Author: EventPlannersTalk

Event design is a highly current topic in the events industry. We asked our community on Twitter how they define event design, and the various definitions highlighted how complex the definition and the process is and how it can mean various things to different stakeholders. 

One definition that gave a good introduction to our live session in Rorschach, Switzerland was offered by Robert Bagust, Worldwide Congress Manager at Bristol Myers Squibb, who shared that ‘It’s starting with “purpose”. You cannot think about (event) design until you know what it is you are trying to do. Perhaps you are attempting to solve a business challenge; an event is just one option to consider…nail this clearly, then comes design. For the event design phase, it’s about putting into place all the required elements to help you achieve the objectives you’ve set out… the design is then “everything”…’

After covering the topic of event design extensively online on our weekly #eventprofstalk Twitter chat, we hosted a small regional event on the 8th of November 2019 at Würth Haus Rorschach in Rorschach, Switzerland. This session took place as part of the #GrenzenlosesEventdesign educational trip organised by the Destinations Circle networking group and the Convention Bureaus Switzerland Convention & Incentive Bureau, Convention Partner Vorarlberg and German Convention Bureau. 

The focus of the discussion this time was how local stakeholders can support event planners to design more impactful events. Our panel included Anja Sachse, co-manager at the St. Gallen-Bodensee Tourism, Anja Gunz, responsible for Sales & Marketing at Convention Partner Vorarlberg and Ursula Kaufmann, responsible for sales at Kongresskultur Bregenz. This session was moderated by Irina Graf, founder of The MICE Blog Event Planners Talk. 

Continue reading “Trust reduces complexity: tips for successful collaboration between event agencies, convention bureaus and venues”

An event experience comprises many micro-moments that consumers undertake on their customer journey as they interact with an event. Do event planners look at each customer interaction strategically, making it an ‘experience’? 

According to Google’s report from 2015 ‘Think with Google’, micro-moments ‘are critical touchpoints within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends’. In 2019, ‘micro’ is having its moment again because event and travel professionals have begun to highlight the benefits of having bite-size experiences, using terms such as micro-experience, micro-travel, micro-learning and micro-influencers in their corporate communication.  

It is understood that micro-trends are all about more personalised experiences that help individuals save time, be more efficient and productive and obtain results. Therefore, we wanted to understand better what micro-moments have to do with changing attendee needs and expectations.

To find more about this growing trend in connection with the event industry, we hosted an #eventprofstalk Twitter chat on 7 October 2019 about micro-moments and below share with you the highlights from our community members.

Continue reading “How micro-moments are taking event personalisation to the next level: #eventprofstalk Twitter chat recap”

Collaboration is particularly interesting for the events industry because event planners work so often with venues, suppliers, destination management companies (DMCs) and clients, yet it sometimes can seem that the various stakeholders do not truly collaborate, but actually cooperate or coordinate an event. Therefore, collaboration is the most misused and misunderstood word in business. 

Collaboration vs cooperation and coordination 

Have you come across phrases such as ‘We’re really good at collaboration, we have Skype, shared servers and online tools, so we can always collaborate?’. According to Becky Dempsey, Account Manager at The Collaboration Company and who will also speak at our annual conference next year, these examples are referring to ‘Sharing information and connection, not collaboration.’ 

Have you come across the phrase ‘All my team collaborate on an event because we have the client in mind and are making sure the event is right?’ Here Becky explained that ‘This is working to a shared goal, so maybe more cooperation than collaboration.’ A further example is when collaboration is confused with coordination, ‘We collaborate with all of our suppliers to ensure the best event.’ Here, Becky suggested that this is yet not fully related to collaboration, but rather suppliers are working in parallel on their own section of the event; therefore, it is more about coordination rather than collaboration.

Continue reading “How can collaboration lead to innovation: #eventprofstalk Twitter chat with Becky Dempsey, Account Manager at The Collaboration Company”

Events cost a considerable amount of time and money to produce. Therefore, it’s necessary to define clear objectives and how to achieve them. Very often, events have two main objectives: generating either PR or profit. If the event can achieve both, it’s a phenomenal success and means that the event has the right strategy in place, committed partners and sponsors, a strong community, engaging content and an effective speaker programme. These factors will help create a long-term PR strategy that can generate profit in a sustainable manner. 

It is not easy to find the right balance straight away, and before generating profit, a strong PR strategy should be in place. To clarify this area and receive more input on the overall approach regarding whether events are designed to generate PR or profit and how to balance both, we put out the question to our community during the weekly #eventprofstalk Twitter chat on 9 September 2019, insights of which we want to share with you in this article below. 

Continue reading “Strategies for finding the right balance between generating PR and profit for events: #eventprofstalk Twitter chat recap”

Event design is a hot topic this year. It’s good to see that more and more event planners and clients are recognising the importance of event design and approaching their events from this perspective. An event entails more than the logistical part of booking the infrastructure. It’s important to define ‘why’ an event is needed in the first place as well as its purpose. To get to the depth of the subject, we hosted an #eventprofstalk Twitter chat on 2 September 2019, and in the following post, I want to share with you what our wonderful community has to say on the topic of event design. 

Let’s start from the basics: What is event design? 

