Conference Trends 2013

London New Years Eve Fireworks 2012

We can’t believe the first month of 2013 has gone already! This inspired us to think about the changing landscape of the events industry and changes and developments we foresee for conferences in the next 12 months. It will be interesting to review this post in early 2014 and see if our predictions were right!

Times are still tough in the UK economy and throughout the world and event budgets are tight or in some case virtually non existent! This is however encouraging some fantastic deals and rates throughout the industry from venues and suppliers for those in a position to take advantage. Good event organisers are rising to this challenge to become even more creative in making every penny go even further!  We also expect to see conferences and events held in more unusual venues and spaces in the future and sometimes shying away from the shiny purpose built venues we love so much.

We have already seen many events moving to a single day rather than a multi day programme and non fee paying events slashing maximum available attendee places is understandably a definite sign of the times. There has also been a push towards “no frills” packages e.g. providing a basic sandwich lunch and doing without the biscuits/fruit/pastries at refreshment breaks in order to make the books balance and also simply to not be seen as being frivolous in these times of austerity.  In our opinion content is always more important than the niceties and we are happy to advise our clients how and where they can save money on their conferences and events.

If you book to attend an event and cancel at the last minute do expect to incur a cancellation charge. No shows and late apologies cost the organiser money for the place that is wasted and cause frustration because it is then often too late to fill the place from someone on the waiting list. Attendees often don’t seem to comprehend that by booking a place and not turning up to an event you may be putting the future of the event happening again into serious jeopardy during these challenging times.

Social media will continue to have a massive impact in the event industry in terms of marketing, developing online communities, live tweeting, sharing photos and extending the life of the event well after the lights are turned off and everyone has gone home. No longer does attending a conference mean turning off your phone, instead delegates are often actively encouraged just turn to silent and to engage fully via social media. Virtually all of the events we work on now set a dedicated event hashtag early on in the planning process and we are happy to advise on a bespoke event social media marketing strategy. Tweets are often visible even to those without active accounts via Twitter walls and feeds via event apps.  Speakers at events are also expected to do more, be it by writing a guest blog post or simply telling their followers about the events they are involved in and tweeting live from the event.

Event App from Advanced Event Solutions Ltd

Reliable wifi is essential in any event venue nowadays, where each attendee is often using multiple devices to connect online. Venues with less than satisfactory wifi signal, complicated log in procedures and expensive charges (or indeed any charges full stop for wifi!) will soon find themselves out of favour with organisers.

Tablets are having an impact on events, not just in terms facilitating attendees to connect with social media on site but also in terms of some organisers favouring their tablet instead of their traditional clipboard to quickly access important information on the move!

A hybrid event is a tradeshow, conference, unconference, seminar, workshop or other meeting that combines a “live” face to face event with a “virtual” online component.  We are already seeing a rise in events which cater for both on site visitors and also engage with wider audiences unable to attend in person.  Hybrid Events are set to change the face of the events industry and will become more and more common over the next few years.

Now more than ever it is vital to measure the return on investment (ROI) for each event.  Instead of gaining feedback from attendees about how they rated the catering what we really need to measure is how much business was generated as a direct result of an event or how it has influenced and changed opinions of those attending.

We are seeing a movement by forward thinking organisations who want to be respected as experts in their field and are hosting workshops around the country.  These organisations are putting on a free half day seminar in their area of expertise and inviting a targeted list to take up free places.  The seminar gives an introduction into their services via a number of guest speakers and case studies.  Attendees can gain valuable insight into the subject area, ask questions and get free advice.  The seminars then generate leads and business over the medium term which more than compensates for their initial investment.  We are pleased to be working with a number of clients who see this formula as a vital component in their marketing strategy.

In 2012 we produced a number of events that invested in an event app to improve the attendee experience.  Sponsorship is sometimes elusive in the current economic climate with sponsors rightly demanding more and looking for a unique package in return.  A bespoke branded event app such as those provided by Advanced Event Solutions Ltd offers real tangible benefits to sponsors as well as adding value to delegates, speakers and exhibitors.  In this age of technology having information at your finger tips via a mobile phone or tablet is expected and demanded more and more.

