to “touch” a prospect 15 times before they are likely to recall your brand and take decisive action. To ensure that your event planning process is successful, you need to understand how a sales pipeline looks and how to turn leads into customers/clients.

You need to understand your sales cycle, which is how long it takes to turn a random person into a prospect, and then into a customer. What touches do they respond to? Do you score actions they take based on certain activities (i.e. lead-scoring)? For example, someone who shows up at your event obviously is more interested than the person who just clicked on the link in your event email. 

In that process once they’ve expressed interest, you may score them up to a Marketing Qualified Lead—someone that the sales team can follow up with because you know they are interested. Eventually, the hope is that person will purchase from you—effectively becoming a customer or client.

All this may seem overwhelming—especially to those not used to following the data consistently—but keep in mind that part of our roles as event planners is also to be marketers. It’s our job to drive business results and outcomes. Creating a system that not only watches the numbers—but plans for them—can make a huge difference in the bottom line of your future event. 

Event Farm’s event management platform allows numerous ways to market, engage, and reach your attendees and prospects. For more information on how Event Farm’s suite of tools can help you, download the brochure or request a demo now.

Event tech plays a significant role in shaping how events are planned and executed. But with so many options available, it can be hard to choose the right tools that help you deliver an engaging experience, understand your attendees, and most importantly, get the ROI you need.

Fortunately, during Crafting the Event Experience Part 6, Ryan Costello, Event Farm co-founder, and Chief Strategy Officer at MemberSuite discussed the world of event tech including what event planners need to consider and pay attention to.

Here are the top 6 event tech tools you need (at minimum) to execute engaging event experiences this year.

Missed Crafting the Event Experience PT 6?

#1: Registration Software

It’s pretty common knowledge that you need a way for attendees to register for your event and to track that information to ensure you have enough resources to accommodate all your guests. To nail down which registration tool you should use, you must first understand your event use case and goals.

For ticketed events, it’s important to sell your audience on why they should attend and provide a frictionless way to share the event with their network. Leaning in on branding and customizability to build hype—for everything from the event registration site to the follow-up emails—need to be at the top of the decision ladder.

For internal or corporate events where you don’t have to “sell” the ticket, but just account for who is coming, your registration system needs to allow for the event to be invitation only assuring that only the people you invite can RSVP to the event.

For marketing-based events, your registration tool needs to look and feel like an extension of your brand, have features that allow you to spin up the event quickly, connect to your CRM, and so on.

Most event registration platforms can accommodate these use cases to varying degrees, but their ability to provide full brandability out of the gate and various feature sets differ.

However, there are some baseline features that have become quite the nonnegotiable in our industry, such as:

• Custom registration questions, with basic, if/then logic
• White-labeled event site
• Guest List Segmentation
• Personalization for email communications
• The ability to use your brand voice from ticket/registration access names to confirmation messages, waitlists, and beyond
• A way to check-in guests whether it’s on the web or via a Check-In App (we dive more into this later)

Ultimately, registration technology can dramatically enhance the attendee’s perception of the event and pre-event experience when you choose the right tool, and capture the right data to leverage at your events.

#2: Texting 

It’s 2023, right? And everywhere you go sends text messages…except events?

Think about it: You get text messages from restaurants regarding your reservation, your dentist confirming your appointment, airlines letting you know flight status/gate changes, and Uber when your car is about to arrive. We can go on forever because everything you do is via texting, which is why open rates are currently around  99%.

Plus, texting doesn’t have the same deliverability challenges as emails. And, with today’s automation capabilities, it’s an easy way to welcome people personally or provide them with important updates without adding a ton of extra work, so get on it!

#3: A Check-in Solution

Another event tech must-have is an intuitive check-in solution that not only keeps the flow of guests moving but also provides pertinent information such as guest table numbers and unlocks potential for engagement. For example, we shared how texting is one of the easiest, low-lying options for event communications and attendee engagement, and it starts at check-in with an automated text message welcoming your attendees to the event.

If your event is using experiential elements to engage attendees such as any sort of credential or wristband using NFC (Near Field Communication) technology or QR codes, your check-in process has to be able to activate those assets quickly and seamlessly. People don’t like waiting in lines so be sure to run through your check-in and asset activation process to ensure it’s flawless—as this is your attendees’ first impression of your event.

Ideally, your check-in solution would be an offering of your registration tool so that registration data automatically syncs between them. This saves you time from exporting and importing your registration list to your check-in solution.

 #4: Exhibitor Solutions

Any event planners that mainly plan conferences need to go beyond lead retrieval and think about what we call the exhibitor experience. Determine what your exhibitors want (more leads, more brand exposure, more data insights on leads, a way to schedule an appointment to meet with attendees on the expo floor, etc.,) and give them that. When you work with your exhibitors to understand their goals and help them achieve those goals, you’ll have no problem upselling them for future events or even your current event’s data, which can provide a slew of behavioral data depending on the event tech tools you implement. Exhibitors and sponsors will pay for good, solid data, so make sure you’re not leaving money on the table.

