Moments as a Metric: Rethinking Event Success

Rachel Andrews (00:00): 

Empower your volunteers and empower your staff and empower your salespeople on site to say, "Here are some tools you can use if you see a moment that you want to make their day even more special," or, "Hey, I saw you were in line, you're at the back of the line. Actually, I'm going to bring you over to this VIP bar." Like those types of things, and my wheels are turning a little bit. Like make their day, show them that attention, and people will be like, "Wow, I didn't know you cared about me like that."

Alyssa Peltier (00:25): 

Great events create great brands. But pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences, well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews (00:37): 

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu (00:38): 

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier (00:39): 

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Felicia Asiedu (00:50): 

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Great Events podcast. I am one of your hosts, Felicia.

What has been happening in the wide, wide world of events? I'm not the only host, that's why I said one of. We've got our motley crew together, all the hosts together to have a lovely conversation, to just figure out what makes an event unforgettable. Can't just be the big keynote or the fancy venue. Sometimes it's the whole event moment. Sometimes it's the moments in between. So we're all together to dig into what are the moments that really matter, and why this theme is front and center at Cvent right now.

So we're going to break down what moments matter means to us, why it's more important than ever, and how to create moments that turn attendees into brand advocates. So let's get straight into it. Hi, ladies.

Rachel Andrews (01:34): 

Hi. We haven't been together in so long.

Felicia Asiedu (01:38): 

I know. You've had CONNECT in between. How was that?

Rachel Andrews (01:42): 

What a loaded question. It was great. It was great. Yeah. What did I say before we were talking about this? I just delivered 1500 moments that mattered, all in one event.

Alyssa Peltier (01:54): 

Mine was more like five moments, but they were very impactful five moments, so I'm really happy with that too.

Felicia Asiedu (01:59): 

See, I love that. At one event it can be 1500, it can be five, it could be one, but there's always something for someone, right? So that's what we are going to dig into. So before we get into it, let me just set the scene. You're probably, like, "What are we doing here, talking about these moments that matter?" So we are embarking on a campaign at Cvent to recognize that it's the moments that people create that really matter. So we spend a lot of time talking about event technology and best practices, which is great, and hospitality and venues, but actually, underneath it all, there's a real reason why people come together. Otherwise, why are we spending all this time doing all these events?

And I do know that some large corporations at the moment are really challenged, either from a budget perspective or internally, why are we running all these things? So we really want to help people to think about, okay, what is the why? Why are we doing these things? What's behind it? So I thought I'd start by asking you both a bit of your whys. Let's look at some moments that have mattered for you. So maybe it's early-career events that you've run, groups that have come together, you're like, "Thank God we got together," or "Thank God I got that group together." Anything that stands out to you. I don't want to pick on you, but Alyssa, I'm thinking about you.

Alyssa Peltier (03:06): 

I don't know what my why is, because I feel like... Probably said this on the podcast before, but I go into every event and I'm like, "Ugh, I hate events. I don't want to do this." Even going to the events, I'm prepping to go to a conference at the end of this month, and I'm like, "Oh God, why did I sign up to go to this thing? Like, why am I going again?" And then it's the after moment. The after. Like, right after it. There's this, like, energy both within myself, in my career, personally, all the things. Events light a fire in you and I think it's undeniable. I think also it's how much you lean into the moment, like how much you embrace that which happened in person. But I find myself undeniably in love with events after going to an event, and I just think that is a testament to us as communal beings, us as just needing to be around those energy centers. And there's nothing else that does that than an event, or a meeting even.

A lot of what I have helped to support over the last couple of years has been what we would call smaller moments of impact, a more meeting-type setting, but even those are equally if not more so energy-fueling for me. And so the reason why I scheduled this next conference was because of the Cvent CONNECT conference. I was like, "I gotta go. I got to get out more. I got to be around people. I got to keep going and doing and..." Because the moments matter. So my why is because it's fuel for me as a person and me as professionally, but it's also how many audience members treat events. They know that this is fuel.

Felicia Asiedu (04:47): 

Yeah, absolutely. Rachel, thoughts? Any early-career moments or things you've done?

Rachel Andrews (04:53): 

I've been doing this for 20 years, so obviously I like it, or I wouldn't be still doing it or else I'm just a crazy person. Maybe I'm both, probably a little bit a mix of both. For me it started at an early age. My love language is creating moments for people is gift giving, is acts of service. Those things charge me and fuel me. But I think at the core, making other people happy is something that I really love doing, and so that translates into events, and for me it's always been something that helps. So I'm similar to Alyssa. I feel all the magic on-site and post-event, but it's the pre-event and what you're working towards and remembering that magic that makes those moments matter for me.