Event Registration Management

The face of event registration is changing.  For bigger and slicker events gone are the pre printed badges laid out in alphabetical order on the registration desks.  Instead we are seeing a much faster and less wasteful way to check in delegates via barcoded registration technology.  The attendees barcoded ticket is scanned at the desk triggering their badge to be printed within a matter of seconds.  We developed this registration management system ourselves in 2010 and it continues to grow from strength to strength.  It can also be integrated with the event app mentioned previously.

Over many years the favourite staple presentation tool has been PowerPoint.  Many speakers are however now favouring Prezi.  Prezi is a slick way to visualise and share ideas and information via zooming technology.  It certainly looks beautiful and is easy to understand why it is attracting over a million new users a month!

We believe that we will continue to see those that have cut budgets and stopped running events start to return to funding face to face opportunities to learn and connect. We have already seen examples of this throughout 2012 as clients realise it is actually often the most effective and cost effective way to achieve their objectives and alternative methods are simple not able to provide comparable results.

Online event registration sites have come a long way over the past few years and hopefully we will continue to see further improvements.  There are some great sites out there but not one provider is perfect yet in our opinion – every platform has some annoying imperfections, oversights or are simply overpriced and there is still work to be done.  We have a good working knowledge of event registration sites and are able to advise our clients which of the providers are most suitable for their event and which are the most competitive in terms of commission fees charged on each booking and card payments.

Following on from the success of the Olympic Games 2012 we hope that the UK will continue to benefit from increased tourism and hospitality spend as one of the premier destinations for conferences and events.

2013 is set to be an exciting year for Events Northern Ltd. We already have a great list of events confirmed, including our first European Conference.  This blog post has looked at just some of the ways we expect to see changes over the course of 2013.  We would love to hear your thoughts on this blog post and to hear your predictions and trends for the 12 months ahead!

TechFest 2012

On Monday 18th June Becki Cross from Events Northern Ltd attended TechFest 2012  at the Mermaid Conference Centre, London.  Read more about the event in this blog post….

TechFest (http://tech-fest.co.uk/) is an event aimed purely at event organisers and focused on Event Technology.

I have to admit that it was lovely to be attending an event as a delegate for a change rather than to be ensuring everything runs smoothly behind the scenes for others!  I started the day armed with a brand new notebook – not sure if that is allowed at an event focused on event technology but as a stationary geek it made me happy at least (simple pleasures)!

We were greeted and welcome to the event by Oscar the Robot.  It was good to see Oscar live in action as I am desperate to use him for my own future events but haven’t yet had the opportunity!  Oscar was at his most charming, commenting that he “liked my red bag” as I went past.  As anticipated Oscar proved a great hit throughout the event talking to delegates, smiling for photos and generally attracting attention to himself – an excellent engagement tool which is proven to be particularly valuable in terms of attracting footfall to exhibition stands and other promotional activities.

The event had tried to do things differently, rather than by traditional means; for example attendees were invited from the “Making Good Organisers Great” LinkedIn Group and there were no delegate packs at the event.  We did find however that by our very nature event planners are generally very meticulous and so many of us attending the event had printed out our own event programme and brought it with us to refer to!

At the registration desk we had to choose a badge based on our knowledge of event technology.  Gemma thrust a Pink Badge onto me – signifying that I was knowledgeable about event technology!  Other colours signified those that had some or little expertise in this area and the badges were designed as an ice breaker and conversation starter.

The event was expertly Chaired by Alan Stevens (@mediacoach).  He highlighted that technology can be a great thing if used appropriately but also gave wise words of warning that all speakers should be prepared to manage with or out technology when presenting “just in case.”  He also outlined a true story of an event which had the event Twitter feeds prominent on the stage behind the speaker but in full view of the audience.  The audience used Twitter to complain how bad the speaker was and then collectively decided to do a countdown to leave the room, at which point three quarters of the audience departed.  The remaining audience then had to point out the Twitter messages to the bewildered speaker to explain the reason for the mass departure.

