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 reports from Velvet Chainsaw Consulting clients. Event venues are raising rates for basic services like electrical, internet, trash management and catering. Some of these expense increases are due 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 options and those who aren’t. The half who is pursuing hybrid knows that they can’t just go back to what worked in 2019 despite the return of in-person events. They crave a predictable steady state … [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 sponsorship is improved attitudes and behavior for that brand. But that’s about affecting emotions — difficult, if not impossible — to measure. In other words, a sponsor’s ROI is subjective in nature, … [Read more...]
2022 Conference Registration Pacing
Before March of 2020, pacing data was a useful tool for predicting final attendance and revenue. If you were pacing behind, you could make midcourse corrections. As we come out of the pandemic, we need a different playbook to drive attendance and earlier commitment. Use these five tips to develop a plan for optimizing registration for your major event in quarters 2, 3, and 4. Budget realistically. On average, associations are anticipating 2022 registration and revenue will be about 20 … [Read more...]
Will Use-It-or-Lose-It Budgeting Negatively Impact Expo and Sponsor Revenue?
Our crystal balls are pretty foggy when it comes to predicting the return of in-person expo and sponsor revenue. Three of the big questions are: With the advancement of digital demos, will exhibitors opt for smaller booth spaces? If marketing budgets intended for show participation in 2020 or 2021 were reallocated, or not spent, will corporations recall the good days and include your show in the 2022 marketing budget? Will poor ROI from virtual shows negatively impact future spend … [Read more...]
Game On! Returning to Face-to-Face
With many organizations actively planning for an upcoming in-person conference or tradeshow, now is the time to make firm decisions for your attendee-experience, staffing and safety plans. We recently held a webinar featuring leaders from two large associations that have held face-to-face events in recent weeks. Here are five of the top take-aways that can help other associations navigate their new journey. 1. Increased and Transparent Communications Most Q3 and Q4, 2021 conferences are … [Read more...]
Risk, Revenue Recognition and Recovery
For well over a year, we’ve consulted with dozens of associations on their go/no-go event strategies. One of our early — and still applicable — recommendations was for conference organizers to communicate and publish the date when they expect to make the decision for their in-person conference. Over the summer and the fall of 2020, most organizations were able to make decisions six months out without incurring liability. That window has tightened to 90 days. By May or June, facilities are less … [Read more...]
The High Cost of Hybrid
Our clients and leading industry associations (for example, PCMA’s latest glimpse or our industry’s future, the business recovery dashboard) are turning their attention to future hybrid and face-to-face (f2f) events. While everyone keeps saying that hybrid is here to stay, most association event pros have limited bandwidth and budget to plan and execute robust in-person and digital events simultaneously. In part one of this post, I covered some of the significant risks our clients are facing … [Read more...]
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