#5: Attendee Apps

While attendee apps aren’t necessarily a must-have for every event (especially since so much can be done to keep people moving and informed simply by texting them), there is a space where it can be leveraged for creating a community. Use the app as a place for attendees to meet pre-event and set up times to engage during the show,  or as a place to connect, chat, and share images of their favorite sessions (or event happenings) with fellow attendees.  In a hybrid scenario, the app is a great tool for connecting virtual attendees with in-person attendees.

All in all, humans want to interact with other humans, so if you can help facilitate that, you’ll enhance the user experience, leading to higher engagement.

#6: Health Verification Tools

While the world is consistently moving forward from the pandemic, health verification in the event industry should be part of your duty of care as an event planner. When implemented as a part of the check-in process, health verification can be a smooth operation that validates test results or vaccinations for event entry. So, whether you see this happening at events or not, it is still a great tool to have in your back pocket, should a spike in cases occur or for attendee peace of mind.

Event tech tools are easy to come by, but the key is to find the one that can help you accomplish most of your event goals and desired outcomes. For more information on how Event Farm’s suite of tools can help you create engaging event experiences that provide invaluable attendee insights and boost event ROI, download the brochure or request a demo now.

A new year is here and event planners everywhere are looking ahead to the future of the event industry. Here are the top trends that I’m predicting will shape the future of 2023 event experiences. From virtual events to sustainability and beyond, these 7 trend predictions will help prepare event professionals for what’s in store in an industry that is constantly evolving.

1) Experience-First Events

As the event industry continues to regain momentum, one thing remains clear—experience-first events matter more than ever. After months of social distancing and virtual events, people are seeking experiences that make them feel connected to others. 

That’s why event professionals need to focus on creating truly unforgettable experiences that attendees can’t get from a computer screen. This requires out-of-the-box thinking and intentional experience mapping to utilize every inch of an event space to create immersive activations and engaging activities. In 2023, you can expect to see: 

• A focus on providing guests with multi-sensory experiences. It’s not enough to just sit and watch—events now must excite, immerse, engage and surprise.
• Dead spaces in venues will be reimagined to interactive areas, such as photo booths, art galleries, networking hubs, or virtual reality gaming zones. 
• The tried-and-true menus are gone; food and drinks will be elevated to create unique sensory experiences with memorable flavors, smells,  and presentations.
• More usage of unusual venues like rustic warehouses or historic buildings to deliver more unique and memorable events. 

Event Farm experiential (EFx) tools elevate attendee engagement by creating fun and personalized experiences while capturing invaluable data to measure engagement and ROI.

2) Renewed Focus on Sustainability

With an increasing focus on the universal health of both the planet and its people, sustainability continues to be a hot topic—and one that event professionals cannot ignore. From reducing waste to using eco-friendly materials, we’ll continue to see the event industry playing a big role in sustainability.

Fortunately, while the idea of a 100% sustainable and zero-waste event may seem impossible or out of budget, there are many ways to increase sustainability efforts at any event.

Where possible, pick sustainable products

One of the most effective ways to reduce waste in event planning is by emphasizing the use of reusable and recyclable materials. By providing reusable bottles and utensils, as well as recyclable materials such as cups and plates, event organizers can drastically reduce their environmental impact. Additionally, event organizers should ensure that any materials used during their event can be recycled or repurposed, instead of being thrown away. 

Focus on digital marketing

It’s easy to reduce waste in the event industry by simply leveraging digital marketing and content delivery. By relying more on digital channels like emails, social media campaigns, or onsite electronic content delivery, event organizers can reduce the amount of paper needed for posters, brochures, etc. 

Rethink your SWAG

Rethink your event SWAG and giveaway offerings and opt for more environmentally friendly options that are reusable or recycled. Another idea is to have a charitable focus and challenge your event community to give back in neat ways. Get creative on this and see how you can weave your cause into the overall event programming and outcomes for a bigger impact.

Don’t forget the transportation

Where possible, prioritize sustainable transportation options for your events. Share how to get to the event using public transportation, offer discount codes for ride sharing options, or encourage carpooling and gamify it by offering a prize for the best rendition of “Carpool Karaoke.” All are great ways to reduce emissions associated with attending events. 

Use your event as an opportunity to educate

At the end of the day,  event professionals can make a massive impact by teaching attendees more about sustainability and sustainable practices. Incorporate this topic into the programming, think tanks, networking conversations, etc. Remember you are bringing people together so leverage the opportunity to create a larger community of overall environmentally-conscious consumers!

3) Elevating In-Person Events with Tech

In-person events may be making a big comeback, but from here on out, they’ll be supplemented by event technology that has become even more important over the past few years. Event organizers and companies need to combine the two seamlessly in order to keep up with event trends, hybrid expectations, and attendee behaviors.

Here are some easy ideas you might “a la carte” your tech stack at your next big event. 

Video, Video, Video

From live streams, virtual event platforms and attendee apps with video conferencing capabilities, using video is a great way to engage those who can’t be there (and to connect them with the people that made it!)