Jamie Vaughan, Sales Director at So Visit gave some interesting facts during his presentation:

80% of leads from an event are never followed up.

As an event organiser this is both baffling and disappointing as this is a massive lost opportunity.  Proving the Return on Investment of attending or exhibiting at an event is vital to ensure the business opportunities and revenue is maximized and ensure future approval.

94.9% of attendees welcome ongoing communications post show.

To highlight once again the lost opportunity represented by the previous fact – leads from an exhibition are generally “warm” and receptive to communication.  This should be seized and definitely not wasted under any circumstances!

Hellen Beveridge, Trainer and Consultant at PureRocketScience gave a commons sense presentation on social media campaigns.  She stressed the importance of knowing your audience, seeing your event from the audience perspective and setting the goals you want to achieve from the campaign.

After hearing from Quick Mobile about the many benefits of using a mobile app for events William was asked why he hadn’t had an event app for the event.  This started comments about how mobile apps can be time consuming in terms of adding the event information.  Many of the audience disagreed with this, telling others they were using the wrong apps if it required hours or days of work!  (By the way – if you are looking for a competitively priced mobile event app we recommend that you should investigate www.advancedeventsolutions.com).

In the afternoon we joined tables for World Cafe Discussion Groups.  The groups highlighted the difference in experience and knowledge between some of the attendees (e.g. some still use paper registration forms) but the groups I joined sparked some interesting conversations and discussions.

The day was frankly over too soon with cars waiting to whisk us over to HAC for champagne and show rounds.

I got a lot out of the day in terms of the networking opportunities and some of the presentations.  I met some fantastic people and it was great to finally meet in person some contacts I only knew previously through email or social media.

All credit to William from Gallus Events for putting on this free conference for event organisers – probably the most critical audience he could have targeted!  Well done and thanks also to Gemma Pears for looking after everyone so well.

I will definitely look forward to TechFest 2013!

Did you attend TechFest 2012?  What did you get out of the day?  What would you like to see from TechFest 2013?  I would love to hear your thoughts below. 

Is your event management company saving you money?

Image via Wikipedia

There are countless benefits to using an event management company and in these difficult economic times it is crucial that every penny counts.  So what should you expect from your event management company when it comes to saving you money?  How can you be sure that you are getting best value?  This blog post will focus specifically on some of the cost saving benefits every event management company worth their weight in gold should be demonstrating to their clients.

Knowledge

Event Managers are an encyclopedia of knowledge.  We often know venues, suppliers and contacts that you may never even have heard of.  These little gems may not have the marketing budget to get them to the first page of Google to compete with the big boys but you can rest assured that they can offer you knock out rates as a result.

Special Offers

We like to be in the know and venues and suppliers ensure they regularly communicate special rates, offers and discounts to us.  Often the savings and offers are only open to past customers and/or event management companies/agencies on their database and we like nothing better than matching up the deals with our clients needs.

Preferential Rates

We have great relationships with many venues and suppliers which encourages them to give us excellent rates.  Venues and suppliers like working with professionals because we understand the process, we are organised, meet all deadlines and save a lot of leg work and time for the venue/supplier as a result.

We really value our suppliers and our suppliers value us.  In recognition of the value of work we place with our trusted suppliers throughout the course of a year we are often lucky enough to get discounts, meaning that our clients benefit from the economies of scale of our total annual spend.  For example our preferred and fantastic audio visual supplier is Active AV.  They automatically offer us 20% discount off all equipment hire.  This saving is then passed on directly to our customers.

We cultivate good relationships with our suppliers which often pays off for our clients in terms of added extras chucked in.

Negotiation

We will always negotiate to ensure our clients get the best possible price.  And then we make comparisions between the offers made.  And then we negotiate some more!

Research

Good research skills are an essential part of every event managers CV.  How can you be sure you are getting the best rates unless you shop around and triple check?

The Bigger Picture

We know the questions to ask.  Unfortunately some organisations and venues prefer to hide the true costs and land customers with unexpected expenditure items after contracts have been signed, rather than being transparent.  We like to ask questions from the start so you are not going to get charged £50 for use of a plug socket (I kid you not!).

