In today’s digitally saturated business environment, live conferences, meetings and events are essential to maintain an in- person touch point. A planner’s role is key as every event wraps around a unique experience for all attendees.
1 - Review the Agenda
Carefully review the agenda before arriving. You need to plan your time at the conference, ensuring that you maximize every opportunity available. From rich content to lasting connections, to stimulating activities, consider every aspect of the event big or small, like printing an overview of the schedule on the back of name tags to provide attendees with an easy and convenient way to keep up with the schedule. Find those events and add them to your calendar.
2- Morning & PM Breaks
Packing several sessions to attend, booths to visit, notes to take and people to meet into two or three days can be quite demanding for conference attendees. While the goal is ensuring attendee minds are full, don’t discard the benefits of attendees having a break to clear their thoughts. Give attendees time and space to breathe, reflect, and regroup with hands-on workshops, outdoor activities, wellness activities or just coffee and brownies.
3 - Customized Events
The experiential value for attendees starts with unforgettable events. Creating original and memorable experiences is sometimes unexpected, however valued. Incorporating some of the cultural trends outlined will no doubt leave a lasting impression, and result in both future record attendance and a successful renewal rate for next year’s conference.
4 -Corporate Social responsibility
More event professionals are merging corporate social responsibility activities within meetings. This trend of giving back to the community is especially important to local communities. Get to know the CVB in the communities in which you plan events or work directly with the hotels to determine what works best.
5- WELLNESS and relaxation
Attendees want healthier refreshments, wellness-oriented guest room amenities and expanded healthy menu options. Attendees are more informed about food, not only asking what’s on the menu, but where it came from. Know the answer! Event professionals are interested in food that's local, hasn't been frozen, cage free eggs, etc. This is what planners want and successful hotels and event spaces will respond. Some of these suggestions are pretty basic though, so how about getting out in front of this trend and setting the pace in your community? Offer a 24 hour salad bar at your next multi-day meeting and offer early morning yoga sessions in one of the conference rooms. You'll be the talk of the industry!
Condado Vanderbilt Hotel