Create a digital memory bank

Let attendees capture and relive their favorite event moments whenever they’d like via a digital memory bank. Digital memory banks are a unique and personalized way to remind attendees of all the positive emotions and interactions they were experiencing at your event. Leverage it as a tool to reminisce, build hype for future events and to create a real event community.

Streamline ticketing, registration, and health protocols

The best thing about tech is its capacity to make hard jobs easier and nowhere is that better seen than in the world of ticketing, registration, and event protocols. Event-focused platforms (like the one Event Farm produces), can not only handle the registration and access points, but can also verify health status for COVID and encourage engagement with online surveys and tools, and even provide engaging opportunities for your attendees to engage and connect. 

Incorporate AR and VR options

The worlds of augmented and virtual reality are closer than we may think, and providing opportunities in these arenas is still a futuristic path —although a path that can have big returns. By incorporating these new technologies, you can be ahead of the curve, and create an experience that your attendees will remember for a lifetime. 

4) Event Staff with a Marketing Mindset

As the event industry grows, event professionals must have a content-creation mindset to stay relevant and engage their attendees and greater audience. Find staff and volunteers that can act as content creators and marketers who can share various perspectives of the same event. This can help draw more attention to the event plus generate buzz and new audiences.  

Empower your staff and volunteers

By empowering staff and volunteers to take ownership of the event and create content that they are passionate about—like photographs, videos, or even written content—event professionals can create an arsenal of content that speaks to unique experiences at the same event. Additionally, this creates an atmosphere of collaboration and camaraderie among staff and attendees.

Create a central hub for content

Create a central hub for all the types of content that may come in, and repurpose it under your own brand guidelines. 

Boost your social media channels

Social media is great for sharing multiple perspectives of the same event. Whether it’s sharing photos on Instagram, posts on LinkedIn, videos on TikTok, or tweets on Twitter, having staff and volunteers actively engaging on these platforms can help spread awareness about the event and its exciting atmosphere.

5) Innovative Strategies and Creativity

With tight budgets, an emphasis on experiences, and an increasing need to stand out from the competition, event organizers are having to get creative with their event strategies. In order to make sure events have maximum impact in 2023, event profs need to look into innovative ideas and event trends now.

As a first step, event profs need to use their imagination and look for ways to make events more immersive, meaningful, and unforgettable. This includes creating themed events, incorporating interactive activities, games, and technologies, and providing exclusive experiences. 

6) Increased Focus on Diversity and Inclusivity

We can expect to see a continued and more keen focus on diversity and inclusion in 2023 events. This means extra steps to ensure that all attendees feel welcome and included, and can participate fully in every experience that is offered. 

Create enhanced offerings that cater to all members of an audience, no matter their language background. Use tech to help as there are solutions available that can be used for those attendees who may be hard of hearing or seeing. Ensure you have a registration question to capture if an attendee needs additional assistance and have a plan for how to accommodate the request.

Remember to ensure your event programming also reflects the values of diversity and inclusivity. Ensure you feature a wide range of speakers from different backgrounds and cultures, and even include discussion topics that explore different perspectives.

7) More New Players in the Event Universe

As an industry that is constantly evolving there’s no doubt that there will be more growth and new players entering the space. From event tech solutions to event services to event production companies. Your team may now include staff, volunteers, planners, and speakers—plus the tech team, your engagement groups, and others. Keep an open mindset and find the right people, products, and services that can help you obtain ROI and best meet your event goals. 

Engagement is everything and having the right tools in place in 2023 can help you create unforgettable events that achieve results. For more information on how Event Farm’s suite of tools can help you create purposeful, engaging, and personalized event experiences request a demo now.

Event planning has changed drastically since the COVID-19 pandemic—from cancellations and postponements to the new wave of virtual and hybrid events, event planners had to pivot quickly in order to stay afloat. After three long years of constant changes and new challenges around every corner, it’s time to take a breath. 

For our most recent virtual event, “Event Exhale,” we brought together four industry experts to pause and examine the true state of the industry as it is today. Together, Channing Muller, Principal of DCM Communications, Valerie Bihet, Founder of VIBE Agency, and Melissa Park, a Global Event Producer with Melissa Park Events joined our co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at MemberSuite, Ryan Costello, to discuss the current state of the event planning industry, explore recent planning trends, and give planners an opportunity to exhale and move forward with confidence.Couldn’t join us for Event Exhale? Check out the session recording!

Where is the Event Industry Hurting?

It is clear that event planners have faced unique and new challenges since the start of the pandemic, and even today new challenges constantly arise as vendors, exhibitors, and attendees try to navigate the changes in their own worlds. Fortunately, our panelists were quick to identify some of the growing pain points within the industry and offered some solutions. 

Pain Point #1: Timelines and Budgets

With increased inflation and still-reduced spending from many companies and non-profits alike, event budgets have taken a real hit over the past few years—and are only getting tighter. At the same time, the hectic culture surrounding us means that timelines are shrinking, with companies waiting until the last minute to decide whether to host an event or not. In addition, costs are increasing everywhere—with hotel pricing increasing by 30 percent in early 2022 and airfare up 25 percent since the beginning of the year (with another eight percent hike expected in 2023). These increased costs create a real puzzle that event planners are left to put together.