We also know where money should be spent and where it can be scrimped without compromising on quality – for instance two pull up banners for £99 – yes please, versus £300 for one (of comparable quality I hasten to add).

Often we can suggest viable alternatives.  Often things can be done differently to make the event slicker and save money.

On event days we are never without our “event managers box” – a box of essential equipment and items close to hand which often prove to be invaluable.

Beg, Borrow or Steal

Recently a client needed an expensive piece of equipment and had no budget to pay for it.  I was the first person they contacted to help.  It is always good to pick up the phone and hear “I didn’t know where to start but I thought that if anyone will know you will know!”  And it paid off for them too!

Don’t Pay for Things You Don’t Need

We help our clients to work out what they need so they don’t have to pay for things they don’t need.  We always have a clients best interests at heart – for example is a DDR (day delegate rate) really best for your needs or would it be cheaper to pay for room hire, catering and audio visual separately on this occasion?

In terms of catering have you taken into account the speakers that cannot stay for lunch, the late arrivals and the likely number of no-shows?  We can advise on these headaches so you don’t have to worry or waste your valuable budget.

Budget

Many of our clients want us to create and control an event budget so they can make pricing decisions early on in the project and have regular updates in terms of income and expenditure and surpassing the break even point.

We care about the event as much as you do and we will be watching every penny to ensure you maximise your budget throughout the life of the project.

Technology

We like to be up to date with the newest technologies.  We can advise what will have the wow factor and maximise the event experience without necessarily costing the earth.  Text to screen systems, barcoded registration systems, event apps, twitter walls are just a few items that can be low cost but really transform the event.

Do you need a registration site but are you baffled by the different rates and commission charges?  We can look at what you need your registration page to do and the payments involved to give a clear idea of which sites can work best for you.

Work in Your Best Interests at All Times

Sometimes the unexpected can happen and you may need to change to a larger or smaller venue, change dates or even cancel your event completely.  The terms and conditions of the contract can be baffling but should this happen we will work with the venue and suppliers to minimise the penalties and negotiate the best deal for you.

This post has focused on some of the direct monetary savings an event management company will make for you.  Of course one of the huge advantages of contracting an event manager is the time savings you make, leaving you to focus on the job you are paid to do and earning money for your organisation, whilst you leave the planning and organisation to the experts.

This blog has given just a few examples of how Events Northern Ltd add value, save money for our clients and maximize their budget.  Are you getting excellent value from your event management company?  Are they saving you money?  If not, or if you are not so sure, then contact us – we would love to hear from you!

Top Tips for a Successful Career in Event Management

The recent A-Level and GCSE results got me thinking about what advice I would give to anyone interested in Event Management.  You may be considering studying an Event Management degree and/or want to embark on a career as an Event Manager?

I was 17 when I set my mind on my future career path and I have enjoyed writing this blog post and looking back at the information and learning that I would give today to anyone just starting out on this journey.

Be warned and be prepared though; this is a very competitive marketplace with hundreds of people applying for every university place and job.  To succeed you will need to stand out from the crowd and be the cream of the crop!  Here are some of my top tips to give you the best chance of a long, exciting and rewarding career in the events industry.

Read all you can

Read as much as you can about the events industry, including event management books, industry magazines, press releases, blogs, websites, etc.  This is a fast-moving industry and it is important to keep up to date.  Not all of this information has to be purchased – there is a wealth of free information out there which will help to give you the bigger picture and teach you some of the basic principles about event management.

If you are looking to study for an Event Management degree authors such as Goldblatt, Getz, Bowdin, Watt and Tarlow (to name just a few) will help to introduce you to the subject area.

Don’t just limit your reading to purely event management based articles either, reading around marketing, customer service, presentation skills, health and safety, social media, creativity, project management, business planning, management, negotiation, finance/budgeting and so forth will all help in any future event management role.

