The event industry is facing multiple challenges today. The speed of change is accelerating, digitalization is approaching us rapidly and our customers are more demanding than ever.
These slides will share insights into 5 trends, that venues and planners need to consider, if they want to stay competitive going forward.
This presentation was held at International Confex 2017 at Olympia London.
5. 5 KEY REQUIREMENTS OF EVENT
PLANNERS
1. Innovative meeting and event formats
2. Catering and well-being offerings
3. Marketing support
4. RFP answer times
5. ROI for events (& venues)
8. A NEW GENERATION OF EVENTS
Millennials
Participatory culture
Unconference
Hybrid events
Flipped experience
Barcamp
Interaction
9. THE ATTENDEE OF THE FUTURE
Has short attention span
Has access to all the content
Has an online brand
Has lot of options
Has a personality and influence in the online world
Want to be where others are
Is using his/her mobile all the time
10. EXPECTATIONS
Know me!
Engage with me where I am!
Give it to me in the bite size I want!
Give it to me at my level!
Let me drive it!
Talk about what matters to me today!
11. FUTURE MEETING FORMATS
Need to allow for interactivity
Not tied to a single location
Knowledge transfer is key
Integrate the audience & enable interaction
Small groups
Flexibile spaces & equipment
Spontaneous, informal meeting opportunities
What does that mean?
12. VENUES, HERE‘S WHAT TO DO
Offer different meeting spaces off the main areas
• Corners & Open Space opportunities, i.e. Entrance halls
• Chairs and tables outside breakout session rooms
Flexible furniture
• Easy to rearrange & not firmly installed
• Comfortable
Conference and meeting technology
• Video technology & holograms
• WIFI needs to be a standard (How about branded WIFI?)
15. WORK-LIFE-BALANCE: A GEN Y THING?
“According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being
Index, nearly six in 10 millennials say that work-life balance and
well-being in a job are ‘very important’ to them”
This is also impacting the meetings and events industry
With travel, education, networking, social events, there’s a lot
of stress involved.
How can you create a destination of well-being?
16. HEALTHY FOOD & WELL-BEING
Pure, natural foods with Eco-friendly & sustainable
ingredients
Fitness & healthy body
Healthy mind: Mindfulness, yoga, meditation
Different cultures and religions come together: Food habits
need to be respected and taken into account
17. VENUES, HERE IS WHAT TO DO
Cooperate with in-house caterer and define standards for
F&B, i.e. provide drinks & healthy food stations nearby
Create comfortable corners and relax zones with reduced
noise
Integrate elements of mindfulness: Offer space for meditation
and yoga sessions with mats, chairs and pillows
Offer quiet blogger areas with a creative environment for
writers, journalists and professional bloggers
19. HOW TO MARKET THE EVENT AND THE
DESTINATION
Venue website
Event calendar
Social Media
Event content
Ad space & sponsorships
20. THE VENUE WEBSITE
A good website will pay off soon
Promote events on the venue‘s website
Include an event calendar
21. SOCIAL MEDIA & CONTENT
Content curation on Social Media
Post about the event, date, venue,
topic…
Retweet/share posts from the
organizer
Conference content = high quality
content
Sharing is caring!
25. WHAT DO PLANNERS EXPECT?
Transparent, quick, easy proposals that they can easily
compare
Cost-efficiency
Flexibility
Consulting and recommendations from venue sales rep
Collaboration tool
26. CHALLENGES FOR VENUES
Strong competition with hotels and instant booking portals
Consulting role during sales
Keep RFP answer time as short as possible
Simplistic proposal vs. highlight of unique advantages
27. VENUES, HERE‘S WHAT TO DO
Implement Service Level Agreements
Analyze the time it takes you to put together a first proposal
Offer transparent pricing
Present the venue in the best & most beautiful way on your
website
Offer collaboration portal for the planner on the website
28. COLLABORATION BETWEEN VENUE AND
PLANNER
OBJECTIVE
Increase event customer
satisfaction and enhance
the customer experience
by streamlining and
simplifying communication
SOLUTION
Build a user-friendly event
customer portal that creates
a centralized location for all
event specific requirements,
documents, and timelines
30. EVENT ROI
Define criteria and goals for the event together with
the planner
Quantitative AND Qualitative
31. EVENT ROI: QUANTITATIVE EXAMPLES
Sold tickets
Amount of new attendees vs. amount of returning attendees
Attendance and visitor streams
Define touchpoints and data sources within the venue
ibeacons or other location-based data
Bar codes / function check-ins: By scanning attendees' badges you can
analyze how well certain areas were received or how popular sessions
were
Popularity of event on Social Media (both venue and organizer side!)