Given this information, Costello asked the group a very crucial question: “How do you get empathy and get support, but not derail management and have them say, Well, it’s not worth it, we’re just going to give up on it?”

The Solution: 

The first thing you need to do, the panel decided, is to know the goals of the company, the priorities of the event, and the mission you’re trying to bring to life. Then, come to the table with solutions. 

“It all comes back to mission and goals,” noted Park. “Your entire design—hybrid, virtual metaverse, whatever it is—comes down to where your people are and what you need to achieve.”

Muller agreed. “Instead of coming to complain about all the things that are happening, clarify what the goals are and make sure you’re on the same page. Educate them. Say, “Here’s what I’m seeing talking to all of my peers, doing the continuing education, making phone calls to vendors and hotels. Based on that, here’s the budget that we need to make your goals happen,” she said. Then, if they can’t meet that budget, you have a point to move from. “I’ll give you three other options that we can do, but we need to adjust our goals a bit for that.”

Pain Point #2: Lack of Staffing

When it comes to manpower, everybody is hurting these days. Not only are event teams more streamlined than ever before, but hotels, caterers and other vendors are all feeling the pinch. And whether it’s because of staff shortages or high turnover that brings new, less-experienced members to the team, building the perfect event team can be tricky, to say the least.

The Solution: 

Network. It may seem too simple an answer, but sometimes your best team member is already in your network—or should be. 

“Right now there is a great partnership that can be made because of the economy,” said Bihet. “Some of us might have more clients at some times and others have more clients at another time. The idea is to network and see who you have a great fit with, and who you can partner with. Sometimes, it’s all about teaming. You cannot do it alone, so find the right people to help you and support you. There are actually a lot of freelancers out there willing to help and join in on teams, as well.”

Pain Point #3: Low Attendance

Attendance and attrition have always been a big focus for event planners, but in a post-pandemic era of virtual options, online recordings, and limited (or costly) travel, getting registrants to actually show up is a whole new level of difficulty. Unfortunately, data provided by Event Farm shows that attrition is incredibly high—and around three people out of four won’t even show. 

“We have a lot of data on this from the last 15 years because of course, we have a registration tool,” noted Costello. “There is a dramatic increase in drop-offs…you can see basically 30 percent of your guests showing up, and that’s normal right now.”

The Solution: 

To address the attendance issue, there are two main things that event planners need to be doing: first, focus on getting the right people to your event. Then, make sure you are building engagement into every single touchpoint, to create a real experience for them all along the customer journey. 

While the panel noted that we need to start re-focusing our attention on quality over quantity, Bihet agreed.

“The top priority is not to attract the most attendees; it’s to attract the right attendees,” she said. “The demand is actually growing for simpler, smaller, more frequent events with authentic opportunities to meet face to face, to engage better with their audience and to build trust with their consumer.”

Once you have the right attendees in place, she noted, engagement becomes much easier, as you know who they are and what they’re looking for—and what experiences will resonate with them. 

As an example, Park shared a personal story of a startup client with a small budget who bought a 10×20 booth at one of the largest shows in the U.S.—Cisco Live—and had to make a big splash with a little budget. To do this, they focused on one thing: Engaging attendees and giving them an experience they wouldn’t forget.

“We knew that there were going to be a lot of developers there, so we set up Beer Pong at their booth. We set up a game of Beer Pong in this little 10×20 and before you knew it we were surrounded,” she recounted. “What ended up happening was all the booths around us were empty and our line was long the entire time.”

So where do we go from here?

Fortunately, while there are many challenges facing the industry—and many more to come—there are several things that show us that the future of event planning is still bright—and poised to become an invaluable piece of every great marketing plan. 

“Events got taken away from us, and I think the industry was taken for granted ,” said Costello. “Everyone realized real quickly that, ‘Whoa, that was really important to me.’” For Costello, when we realized as a society the real need for human connection, it only boosted the need to bring back events as a way to connect and engage with others. 

“It put a huge light on our industry in a lot of directions,” he added.

Muller agrees. 

“We have an opportunity with every challenge,” she said. “There is still a lot of opportunity that wasn’t necessarily there before.”To watch the replay of Event Exhale, click here now. For more information on how Event Farm’s suite of tools can help you create engaging event experiences that deliver results, download the brochure or request a demo now.

Times have changed, no doubt about it.  People are sick of being sick; things are more expensive; there seem to be challenges around every corner. In response, new societal norms are becoming more prevalent — a major one being that people would rather stay home than get on a plane and attend an event. 

As event producers, we now face new and steadily growing challenges: how to fight against these shifting priorities, find what resonates with our attendees, and get them to register, attend and engage during our events. Are these competing priorities? Absolutely. But there are answers for those willing to seek them out. 

In Part 5 of our virtual workshop series on “Crafting the Event Experience,” Ryan Costello, co-founder of Event Farm and Chief Strategy Officer for MemberSuite, addressed the realities of driving attendance and engagement at events—both in-person and virtual—in the midst of an ever-changing cultural landscape. Missed Part 5 of our Crafting the Event Experience Workshop series?