Don’t specialise too early

Even if you are adamant that you wish to work in a particular area of the events industry I would urge you not to specialise too early, to ensure that you gain a broad range of skills and experience.  Although organising a music festival is a very different area of expertise to organising a conference or exhibition the basic principles of event planning are the same and experience of managing a live event in any shape or form will help to make you a better and stronger Event Manager.  When I started studying for my event management degree at Leeds Metropolitan University I was certain that I wanted to specialise in the music industry, organising festivals and gigs.  Throughout my career I have been lucky enough to work on every type of event imaginable; from fashion shows to awards ceremonies, exhibitions to weddings, music festivals to conferences, sporting competitions to open air movies and everything in between.  Today though, although I still really enjoy working on every single event management project, I get the most satisfaction from organising conferences and this has become my personal niche and speciality.

Organise anything you can

If you are considering working in the events industry you are probably already seen as the natural organiser within your friendship group – the one that makes things happen and generally looks after the arrangements and finer details.  Although organising friends birthday parties, holidays and nights out may be on a much smaller scale compared to organising public events it is still a little more practice for your future role and every little helps!

You can make other opportunities for yourself too.  Could you organise an event for a local charity for example?  If you are willing and able to take the initiative and help with fundraising on any scale I guarantee that they will be very appreciative.  And what about getting involved with your local amateur dramatics or other performance group?  That would be a great opportunity to shadow a sound and lighting engineer and to learn a little bit more about how it works behind the scenes.

During your career you will often be working with a tight or very small budget and so being imaginative, negotiating, making every penny count and generally making magic on very few resources is something that you should be working on at every opportunity (and your friends/local charity/theatre group will thank you for it too).

Get to grips with Social Media

You are no doubt already really comfortable with the internet and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogging and Google+.  Incorporating social media and marketing into events is common practice nowadays so ensure that it is a routine part of your day/week too and think about how you could use it in a professional rather than a personal capacity to help promote your own future events.

Start to follow #eventprofs on Twitter and learn from the thoughts, knowledge and discussions they inspire and share.

Ensure you have a good computing skills

A lot of administration is required when planning an event and as an Event Manager you will need to be well versed in using a range of different software and tools.  Get as much working knowledge as you can of Microsoft Office (particularly Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher) and also learn basic accounting, project management, web design, video editing, design, writing and marketing skills if you possibly can.

Being familiar with the keyboard and typing quickly will be essential!  Likewise experience of writing professional correspondence in the form of emails, letters, reports and budgets will be a regular requirement.

As an Event Manager you will need to be technically proficient in many areas so seize absolutely every opportunity to learn.

Get a driving license

Event Managers often work unsociable hours and venues are not always accessible by public transport, particularly at 5 am!  Likewise you will often have a lot of equipment to transport so having a driving license and ideally your own vehicle is essential in my opinion.

Volunteer and get work experience

Volunteering and paid or unpaid work experience are absolutely vital and this cannot be stressed enough.  This shows a future employer that you are serious and committed to your chosen career and hungry to gain experience whenever you can.  Find out about local events and event management companies and ask them if they have any opportunities for you to get involved.  Don’t just think this should relate to the live event period either – the hard work is done in the office during the planning stages in the weeks/months/year leading up to the event.

Often it is possible to volunteer for events such as music festivals and aswell as gaining essential work experience and knowledge of a live event you often get a free ticket and “time off” to enjoy the festival in return for a set amount of working hours per day.  Regardless of whether you have chance to work on large-scale events such as the Olympics, Glastonbury, V Festival, etc, or events on a more local level, nothing should be discounted.

Although it may be difficult juggling your paid work commitments with your eagerness to volunteer you must do it to set you apart from the masses.  This has to be done as a long-term investment as without proof of experience working on actual events you are unlikely to even get to the interview stage.  Show willingness to volunteer and prove yourself to an Event Manager and this may of course then lead to paid work in the future.  Without getting your feet on the first rung of the ladder though you are never going to progress and develop your skills.

Of course if you can gain paid experience in the events industry that is even better.  Be open-minded about how you can gain experience too, for example could you work as an event steward?  This is a good grounding in terms of managing crowds across a venue or event site, dealing with different health and safety issues and ensuring the smooth running and safety of all attendees.