• Social Shares
• Usage of event hashtag…
32. EVENT ROI: QUALITATIVE EXAMPLES
Cooperation with venue staff to conduct surveys
Visitor/delegate surveys during the event
• As easy as possible: Tablets at the entrance or event staff surveying
attendees with a few relevant questions
Visitor/delegate surveys after the event
• Email blast
34. Second screens making the experience
personal and interactive
Sensors and bands everywhere gathering
data and personalizing
Entire walls and rooms and sounds creating
the experience
Virtual and augmented reality enhancing the
experience
Mobile apps and social media extending
TECHNOLOGY PLAYING A HUGE ROLE
IN CREATING THE EXPERIENCE FOR THE
ATTENDEE
35. Incorporating technology that elevates the experience for
their attendees, i.e. a custom-built app
Supplementary use of location-based technology like
ibeacons and RFID wearables
Attendees can quickly and easily make purchases, find
friends, get agenda updates, which sessions are about to
start, etc.
INTERACTIVE
36. Ungerboeck Solutions.
Redefining the customer experience
• Venue and event management software
• CRM, booking & sales management tools
• Exhibition Portal & Service Center
• Innovative floor plan
• Integrated financials
• Venue website and collaboration
My name is Holger Friesz and I am Director of Sales at Ungerboeck. I‘d call myself a digital native, having the pulse of technology in my blood. I‘m also a huge believer in excellent customer relationship managment and the impact of customer satisfaction on a business.
Taking both into account – I‘d like to share with you today 5 trends, that venues and planners need to consider, if they want to stay competitive going forward (which is based on a better collaboration, btw. ;-)
You could easily say – „sure, this is a sales guy from a tech company.. Of course he wants to sell technology“.. But the reality is, that since I am working in the events industry, I often felt more like a therapist hearing all the complains from the daily business, people seaking for a change, but also people with stunning good ideas.
I will present you 5 strategies for venues and event planners to collaborate which will ultimately lead to a better event ROI and enable venues to stand out of the competition.
Are you ready? Let‘s get started!
As technology makes us more flexible, booking requests and client requirements are changing: Short notice enquiries, spontaneous requests or changes on site... Everything is happening faster.
Example CICA – 3 changes at the day, the event was happening (location (rooms, food and timing)
This creates new challenges for venues and event planners:
Venues need to be quicker and more versatile than ever. Ask yourself: How fast can you react – and also: do you get paid for it?
Event planners need to seek the best possible event ROI to be successful. – They want to be booked again to organize an event
When was the last time, you did a workshop with the respective venues you work with / respective planners to brainstorm about improving workflows and processes as if you would work in one company?
This relates to the venues in here…
Supporting the Event ROI
As a venue, you can directly impact the event ROI by supporting event planners and helping them to meet their goals.
Take a moment to look at your strengths and weaknesses, and ask yourself:
Where can you provide support to planners?
Where can you improve?
Which one could be your area of expertise?
Put yourself in the planner’s shoes to see where you can provide support and help them to meet their goals. Customer-centricity can become your unique competitive advantage and serve as the foundation to a successful business cooperation with event planners.
If you work at a venue and these 5 points are new to you, something is wrong :)
So what to do with it and what is missing? It’s all in the detail
We’ve all heard of “Gen Y”. A new generation of leaders, exhibitors, delegates and visitors is shaping the way events are designed. Meeting formats of the future will be much more interactive and increasingly combine face-to-face with virtual. Engagement of participants and a “flipped” learning experience will be key to deliver an incredible event experience.
Let‘s dive into it.
What is the one thing YOU shouzld take away from this session?
With these changes, collaboration of venues and event planners is becoming more important.
I want to encourage to think out of the box. Collaboration of venues and event planners is becoming more important as we move away from the traditional "supplier-customer" relationship. Creating synergies and working together is crucial to create the best possible event ROI. The venue may act as a consultant towards the planner/organizer; there is so much input and support the venue can provide during the event sales and planning process. This will make the organizer more successful and at the same time allow the venue to stand out of the crowd.