What Really Makes an Event?

Ask any event planner what constitutes a great event, and you’ll probably get a ton of different answers. Food, lighting, great speakers, or a great location—these are all great components of what comprises an event. But if we really want to get to the root of it all, we need to recognize one thing from the start: the only thing that makes an event an event is humans.

Think about it. If humans come together, no matter where it is—a grassy park with no bathrooms, no water, no food, no microphone, no stage, no video production, no lighting, no nothing—you can still create an incredible event that people remember, simply by the fact that people showed up and connected. 

Of course, the opposite could also happen.

“Imagine if we had all the other things, you know, and not a single human showed up,” Ryan posed to the group. “The next morning we would say, how did your event go? And you wouldn’t even describe it as an event, because you could just describe it as a set, right? All you did was build the venue; you didn’t build an event.”

Using the Funnel

If you’ve ever worked in sales or marketing, you can probably relate to this idea of a funnel, but if not, let’s lay it out. In a marketing funnel, you get people that are interested in whatever you’re trying to sell, and then as they walk through the customer journey, you start filtering out the folks that are actually really interested and will ultimately do business with you.

When you’re thinking of events, many people see their registration number as the metric to focus on, but in today’s environment, that number may not mean anything. As Ryan noted in the session, it’s more important to consider the funnel as your event experience—from first-touch marketing all the way to the second the door closes behind them when they leave. 

“A big registration number, in today’s environment, doesn’t mean anything to me; I don’t even care if they paid—they still might not get on a plane,” he said. “We need to understand that we need to hold these attendees’ hands all the way through the funnel. Never let them go, because every touch point is an opportunity to hold tighter.

If we’re looking at an event through the lens of a marketing funnel, there are two major points-in-time that we need to focus on when it comes to having attendees make it all the way through: Getting them to sign up, and then, getting them to show up.

Getting Them to Sign Up

This challenge—getting people to actually register—is one we’re probably all familiar with, because our focus has always been on getting attendees to pay for a ticket or to register to attend. We know what this takes, but it’s still challenging. 

The poll conducted during the workshop,  showed that the majority of event planners face a common challenge in this regard—getting potential attendees to sign up for, and then read their emails.

Outside of the regular problem-solving that must happen first (are your emails being delivered? Have you been marked as spam?) one of the areas that we need to focus on is ensuring that the emails have value to your customer. 

Don’t Be Desperate

If you’ve ever used the “Going Fast” or “Only two tickets left” schtick in a subject line….stop. As Ryan noted, language intended to invoke action usually only comes across as desperate. 

“Does that sound like something that’s really exciting, that has exclusivity that you really want to jump on,” he asked. “Or, does this sound like an event planner who’s desperate? You decide.”

Create a Unique Experience

Imagine getting an invite from a friend that was for an intimate get-together at their house, and you were one of a few invited because you’re one of their closest friends. Then you get there, and you’re there with 300 other people, crammed into the living room trying to find out where the drinks are.

Too often that’s how we market to our attendees. The content we send tells them how much we want them there because they are important to us and one of the exclusive crew. Then they sign up and we ask them to invite all their friends from Facebook. 

Wait. Is this event exclusive, or not?

“I encourage you guys to look at tactics like this and ask: Is it publicly accessible or is it invite exclusive only?” Ryan said. “You could have a hybrid; maybe there’s a group of people that you want to treat well that need this love and extra hand-holding, and then the  others you just need to fill the seats.”

Whatever it is, he noted, be honest about it and authentic to your attendees. They’ll know if you’re not.

Getting Them to Show Up

Once someone has registered for your event, you may be on the right track, but you’re far from done. The next step is to get them to actually walk in and attend, and that takes a concerted effort that is ongoing, to build up enthusiasm and get them truly excited for what they will experience. 

Create Anticipation

Many planners will wait until everything is locked in to announce it—and by that time there’s so much to tell that the attendee gets overwhelmed. Instead, drip out content to keep the attention and build anticipation for the event.

“Look for things along the way as your event comes together to surprise and delight; to create that funnel of ‘Oh my God, yet another thing I want to be a part of.’

Build the Community

As event planners, it’s important to know that, good or bad, our attendees are talking about us. They are asking each other if they are going, or what they want to see. The more that we can get on the front end and drive that conversation, the better off we’ll be. 

​​”You can sit back and just hope and wish that that happens for you because it’s really powerful,” said Ryan, who noted that the power of community can drive everything from signing up to showing up, and wanting to really engage with others while they are there. On the other hand, he said, you can help ignite it by partnering with influencers in the community and sparking a “whisper” campaign. 

Whatever your event looks like, and however you decide to market it and create that experiential funnel to keep them along, make sure to keep in mind that people are the key. If you can consider the needs and motivations of your attendees, and craft an event around that—from the first message that goes out to every touch and impact point along the way—you can be sure you’ll create an event worth coming to, and one where your community can ultimately have a great experience.To watch the replay of Crafting the Event Experience Part 5, click here now. To access all recaps of previous sessions in the virtual workshop series, visit these blog posts:

• Part 1: Designing the Event Brand
• Part 2: A Guide to Experience Mapping
• Part 3: How to Wow Attendees Beyond the Door
• Part 4: Reimagining the Conference

For more information on how you can drive attendance and build engagement at your next event, check out Event Farm’s suite of tools; you can download the brochure or request a demo now.