Go to events

At every possibility go to a broad variety of events and observe how things are done as a spectator.  What has worked well, what could be improved?  Why do you think things have been set up that way?  How has it been marketed?  How is everything managed?  What did you learn?  Consider jotting down notes, questions and observations that you can refer back to in the future.

I hope this post has inspired you to begin your exciting career in event management.  I love my role as Managing Director of Events Northern Ltd and find it extremely satisfying and rewarding working on events both large and small.

We wish you the best of luck to fulfill your dreams too!

25 Years of Event Innovations

The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, London is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year and to mark the occasion they appealed to key industry spokespeople, event organisers and suppliers to tell them the innovations that have made the most impact on the events industry during the same time period.

There have been so many exciting advances in the event industry this really got us thinking what would appear in our top 5 list.  The landscape has developed drastically even in the last 10 years, never mind the last quarter century!  Events Northern Ltd were keen to support this Twitter promotion as the QEIICC is an excellent venue that we have really enjoyed working with.

A summary of some of the top tweets and suggestions put forward by other key industry figures are listed below:

‘Comfy shoes!’
Mike Fletcher @MikeyFletch

‘25 yrs ago we used glass slides – chaos. Then PowerPoint invented; most important change ever!’
Martin Lewis @meetpie

‘Internet changed events forever. All could access info, so organisers had 2 show added value’
Rochelle Long @meetpie

‘Internet, opened regional events 2 world: instant comms, bringing people 2gether virtually 2 improve face 2 face’
@harrisonrobert

 ‘The advent of social media & its ability to extend an event community, before, during & after’
@mexiaPR

 ‘Mobile phones, whatever you need there’s an app for it, or there will be soon’
Michelle Chenery @ITCMmagazine

 ‘The impact & importance of providing a sustainable catering service 2 clients’
Leiths @compassgroupuk @limevenues

‘Innovative minds creating successful conferences – confirming events will prosper & survive’
Ernest Vincent, CEO, QEIICC

 ‘The Event Safety Guide -where would #eventsprofs be without that purple bible’
Caroline Clift @StandOutMag

‘The single European market may still fail banks but it helped shape border-free event explosion’
@MikeBellDotEu

This campaign really got us thinking about the top innovations we wanted to put forward.  We finally settled on our final top 5 as follows:

5. The memory stick

Even the simple memory stick has made our life easier and has made saving and loading presentations so much faster!  Gone are the days of floppy discs with limited space capacity or CDs which take so much longer to transfer files and save data to them.  Memory sticks are an essential part of every event managers tool box – be it to load final presentations from speakers onto the laptop and save back the final version at the end of the event, to check electronic information quickly or reprint an extra copy of something onsite.

4. Laptops, netbooks and tablets

Technology is mobile – now wherever you are in the world your desk can come to you!

3. Communications

How did we survive before email?  Emails ensure we can be responsive and adaptable right to the last moment.

Mobile phones and radios are essential for communication between event staff and often save lengthy trips across large venues or event site.

The internet has revolutionised the way we research and has opened up conferences to an international market.

Social media has revolutionised the way events are marketed and how delegates communicate with each other before, during and after an event, especially now smartphones are so widely utilised.

2. Online event registration systems

Gone are the days of hard copy registration forms which had to be painstakingly typed into the database each day.  Now delegates have a fast, painless online form to complete and submit so they know immediately if their place is confirmed.  Importantly this gives us the details we need in real time, ensuring we have up to date registrations and information available 24 hours a day.

1. Barcode registration management

In our opinion this is the only effective way to check in 1,000 delegates in under an hour and we couldn’t operate without this technology on our largest events!

Which innovation do you think has made the most impact on the events industry in the last 25 years?  Do you agree that it is one of the advances listed in this blog or is there something we have overlooked?  To join in please comment via Twitter using the hashtag #25QEIICC on your tweet or comment on this blog post.  You can follow the QEIICC on Twitter @TheQEIICC.