Alyssa Peltier (05:40): 

Like as you're going through the planning process and, like, the curation of the experiences, you're kind of anticipating a moment that's going to matter, right? But there is that self-doubt as you're curating that experience where you're like, "Does this moment even matter? Does this moment even matter? Will this even matter?" And it's like at the end of it, every single time, yes, every single time, without a shadow of a doubt, the moment, the moments, the totality of all of it always matters.

Rachel Andrews (06:10): 

So that's part of my point is just like my job is to make sure that the moments actually matter, and you're not just doing it just to go through the motions. And I would say 90% of planners just try to make it matter, but are sometimes in an uphill battle against things that don't matter. And for me it's like there's a balance between doing what's being asked of you and then really translating that into let's think about it through the attendees lens. Is what you're asking as an executive going to matter to them, or is it going to impact the organization, the cause, whatever the why is of why you're doing that moment or event, and translate that on paper.

But when I see the things come into fruition, even back in college when I did... I did a seatbelt campaign, and we canvassed the whole campus just to create awareness about wearing your seatbelts and we did a whole study, and we saw actual results from that. And that was really cool to be, like, I organized all of these different things to come together for one purpose and then there was a big event at the end of it, big fundraiser and silent auction, that sort of thing. And those things all came together because of all of these mini moments that created a bigger impact.

So I think just seeing that, growing up, and being a part of those types of smaller campaigns, grassroots things that made me say, "Okay, wow, if you can build it, they will come" kind of thing. If you can build this thing and you can impact certain things... Now, I'm not planning an event for... event technology is not curing cancer, saving the world, but maybe the people that are coming are impacted by it and they take something from your event and they bring it back to theirs that does make a huge impact. So I think about that, the cascading effect of what these moments mean for different people.

Felicia Asiedu (08:03): 

Yeah, I love that so much, the fact that you did that when you were quite young and it was for a cause that is so important. I think sometimes when we're in our day jobs, we kind of almost forget, and you're making me think about people getting behind their company cause. It's like, why does this company exist and therefore why are we bringing these people together? What are the, you know we was talking about objectives? But objectives really sounds very businessy and corporate, and I think it removes sometimes the heart, the emotion of it, the kind of like, you said what we all got together behind one thing at the same time and we therefore saw the results of it. That's exactly what we should be doing in our business life, right? But I think we get lost.

Alyssa Peltier (08:47): 

It's funny because when we introduced this as a potential topic to talk about on the podcast, my very corporate business mind was like the moments matter because they generate revenue. The answer always lies in data. To me it's like there's data. I think that's important. I think that is the proof that the moment mattered. Undeniably, though, the moment is going to matter even in the absence of that, which is why so often we hear from planning professionals, marketing pros who are putting on and producing events, they almost minimize the data capture, because they know the moment matters, right? We've found it so hard to calculate ROI or ROE or things like that because the moments do matter. But how do we prove that I think is also part of this equation, and part of this conversation, to tie it back to those... what's material about it? And I love Rachel, like the seatbelt is a perfect example, right? Because you're like, this is proof that the moment mattered.

Felicia Asiedu (09:45): 

I have so many examples of this, but you just sparked something. So someone at our summer networking party, so we had a summer networking party, we have it every year. We have a summer and winter one in London. And I started to get to the point of, like, what are we really doing? We're bringing people together. Yes, they're having a good time. Yes, they're drinking on a rooftop, but how am I going to go back in the business and produce ROI from these things? Should we start to scrap it, or do we call the audience so that it's just the right people, right? And then this wonderful person came up to me and she was saying, you know, "I hear you speak, I hear you speak at events, I've seen you at this event and that event," and I was like, I didn't even know she was having those moments for a start.

Then she was like, "I've also brought Cvent into two businesses that I've worked for. I'm now in my third business. I'm going to bring them to the third one." And she was like, "And I've been telling people here how to get you into their business. I've been telling them what impact it's had on my team. I've been telling them that..." She was gushing, and I was thinking, there's no way I can data-capture this. And I shouldn't. Why would I even want to? That's not why she's telling me. So it'd be like, "Now put that back into your data spreadsheet and, go and tell your boss."

But she just is a natural advocate. She likes our brand, she happens to follow me on socials or whatever, and she's following what we do, and she's coming to have a good time, and she's advocating for us in that entire event, creating all these little mini moments and having one for herself. And we were able to say, you know, I think one of our guys was like, "Do you speak on stage? Because you're already good at this." And she was like, "Never. I could never." And we're like, "Yes, you can ." And so he recruited her then and there for CONNECT Europe. And I was like, " Boom. That stuff, intangible." She's actually feeling anxious about it but in a really cool positive and electrified kind of way. And I think that's, again, you can't get that. We wouldn't have known if she didn't come to the rooftop and have some drinks, right?