To ensure that your attendees return to your conference year after year delivering a memorable event experience is key.  And while event planning can be stressful, it’s also important to note that there is a huge difference between hosting an event and creating an event experience, and after two years of a global pandemic—experience matters more than ever. 

So, instead of seeing your next event as a way to get butts on seats, make money, or generate content, consider it as a work of art because it takes a thoughtful approach to get highly engaged attendees and build memorable experiences. This is why “Reimagining the Conference” was the perfect topic for Part 4 of our virtual workshop series on Crafting the Event Experience.

During this session, ​​POP X co-founder Margaret Launzel-Pennes, joined Ryan Costello, co-founder of Event Farm and Chief Strategy Officer for MemberSuite, to discuss four areas that you should begin to pay attention now to reinvent your conference.Missed Part 4 of our Crafting the Event Experience Workshop series?

Find Out What Makes Your Attendee Tick

When it comes to planning a truly engaging event, It’s not just about getting them in the door—it’s also about creating an experience that will make them want to come back and get others to join them. You also have to address the issues of attrition.

According to Ryan, getting buy-in from attendees is crucial to both gain attendees and reduce attrition, and that buy-in can come in a number of ways. Cost buy-in certainly helps (if you’ve bought a plane ticket, registered and booked the hotel you’re far less likely to flake out), but some sort of emotional or personal buy-in helps lock people in for the long run.

“If I’m going to a club, and I wait in line for 45 minutes to get in, that’s buy-in, and that is going to change my mindset when I get in—even if no one is there, and the drinks are crappy, and the music’s too loud—I am emotionally bought in.” 

That emotional buy-in is powerful, and a signal of what really drives your attendee. If you can capture that, you have a great shot at getting them to join you. 

“Depending on the industry that you’re in, they can be very linear in their thinking, so you have to kind of think outside of all of that and figure out what’s going to resonate with people in terms of messaging,” Margaret said. After all, she noted, “You need to get them off of their butts and on a plane or in a car and into a hotel room, spending money, and asking for a budget. Content is key—early on—in how you market it—in order to even get people paying attention.”

Beyond that, it’s important to understand the power that events—both live and hybrid —can have on the attendees and vendors. For Margaret, that power lies in capturing the element of community that so many people have missed for the past few years.

“​​We have to start thinking of conferences and events as a community, not as stand-alone things that people go to,” she said. “How does it fit into the fabric of the overall industry that you sit in, and what other elements are there? How do you tether yourself to that? How do you make yourself valuable in a different way so that the event becomes a foundation of community, not just something that you go to?

“However, to get to that point, event planners need to scrap all the ways that their event has been done things in the past, and start fresh.

“This is an opportunity to really think about your approach differently from every single aspect,” said Margaret. “Think about exhibits as brand activation. Think about content as an exchange, versus drilling people with information. Be sure that there are peer-to-peer networking opportunities to learn and grow from each other. That’s the only way you’re going to differentiate from what the events were when they were in person before the pandemic, and what people have been going through for the last two years.”

Know Your Budget Up Front…and Use It Well

It’s no secret that event costs have been on the rise in recent years, and quick calculations can even show that event costs are up by 35% since the beginning of the pandemic. With prices continuing to climb—as well as inflation and supply chain issues—it’s more important than ever to use your budget wisely.

Because costs are much higher, many event venues are much less likely to negotiate, hold you to attrition, and service is astoundingly low. It’s a situation that Margaret notes will be around for a while “Take control, as much as you can, of your own spend, and don’t be pushed around when it comes to your food and beverage order, or wifi,” she said. “My sense is that is a very bullying situation right now, so push back and take control.”

And when it comes to hybrid—or blended—events, taking control of your budget is even more crucial to ensure you can cover everything you need. “The moment that you treat the virtual aspect as an add-on or don’t include it in the initial planning, it will definitely cost you more money. The mindset has to be holistic right from the outset,” Margaret noted.

Use Safety Protocol as a Marketing Tactic

While safety protocols have been waning across the U.S., and changing moment by moment and location by location, it still holds true that one way to make your attendees feel comfortable and safe is by being clear about your safety protocols. According to Ryan, the two biggest concerns when it comes to safety come down to whether or not people will show up, and if their own teams can remain safe. 

“​​To the people thinking about safety, my heart is with you, because I think about it a lot too,” he said. “Everybody’s got their own audience they are trying to take care of, and as an organizer, I think duty of care is our responsibility.”

Fortunately, it’s not hard to integrate safety notices and processes into your event. In early event marketing, let attendees know what you’re doing to keep them safe. Be sure to include information about your safety protocols on your code of conduct website, and in all of your communications leading up to the event.

“That’s what makes it feel like a community,” Ryan said.

