Renegotiating Live Event Agreements When All Parties Are Innocent Victims April 13, 2020 by Dave Lutz This is the third in a series of blogs posts, written collaboratively by our team, which uncover lessons learned in advising dozens of our clients on their events in the time of COVID-19. Although each situation has its own unique issues, we hope you find nuggets to help you with your disruption response and planning. … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , buyer's market, commissions, contracts, COVID-19, negotiation, renegotiation, seller's market
Conference Go/No-Go Decisions in a Pandemic April 9, 2020 by Dave Lutz This is the second in a series of blog posts, written collaboratively by our team, which uncover lessons learned in advising dozens of our clients on their events in the time of COVID-19. Although each situation has its own unique issues, we hope you find nuggets to help you with your disruption response and planning. … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Event Planning, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , coronavirus, COVID-19, FAQs, lead time, pandemic, refunds, scenario planning, transparency
Will Work for Goodwill March 18, 2020 by Dave Lutz Living in Orlando (not the happiest place in the world today) provides a close-up view of the horrific impact the pandemic is having on people and businesses in the live-event, hospitality and travel industries. Nearly all of our association clients are making enterprise-changing decisions to cancel or postpone their marquee events while saying goodbye to … [Read more…] Filed Under: Ramblings
Top Tips for Preparing Your Presenters January 14, 2020 by Dave Lutz Imagine how you might do your job differently if your performance and compensation were evaluated based on overall session attendance and industry presenter ratings at your annual conference. While this notion may seem a bit extreme, conference education systems need increased accountability, which in turn leads to a competitive advantage. We all need improved systems … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education, Speaker Coaching Tagged With: , presenter prep, speaker coaching, speaker preparation, speaker training, spearker prep
Sponsorship Needs to Be More Than Banners and Clings December 17, 2019 by Dave Lutz Sponsorship is the most powerful form of marketing. When done well, it can change participants’ attitudes and behaviors about a brand. Banners, ads, signs and enhanced listings shouldn’t be lumped into the same category — they don’t make that emotional connection. Recently I’ve received invitations to attend webinars and download industry research reports and articles … [Read more…] Filed Under: Sponsorship & Exhibits Tagged With: , banners, booths, clings, emotional connection, exhibits, sponsorship
How to Turn Around Your Sponsorship Revenue December 11, 2019 by Dave Lutz If your conference is like most, sponsorship revenue is underperforming. There are two benchmarks we like to use to identify healthy conference revenue business models: Industry revenue — 30 percent or more of a conference’s total revenue should come from the combination of sponsor, exhibit and advertising revenue. Expo/sponsor revenue ratio — for every $3 … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Sponsorship & Exhibits Tagged With: , education champion, packages, revenue, revenue ratio, sponsorship, tiers, VIP experience
5 Improvements for Event Registration Data Collection October 31, 2019 by Dave Lutz It’s difficult to determine what to include — and not include — when collecting attendee data at the time of conference registration. We need to make it easy to click “yes” during the registration process, while also collecting intelligence to drive personalization. Data fields and pick lists should be normalized and updated across membership, meetings, … [Read more…] Filed Under: Event Planning, Event Technology Tagged With: , customer intelligence, demographics, firmographics, registration data collection, registration forms
Deliver Superior Conference Education Value October 2, 2019 by Dave Lutz Here’s what hasn’t changed: Education continues to be essential to a participant’s experience. Here’s what has changed: I’m convinced that “something for everyone” programming — including basic content for the novice or intermediate practitioner — is no longer the right strategy for positioning your conference as a can’t-miss experience. We need to raise the bar … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education Tagged With: , adult learning, DIKW, learning for life, problem solvers, station rotation
Expo Decisions: Attendee Preferences over Exhibitors—Always August 6, 2019 by Dave Lutz For those of you who organize large annual conferences and trade shows, there undoubtedly is a chicken-vs.-egg debate. On the one hand, your organization might receive as much as 50 percent (or more) of your event’s revenue from supplier investments in exhibits, sponsorship and advertising categories, making it a priority. On the other hand, you … [Read more…] Filed Under: Experience Design, Sponsorship & Exhibits Tagged With: , booth sales, exhibitor advisory, exhibitor advisory committee, exhibitor advisory council
Education Committee: More Advising and Curating, Less Slotting June 24, 2019 by Dave Lutz Most meeting organizers invest a significant amount of time creating the educational programming for their annual conference. Models vary, but most include a 15- to 20-person conference committee (slotters) and army of reviewers (graders). Progressive organizers are shifting to a blended model, where conference committees act more like content curators and advisors and less like … [Read more…] Filed Under: Conference Education, Experience Design Tagged With: , abstracts, curation, Education, education committee, grading, posters, rubric, slotting, submissions