Think about it: The venue team knows their options like no other – they can inspire you what to do with your event to let it become “special”
Instead of supplier client relationship a collaboration of both parties will lead to a successful event for the attendee, the organizer and the venue. The venue acting as a consultant. Knowledge exchange
Change from attendee to participant, generation change, millennials, old fashioned way of knowledge transfer not accepted anymore by audience, planners need to think about different structure and formats,
unconference,
hybrid events and venues need to be able to provide the infrastructure. But not limited to infrastructure actually. Venues are in the unique position to host lots of events and gain a good level of experience on which formats work for which type of events, what is requested from them, they can start to take over a consultative role during the venue sales process, document other events, pictures etc.
Future meeting space, GCB
Effective personalization means delivering recommendations, offers and content based on what you know about a given customer. It is about creating a natural process of conversation between companies and customers.
Personalization = Awesome Attendee Experiences
ATTENDEES COMING FOR EXPERIENCE AND NOT FOR CONTENT
CONTENT IS UBIQUITOUS. YOU HAVE TO GO FOR EXPERIENCE
Share feedback from a MD at a conf: I give a s** on the content – I’m here for networking
Upfront sharing of content and offering the sessions to discuss things (example: Sli.do)
Any content you need is practically out there you need. Venues have to be way more involved in those experience, and be unique experiences
More interaction = more discussions
As a venue, you can contribute to the success of new meeting formats by providing the necessary infrastructure.
Idea from Montréal: Offer free branded WiFi. Internet-dependent attendees will be grateful to connect, either through a branded SSID network name, splash page, or access code, or by using a sponsor’s website as a landing page. For example, there is no shared internet at the Palais des congrès de Montréal, which provides a branding opportunity for a large share of open networks.
Can you help us design our conference space?
Venue staff members have seen hundreds of events hosted in their space. Ask for their help in designing an atmosphere for learning and networking.
“Where you see a roof terrace, others have seen a log cabin with a camp fire. Where you see emergency exits, others have seen alcoves for networking lounges,” said Legault. “Your dedicated event manager is like a Pinterest board: a starting point to unleash your own creativity.”
Let‘s rest on this picture for a second. Isn‘t this delicious?
Psychology of good looking food = food tastes better
Everybody wants to be healthy, and everybody is on a different diet: Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, lactose-free…. Does your in-house caterer react to these food trends and allergies?
https://www.eveosblog.de/2016/10/20/event-catering-und-ernaehrungsformen-gaeste-wuensche-herausforderung/
Ok, a venue is not a spa. However, events are demanding experiences, they involve travel and create both physical and mental stress. Learning experiences and knowledge transfer work best when everybody involved is happy and focused. And this requires an environment of “well-being”. Especially for young professionals (Generation Y and Z), health is an important topic.
Whereas a few years ago, wellness at a conference may have meant adding a 5k run on the agenda one morning, now planners are creating destinations within their events that offer yoga, meditation, nutrition tips, and other self-help opportunities.
Millennials are increasingly conscious about what they put in their bodies. Increased usage of soy- and plant-based food for example.
They inform themselves about healthy food, they do sports.. And all of that is technology-supported (fitness blogs, food blogs, Instagram, Pinterest recipes, etc.)
Ok, a meeting is not a spa. However, learning experiences and knowledge transfer work best when everybody involved is happy and focused. And this requires an environment of “well-being”. Especially for young professionals (Generation Y and Z), health is an important topic.
http://www.bizbash.com/6-tips-for-creating-wellness-activities-at-events/new-york/story/33101#.WCHJPC3hD4Y
Millennials are increasingly conscious about what they put in their bodies. Increased usage of soy- and plant-based food for example.
They inform themselves about healthy food, they do sports.. And all of that is technology-supported (fitness blogs, food blogs, Instagram, Pinterest recipes, etc.)
While F&B certainly is a crucial topic, the possibility to relax and withdraw from the crowd for some minutes is another important aspect. How about offering comfy corners, blogger areas or spaces where event participants can meditate in a calm environment? These may be convincing elements for planners and in the end, it could be your hip and healthy venue that will be the new place to be!
Gamification: is there anything fun they can do in the break to network better and de-stress?
Sold tickets: Direct impact on event ROI
Market the event as a whole and include the venue and the destination in the marketing efforts
The destination and venue are very important in that marketing mix and the venue can support the marketing activities of the planner
Especially conference content is good and very shareable as it is really important for the attendees; the organizer will market the event promoting the content, venues can support and at the same time benefit (sharing networks)
Think of your venue as an event partner that can enhance your sponsorship program. “Planners should meet early on with the venue’s business solutions manager to learn about the full range of services and revenue opportunities offered by the venue and its partners,” said Élaine Legault, director of production services at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.