Rachel Andrews (11:32): 

I think some of the mind shift needs to be the relationship events are really important. Like, they really are. It's not the we're going to sell you right this second, and it's more like we're going to become friends, and we're going to create a relationship. And I know many people that are very successful suppliers that I work with that never sold me from the beginning. They just said, "Hey, do you want to grab coffee? Do you want to go to dinner?" and we just chatted about life. And then those are the people that I still keep in touch with. Those are the people that are in my network that I think about when I'm like, "You know what? I need this. I'm going to go to my mentor at this company."

We've never actually done business, but we will in the future. I know that because I want to work with them. I know that that's more of the sales side, but if you reframe your brain to be like, this event we are going to establish a couple of feel-good moments, and good conversation, good food and just have that be part of your brand. It doesn't have to be the hard sell every time at these events.

Alyssa Peltier (12:35): 

It can just be community fostering. Like, I'm working on a series of dinners right now that are customer to customer, and almost the whole purpose there is to facilitate the peer-to-peer networking relationship with Cvent as the conduit, right? So I think that's also equally part of the moment is these folks would not have otherwise found each other if we didn't provide that platform in an event format.

Felicia Asiedu (12:57): 

I'm going to steer us a little bit towards the nitty-gritties, right? People would be able to resonate with these heartfelt, the nostalgic moments of I met so-and-so. All true. When you get down to the nitty-gritties of it, sometimes people feel like, "Oh, I'm just setting setting up a reg site." And my other example was amazing event called Mad Fest that I went to early in the summer. And when I say amazing, it was kind of mad. It was sweltering heat in a car park that had been transformed into some kind of beach land. And the experience for all the creators and marketers and the event planners and all that was great. But last year, Mad Fest did a great job of advertising, and let's just say they were a little bit overwhelmed with how it went. And so you had all these people right at the front trying to get in, and their experience wasn't the best.

Now, we partnered with them because we love what they do, and we were like, "Here's how we think you could improve that little process there and get the right people on site." And the feedback from people coming this time was, "So smooth, so organized. I got in like a dream. It was amazing. Love Mad Fest." They loved the content, they loved how they were treated on entry. What might seem like a small tiny thing was a moment of like, seamlessness, I would say, for the attendees that turned up.

No one wants to be standing outside in the sun when you're trying to get in to watch the morning content, right? So taking care of the little moments, I think it's something that we shouldn't take for granted. And event planners, if I can speak to you directly, you shouldn't take that as almost like meaningless, thankless job. It's so important that you are looking after the tiny things that the big rigs are not necessarily thinking about. I know you got it anyway. I know, Rachel, I can always call you, and I'm like, "What about this small thing?" And you're like, "I got it. I already thought about that. Already told... you know." Because you know how important those seemingly smaller things are for people's experiences as well.

Alyssa Peltier (14:50): 

It's weird. It's like the un-moment moment. You don't want a line to become a negative moment, right? So I think, and Rachel, you're probably doing this all the time as you're mapping spaces out, like, how do we make sure that this is frictionless and seamless and that it doesn't become a problem? A problem AKA could be a negative moment for somebody. So that's an interesting take on it, right? Like, just to think about where there could be a PR crisis on your hands.

Rachel Andrews (15:16): 

This is giving me some ideas. You almost need volunteers or activating your sales team as magic moment makers. Maybe we bring that to CONNECT, and we have people that just go around and create a moment for them. Like if they had a bad day, we get them a flower or a wellness kit or something, right? I do those things when there's a crisis run that somebody is falling down and they need a bandaid or they had a bad experience with their hotel room, we get them some sort of surprise in their room. We do those things as, like, an afterthought sometimes, but on site in the moment, we're doing those, maybe we think about it before the event and create those mini moments for them that help them have a better experience. My wheels are turning here.

Felicia Asiedu (16:01): 

I was just going to say when we first started thinking about this campaign, we were thinking about calling our customers moment makers, because they are the makers, right? And I love that you're thinking about rewarding the moment makers. We've come up with, like, we did our first customer retreat this year. That was part of that. We wanted to reward the makers. We could expand this. Look at that. We're creating on our podcast.

