Normal is Over(rated) – For Now November 16, 2020 by Dave Lutz This is a guest post by Joy S. Davis, CAE, based on an email she sent to me after reading Lisa Block’s recent post, “I Am Sorry, But We Are Not All Fine.” Joy is Managing Director, Member Products, for the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Not too long ago, I gently asked my Executive … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , apology meetings, event strategy, hybrid conferences, return to normal, the new normal, virtual conferences
Event Recovery Food Chain August 27, 2020 by Dave Lutz The harsh reality of an elongated recovery for the live events industry has settled in, as we wrote about back in March when we crafted the Event Recovery Food Chain. At the time, we stated, “Hotels and the entire events supply chain need to understand that we won’t fully recover until we help conference and show … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , ADR, COVID-19, event recovery food chain, group business, hotels, hybrid meetings, live events recovery, supply chain, virtual meetings
Conference Innovation While Traveling at Warp Speed July 23, 2020 by Lisa Block Navigating change during a crisis is not for the faint of heart. During my career leading association event teams, I regularly recalibrated and redefined team member roles in order to drive innovation and improve our meeting experiences. Not every effort was a rousing success but attempting to inject new conference elements made us more nimble, … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Event Planning, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , benchmarks, confererence planners, event planners, hybrid conferences, meeting planner roles, pandemic, virtual conference, virtual conferences
The Future of Face-to-Face is Cloudy May 27, 2020 by Lisa Block I am getting a little overwhelmed by the many predictions that so-called experts are sharing about the future of face-to-face meetings. The range of opinions–from wild optimism to frightening pessimism–is exhausting to wade through. The news cycle of 24/7 pandemic coverage, conversation and debate has obscured the fact that travel and meeting attendance are not … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Hybrid & Virtual
Monetizing Your Virtual Conference When Competing with Free April 30, 2020 by Dave Lutz If you’re inbox is anything like mine, you could spend a good portion of our day consuming webinars, virtual events and networking in Zoom or Facebook Messenger Happy Hours. We’re on content overload and it’s only going to get noisier as the pandemic lingers. The dynamics that we’re seeing impact conferences and their business models … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Conference Education, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , emerging models, freemium, monetization, online conference, online event, virtual event
Virtual Events: Strategy Before Execution April 28, 2020 by Lisa Block My mother used to tell us that “things are going to be different” as we drove home from our annual summer beach vacation. It was her way of getting the family focused on the upcoming routine and discipline of school and work. I remember feeling that her words were both a warning and a promise of … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model, Hybrid & Virtual Tagged With: , how to executive virtual events, online strategy, virtual events, webinar fatigue
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
Leading Through the Pandemic: Generosity + Empathy = Future Brand April 8, 2020 by Lisa Block This is the first in a series of blogs posts, written collaboratively by our team, which uncover lessons learned in advising our clients on their events in the time of COVID-19. Over the past 30 days, the VCC team has helped dozens of conference and show organizers with their decisions on how to respond to … [Read more…] Filed Under: Business Model
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
If You Build It, Will Teams Come? May 28, 2019 by Sarah Michel This is the second installment of a two-part blog on team learning. In the first, we looked at why it’s a smart conference strategy. In this post, we’ll explore how to design, promote and execute it for your next conference. Since our work culture is mostly team-based, it’s about time we reflected it in our … [Read more…] Filed Under: Attendance Marketing, Business Model Tagged With: , conference learning, design for teams, group discounts, group strategies, team learning