Ask the venue what programs it has in place, and how it might offer options for your unique needs. The Palais, for instance, provides advertising platforms to supplement a conference’s sponsorship program, such as digital displays, video walls, a WiFi login page, a mobile app, and an exhibitor portal.
Measuring is important – especially when defining and measuring goals
MCEC wants to be “easier to do business with”
Portal to accomplish that mission
Collaboration tool we develop
Booking, planning, post event
Calendar of events
Interactive map (pulling from spaces)
Opportunity web form/submit RFP
Proposal & contract revisions/versions and signature (DocuSign integration)
Document sharing (two way)
Tasks/notifications/checklists
Online space booking
Event/order history
Special offers/promotions
Online order processing
Quote delivery and approval (live orders v. doc)
Agenda planning (functions)
Survey
Payment portal
Online registration makes it easy to capture attendee data and pull reports
Scanning badges / check in functions: Great tools to evaluate success of themed areas, e.g. meditation and yoga zone etc.
What are you most excited about for the future of events? If you ask that question to me…
I am most excited about how fast technology evolves and offers opportunities that some years ago we have not thought of. We live in the age of digital transformation. Digitization and innovative technologies are topics that are constantly changing the live and way of thinking of each individual. As the world around is becoming connected and smart (i.e. Google Car, wearables like the Apple Watch, smart buildings etc.) do smart events exist already in our industry?
I see more and more associations thinking about the future of events (see GCB Future Meeting Space study) and event technology companies embracing that and developing tools to support the industry. Event tech provider and event industry players will need to work together to make sure that they are staying on top of developing and introducing new technology to their meetings to make sure that the changing needs of organizer, attendee and venue are met.
We have to be open to a new way of thinking. For many years we have been saying that face-to-face meetings will never be replaced but technology and digitization is advancing fast, there is a new generation taking over leadership roles and the industry needs to experiment and find out how new meeting formats could look like, combining face-to-face with virtual.
Takes place in Austin, Texas
SXSW Interactive: how does the digital future look like?
More than 1000 events, 30,000 participants
Live video as new form of communication,
SXSW walks the walk on incorporating technology that elevates the
experience for their attendees. Through a custombuilt app and the supplementary use of locationbased technology like ibeacons and RFID wearables, attendees can quickly and easily make purchases, find friends, see what bands are playing near them, which sessions are about to start and even practical information like where the closest restroom or firstaid
station is located.
Wie sieht die digitale Zukunft aus? Welche Trends werden die Gesellschaft nachhaltig verändern? Welche Probleme gilt es zu meistern? Die Fragen sind von rund 30.000 Teilnehmern auf der South-by-Southwest Interactive (SXSW) diskutiert worden. Digitale Vordenker, Künstler, Startup-Gründer, Designer und Vertreter aus Wirtschaft und Medien sind für fünf Tage in die texanische Hauptstadt Austin gereist, um bei dieser Über-Konferenz Antworten zu finden. Die Teilnehmer konnten aus mehr als 1.000 Veranstaltungen wählen — vom intensiven Workshops bis hin zum Vortrag der großen Namen der Szene. Drumherum buhlten zahlreiche Internet-Marken von Yahoo über Google bis hin zu PayPal mit eigenen Party-Angeboten um die Aufmerksamkeit der Besucher.
Firmen lernen auf der South-by: Sie müssen sich stärker in die emotionalen Bedürfnisse ihrer Kunden eindenken. Die digitale Welt fördert ein Verhalten, welches von Experten als “Instant Gratification” bezeichnet wird, die direkte Selbstbestätigung. Es geht um den Drang direkt zu prüfen, wie viele Online-Freunde beim eigenen Foto auf “Gefällt mir” geklickt haben. “Wenn wir Süßigkeiten widerstehen, aus Facebook ausgeloggt bleiben oder das vibrierende Handy in der Hosentasche stecken lassen, dann müssen wir gegen einen mächtigen chemischen Gegner ankämpfen”, erklärte Andrew Yee, Ingenieur der Biola University. “Nämlich den Botenstoff Dopamin, auch bekannt als innerer Schweinehund.” Wenn Unternehmen oder Medien dieses Verhalten der Kunden bedienen, haben sie auch eine Chance in der digitalen Welt.