Rachel Andrews (16:21): 

Honestly, empower your volunteers and empower your staff and empower your salespeople on site to say, here are some tools you can use if you see a moment that you want to make their day even more special or, "Hey, I saw you were in line. You're at the back of the line. Actually, I'm going to bring you over to this VIP bar." Like those types of things, and my wheels are turning a little bit. Make their day, show them that attention, and people will be like, "Wow, I didn't know you cared about me like that."

Alyssa Peltier (16:45): 

This is reminding me. Many moons ago, we worked with Cirque du Soleil at one of our Las Vegas events, and I think one of their kind of ethos at Cirque du Soleil is to think about the moments between the moments. So like, you have a run of show, you have an agenda, you have what we would probably call a very fixed framework in an event, right? Something that doesn't have a lot of wiggle room and is very time-bound and is very rigid. But there is a lot of space between the spaces for those moments of magic to kind of arise.

And I think Cirque du Soleil is just one of those really great examples for those of you that have seen a Cirque du Soleil show. You can see there are performers that aren't performing, but they are giving you a performance on the side. And so it's thinking through that choreography or that agenda, and to almost fabricate those little things that kind of inspire and ignite and just kind of keep you moving about the agenda experience. It's funny because there's a parallel, and what a great brand, that's doing that in a performance setting, but...

Rachel Andrews (17:51): 

Yeah. Some of my favorite things have been like that. So we've done, during general session, we did sign spinners outside. You know the ones that you see that are like, "Buy your car here." We did that at CONNECT and people died. But little things like that. One of my favorite things we did this year at Cvent CONNECT was Visit San Antonio, and our team talked about a regiception. I know this is a new trend. So at registration, have a reception. It's like you're welcoming your people. Let's party. Let's have a huge celebration. It's like we have a band, we had a coffee bar, they had performers outside, and they were just saying, "Good morning. Welcome. We're so happy to have you here." It was like that moment gave me chills because I was like, "This is why I do what I do." Surprise and delight.

Alyssa Peltier (18:38): 

You're providing something that, okay, it's not a one-to-one personalized thing, but not everyone is going to get that moment. And I think that starts to create your own personalized, unique experience of the conference, of the meeting, of whatever the event is. And their time is seen as a unique experience, right? So, like, that registration activation might not have been going on the entire time. It's kind of not a one-size-fits-all, and I think that's part of what we're talking about here is that everyone has their own unique curation of moments across that time, across that agenda, which is really cool.

Felicia Asiedu (19:15): 

I love this. This conversation has ignited... I love that it's sparked my creativity on the podcast itself. So Rachel, we've got a lot of work to do building up to CONNECT Europe, get these things in place.

Rachel Andrews (19:26): 

Shameless plug, the agenda's live.

Felicia Asiedu (19:28): 

The agenda's live, live, live. And I will finish it by saying, I don't know if you remember me tell you about my Usher person. So I really wanted to go and see Usher, I wanted to have that moment, put it out on LinkedIn. Everyone did that, "Oh babe, if I could, I would take you. You know I love you. It's all good." No one was helpful, until I met Laura. And Laura was like, "I'll actually take you." And then she sent me all the Usher swag, I actually have the bag right behind me, with all my... I got the Oh My God head beanie, I got the cup, all the stuff.

And she took me, and we sat really low down and at one point Usher turned to me and he sang to me directly. I'm sure that happened. That was my moment during the concert. I don't know what was going on. Crazy. That was the moment the camera was on me and I was on the big screen. About two weeks later, people were like, "Were you at the Usher concert? 'Cause I saw you on the screen." What a thing, right? All because of Laura. So Laura is one of those people you're talking about who I was like, "We are going to keep in touch. We are going to find a way to work together."

She has a session at CONNECT Europe with Dermot O'Leary where she talks about how she has grown this million-dollar business that she now runs with her daughter, and she makes these moments of magic happen for people, and she has agreed to make moments of magic happen for two members of our audience where she will get them the experience that they won. She'll curate it in exactly the same way did for me. And I was like, "I am all in."

So if you are coming to the conference, who knows, if you attend Laura's session, this could be you, talking about your experiences at your favorite artist. So with that, I'm going to wrap us up and say register for CONNECT Europe if you haven't done so already. Thank you for joining the podcast today. Go and create amazing moments as hoteliers. You are definitely creating moments for me, especially when I walk in and I smell that hotel smell. I'm already sold. So be creating moments and have a great time.

Alyssa Peltier (21:17): 

Bye, everyone. Thank you.

Thanks for hanging out with us on great events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

Rachel Andrews (21:32): 

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Felicia Asiedu (21:41): 

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Rachel Andrews (21:49): 

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Felicia Asiedu (21:59): 

Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

Alyssa Peltier (22:09): 

And that's a wrap! Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.