Don’t Forget Who Got You There

Sponsors and exhibitors are often forgotten when it comes to the conference experience, and in the past few years, many feel burned or overcharged for what was actually delivered in the virtual or early hybrid events. For Ryan, it’s a cautionary tale that event planners need to hear.

Don’t take your exhibitors for granted,” he said. “They are your lifeblood, and if treated well they can also be your expansion revenue.”

To do this, event planners need to—similarly—take a step back and explore what it is that these companies really need and want, which in many cases is to be acknowledged, well-positioned in the community, expect follow-up, and—most importantly—to interact with attendees and get leads.

In the end, Ryan noted that exhibitors want more than just scanning badges, which is why the focus should be on creating an exhibitor experience that brings both vendor and attendee closer together. 

To watch the replay of Crafting the Event Experience Part 4: Reimagining the Conference, click here now. For more information on how Event Farm suite of tools can help you create attendee and exhibitor experiences at your next conference, download the brochure or request a demo now.

Last year in May, when in-person events started showing signs of life again (after being nonexistent with the pandemic), our team set out to check the pulse of our event community with a 2021 Back to In-Person Events Survey — leaving us with really helpful insights as we evaluated how event professionals were feeling about a comeback. This year, we performed a 2022 In-Person Events Survey, which received over 220 responses, and here’s what the results revealed…

Events are back, and now we have a plan.

The main return we got back from the survey showed that 93% of event planners are once again planning a live or hybrid event this year—a 17% increase over 2021. Another 3% are sticking with virtual events only (a significant change from 18% in 2021), while the remainder is still waiting to start their event planning back up.

What is even more interesting is the number of event teams who now have a plan in place for their events. Almost 94% of planners say they have an in-person event safety plan that adheres to local and industry compliance standards—a huge jump from only 74% who had a plan in place in 2021. Driving those plans is attendee comfort, followed by local requirements, the organization’s requirements, and the venue requirements. 

While this is evidence that the industry has made changes that are likely here to stay, it also shows that we are ready and willing to do whatever it takes to have those in-person connections once again!

Safety is still top-of-mind, but we have other concerns, too.

In 2021, the primary concern among event planners was by far attendee safety, as noted by a whopping 77% of respondents. Trailing behind that concern was travel restrictions, budget and then other considerations like attendee comfort and turnout.

In 2022, we still see that the primary concern is attendee safety (at 58%), but has given a little way to other concerns like budget, travel restrictions and local restrictions (each around 13%), with a 6% margin on other concerns—which include case surges and dealing with new COVID-19 variants. 

To address attendee safety, event planners are turning to a variety of solutions, especially as it concerns event entry procedures. The 2022 survey found: 

• 50.35% will require COVID-19 vaccinations;
• 30.07% will provide health screening questions;
• 28.67% will require a Code of Conduct agreement and signature;
• 27.27% will require COVID-19 vaccination boosters;
• 13.29% will conduct a temperature check;
• 11.19% are requiring an on-site COVID-19 negative rapid test; and
• Meanwhile, a quarter of the respondents (26.57%) will not require any of the above.

Additionally, when it comes to enforcement and validation of the safety protocols, responses are split. While 35% will not require vaccinations or negative tests as part of the entry validation process, around 22% will require a test result or vaccination card to be shown at the door, with 13% using the CLEAR Health pass, and another 10% will rely on some other technology product to provide those results. A minimal 6% will require email proof of the results, instead.

Finally, when it comes to assigning or employing a safety officer (such as a Pandemic Compliance Advisor) on-site, only 13% of planners say they will definitely have one. Forty-six percent don’t plan on having one at all, and the remainder of respondents (40%) aren’t sure, but realize that the responsibility will ultimately fall to them to fill or delegate.

Safety protocols may still change, but they are here to stay

While we all know that the COVID-19 pandemic has potentially changed the event landscape forever, how we all proceed forward remains a moving target. As event planners start making their way into 2023 events, many of them expect to see continual changes in requirements and restrictions, but are ready to adapt. More than half (55.24%) plan to change in whatever ways the local requirements force them to change, while 19% realize that these safety protocols are now just another aspect of any future events. And while 4% think that their current protocols will get stricter as time goes by, significantly more—around 22%—think the opposite will happen. 

When it comes to money—costs are up, but budgets aren’t

Unfortunately, those aforementioned budgetary concerns aren’t just worrisome—they are real challenges that event planners are dealing with. In 2022, with inflation on the rise and supplies in high demand, budget costs are up, with half of the planners surveyed planning on additional cost increases (per attendee) to cover additional safety measures like sanitizers, food packaging, masks and more. Here’s how it breaks out: 

• Around 34% are planning on an additional five to ten percent increase per attendee (up from 32% in 2021);  
• Six percent are working with an 11 to 15% increase (down from 13% last year); 
• Eight percent are planning on 16 to 20% increase (up from 5% last year); and
• Two percent are bracing for a 20% increase per attendee (down from 4% in 2021).

However, it’s important to realize that other event expenses are also up. Outside of food and venue, the top costs for 2022 survey respondents were technology, staffing, safety equipment, and other expenses (speakers, entertainment, advertising). 