According to Irina Graf, founder of The MICE Blog and Event Planners Talk, ‘Event design is looking at each individual aspect of an event to visualise how attendees will interact with the event and their journey. It’s carefully choosing the elements that will complement each other to design a seamless experience for attendees.’ 

Becky Dempsey, Programme Account Manager at The Collaboration Company, shared that she ‘always seen event design as the venue, content, format, layout and atmosphere that all goes into communicating your message in the best possible way.’ 

For Pauline Kwasniak, digital marketer, writer, speaker and event planner at TurnedSee and Mbooked, event design is ‘a visual strategy of an outlook, schedule and the whole concept of an event. It includes everything from marketing, plan, policy, speakers, objectives, wishes to suppliers. For me, event design is a strategy to deliver that event with all aspects.’ 

Valerie Wagner, founder of the Hotel O Motion blog and podcast, shared that for her, it’s ‘the interaction of all actors with a focus on the goal/result of the event. How can I design an event? How can I convey the message? When participants are asked after the event what that event was about, what should they say? Around these aspects, the event will be “designed”, using all means of communication at one’s disposal.’ 

LeAnna Toups-Bennett, project manager at Louisiana Department of Education, shared that ‘Event design is all factors of an event that, when combined, portray the event’s brand, purpose and mission.’ 

Robert Bagust, Worldwide Congress Manager at Bristol-Myers Squibb, emphasised the importance of having a purpose, ‘It’s starting with “purpose”. You cannot think about (event) design until you know what it is you are trying to do. Perhaps you are trying to solve a business challenge; an event is just one option to consider…nail this clearly, then comes design. For the event design phase, it’s about putting into place all the required elements to help you achieve the objectives you’ve set out… the design is then “everything”…’

Robert Dunsmore, Freelance/independent Creative Director, added that one of the important attributes of event design is culture ‘The culture, idea platform, voice and personality of your event—everything else is just infrastructure.’

Continue reading “The fundamentals of event design that will guide #eventprofs to deliver more impactful events: #eventprofstalk Twitter chat recap”

It’s just under one year to go, and we are very excited and ready for our most thought-provoking and business-driven MICE conference, which will take place next year from 27–30 August in Bern, Switzerland. A couple of weeks ago, our founder Irina Graf was interviewed on Valerie Wagner’s podcast—Hotel O Motion—about the journey of designing this event from when it all began in 2014 as a weekly Twitter chat and will next year take place as a multi-day international conference. You can listen to the full podcast on the Hotel O Motion website and major podcast platforms, with a summary of this interview being available in this blog article. 

The discussion began with a short introduction regarding how Irina initiated The MICE Blog, which is a corporate event planning blog dedicated to those working in the MICE sector and who wish to stay on top of industry news, learn about new destinations, venues and the latest trends. Irina stated, ‘I began the blog in 2011 as a hobby while doing an internship at an event agency in Munich. Not long after that, I moved to London to undertake a 3.5 year BA in international events management. Maintaining the blog alongside the studies allowed me to build my knowledge and network of the MICE sector in the dynamic city of London and be part of this community. Upon graduating at the end of 2014, in 2015 I turned it into a full-time business. In August 2014, I began a Twitter chat called #eventprofstalk (initially, the hashtag was #EventPlannersTalk but was shortened later to #eventprofstalk) to discuss various industry topics. From 2015, it became a weekly chat, and I slowly started building a community specifically around this Twitter chat. The online audience was invited to participate in the discussion on Twitter and answer six questions around a specific industry topic. The community grew organically as people started engaging with the topics and, most importantly with each other, to forge business relationships; I have personally got to know many of my business contacts through this channel.’

‘The online presence led to launching the first live event in February 2015 in London, and 17 events later, from 2015–2019, in 2020 we’ll host our first international event in Bern, Switzerland.’ 

Continue reading “How an online event became an offline conference: interview with Event Planners Talk founder on Hotel O Motion podcast”

Several recent industry discussions have demonstrated that companies retract from social media because they want to find different ways to strengthen relationships with their customers, primarily offline. For example, that was the case with the pub chain JD Wetherspoon and the cosmetics firm Lush in the UK. Additionally, increased attention is shifting to closed groups, such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, where the focus is on strengthening community relations. Is it a trend that event planners should observe more closely and explore more ways of building their communities ‘offline’, or is it just PR hype?

To understand the latest developments of community management, both online and offline, we teamed up with Valerie Wagner from Hotel O Motion to host the #eventprofstalk Twitter chat about ‘Bye Bye Social Media, Welcome Social Web and Community Management: How can online communities be cultivated in the event industry.’

Valerie is a blogger and a podcaster specialising in digital hotel management. She has built an online community of hoteliers who receive constant updates from her about how to optimise their processes and customer experience in the digital age. During this chat with Valerie, we discussed why some companies choose to go offline and find new ways to communicate with their audience, as well as what new tools are available for community building. Many membership clubs, associations or networking groups of like-minded people do not always have a social media strategy and despite this fact, they successfully keep their members engaged via newsletters, information boards, print advertising and most importantly, events. How can corporate events strengthen their offline communities even further? This important question and others were discussed during this chat. 

Continue reading “Bye Bye Social Media, Welcome Social Web and Community Management: How can online communities be cultivated in the event industry? – #eventprofstalk Twitter chat with Valerie Wagner, Founder of Hotel O Motion”