Betsy Bair, Vice President, Strategic Narratives at Velvet Chainsaw, will retire as of March 31, 2023. For the past seven years, Betsy has been instrumental in project managing many of VCC’s most complex client engagements. Her passion for studying and learning the business of each of our clients is unparalleled. Betsy is a client … [Read More...]
Event Planning Has Risen in the Ranks of Most Stressful Jobs
Before the pandemic, one could argue that jobs with life-and-death consequences were surely more stressful than planning an annual conference. But things have changed. According to a study by the World Scholarship Vault, event planner stress levels are hitting a new high — the third-most … [Read More...]
Skyrocketing Costs Squeeze Event Budgets
Event organizers are feeling the pinch as industry suppliers, venues and transportation companies rebound from the pandemic. Travel costs are rising due to strong demand (led by the leisure sector). Following are considerations gathered from industry media, meetings market surveys and anecdotal … [Read More...]
David Beckett Joins the Velvet Chainsaw Team
We are extremely excited to welcome David Beckett, Vice President, Business Model & Performance to the Velvet Chainsaw Consulting team! To me, this is kind of like getting the band back together! I had the privilege to hire and work closely with David at Experient as well as when I was on the … [Read More...]
Panel Sessions 3.0 for 2023
For years I’ve been a fan of bringing in more outside voices to make mainstage sessions more valuable and deliver more impact. While keynote speakers can still be a significant attendance driver, I think 2023 is the year to resurrect the industry panel. What you don’t want to do is go back to the … [Read More...]
Do’s and Don’ts: Six Tips to Help Justify Attendance at Your Event
As we progress through the event industry’s recovery to 2019 levels, conference organizers must have a laser focus on helping potential attendees make their business case for attending their events. The best path for helping them get approval to attend is to ensure that the majority of your … [Read More...]
Making Up for Fewer Skilled Workers at Your Conference
Throughout 2022, nearly every meeting service provider continues to be short-staffed and plagued by last-minute no-shows or insufficiently skilled workers. This is having a huge impact on event organizers and their teams during both planning and execution phases of events. More than ever, we need to … [Read More...]
Seeking a Hybrid Conference Steady State? Here’s a Framework
With live conferences’ comeback, event organizers need to make complex decisions about how to incorporate digital product extensions into their business model. Based on our research, we estimate that there’s an even split between conference owners who are including synchronous or asynchronous hybrid … [Read More...]
Five Tips for Conference Sponsorship Pricing
In my experience, most large conferences this year are realizing about 80 percent of their 2019 revenue performance. For some of the major annual meetings we’re tracking, sponsorship revenue has been a bright spot when compared to exhibit revenue performance. The textbook outcome of a successful … [Read More...]