Unfortunately, budgets haven’t necessarily kept up with the demands of the economy and new safety protocols. Out of all the survey respondents, only 31% noted that their events budget had increased since COVID, while all others stayed the same (42%), saw a decrease (20%), or were put on hold or just doing more with less (7%). 

While these survey responses tell us a lot about how the industry is moving back toward in-person, the results are encouraging in that—in spite of the economy, travel restrictions, insecurity, and new, constantly changing safety measures— the event industry is ready to return.

If you’re planning to go back to in-person events this year and are curious about how event technology can help and why you need it, download this infosheet or click here for more details.

This is a multi-part post that will walk you through the implications of Blockchains and NFTs for the events industry. In part one we’ll discuss what they are, how they work, and some basic applications happening today. In our following posts, we’ll dive deeper into execution, the creative process, and business examples.

I hope this is a helpful unpacking of a lot of technical buzzwords. Here goes….

First, A Little Background

To frame this conversation, one of the reasons I love the events industry so much is that it’s constantly changing.  At the end of the day, we are in the human behavior business and so as event pros, our job requires us to keep up with the new societal trends, interests, and concerns in the world.  If we are current, relevant, and authentic we can attract an engaged audience and we’ll drive our intended business outcomes.  

Without question, event safety and the virtual/hybrid event evolution have dominated most of our attention in the last few years.  But in the background, a massive new event industry trend has also emerged.  With the continued maturation of Blockchain technology and its increased applicability for use cases beyond cryptocurrency, it’s become more and more “mainstream” which means if we want to stay culturally current as Event Pros we need to lean in.

To cut to the chase, the two new most important concepts that the blockchain is introducing for the events industry are:

1. New approaches to ticketing
2. NFT’s as a new revenue stream and an audience engagement tactic

Yes, you read that right…..NFTs can make your event more money, drive engagement and build your community. 

So… What is a Blockchain?

A blockchain is simply a database of records. I like to think of it as a transaction ledger.  “Ryan purchased asset X for price Y on this date”. But in regular databases, there is one computer that holds a master copy of the data. In a blockchain, the database is shared across multiple computers in a network (i.e the internet). With many computers storing identical copies of the data, the blockchain is inherently “decentralized” and not controlled by a single entity (i.e. individual, company or government). And when everyone can easily validate against the system of record it opens up much more business opportunity. 

So far so good? Good!

Now let’s bring the blockchain concept to events. On the ticketing side of things, blockchain is being viewed as a way to help with security, identity, fraud, scalping, etc. It can more openly validate who originally purchased a ticket and the subsequent transactions that may occur after. “Does the person I’m buying this ticket from actually own it?” is a rudimentary example. 

It can also make purchasing tickets with cryptocurrencies easier since they are already on a blockchain as well. If you can accommodate these transactions you will naturally increase business opportunities as more and more people own those currencies.

While these are certainly technically innovative topics, they are primarily only relevant in larger format, ticketed event environments: concerts, sports, festivals, etc. and they are transactional in nature in my opinion. I’m personally more interested in the creative and significant business opportunities NFTs can bring to the corporate and non-profit events industry.  But before we leave ticketing entirely, I do want to acknowledge that digital tickets are also becoming NFTs themselves as well. You can think of that like a digital representation of your ticket stub. Essentially, digital memorabilia. 

Understanding the NFT Universe

NFT stands for “non-fungible token,” but in layman’s terms, it’s any sort of digital asset, like a gif, a jpg, a video, a song, or a piece of digital art. The difference between an NFT and any other digital asset though, is that it is registered on a blockchain. 

When that happens, and that digital asset or “token” is listed on the blockchain register, it essentially becomes certified or “non-fungible”. The register says what it is and who owns it.  Think of this exactly like a deed to a house. 

So, for example, a graphic artist can create some sort of digital image—something completely unique—and make only 100 copies available. Now, you and I both know that in this internet-centric age anything digital can be easily passed along, duplicated or screen grabbed, but in the world of NFTs, you can verify the authenticity of those 100 copies on the blockchain. So “fakes” are easy to catch. 

NFTs are also inherently transferable. There are many online marketplaces for these digital assets, OpenSea is probably the most popular example today. So just like you might sell a piece of physical art, or a signed football jersey, on eBay, Craigslist, Etsy, etc you can also sell an NFT.  And similar to that art, or jersey, the rarity of what is being offered makes it more and more valuable. NFTs have value because they have confirmed authenticity, built in scarcity, and are transferable by certified transactions. Economics 101: supply and demand. 

So What Now?  Part 2

Now that we understand the basics of what Blockchains and NFTs are and how they work, your next questions should be: 

• Can I really make more money from this?
• How can I make an NFT?
• What can my NFT be?
• What are some creative ideas or examples of NFTs?
• How do I issue them?
• How do I offer them to my attendees?
• How do I use them to drive engagement?

These are all the topics we’ll cover in our following posts.  Stay tuned!

To learn more about how Event Farm’s event engagement tools can help you turn events into experiences, request a demo.