Planners prefer face-to-face events

J Spargo recently completed a pre-show survey of the members of  Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) that showed that the majority of their meeting planners felt that virtual meetings would never replace face-to-face meetings.

Here are the key elements of the physical experience they reported technology cannot replace:

1. Socializing and networking spontaneously
2. Helping attendees best put names with faces
3. Allowing more free and open dialogue between attendees and vendors/presenters
4. Training effectively via live and personal interaction
5. Paying greater attention to others when face-to-face
6. Engaging in real-time conversation that is not interrupted by technical glitches

What virtual events ARE good at is to cost-effectively extend an event’s reach to a much larger audience.

 

MPI experiments with a virtual event

Congratulations to Meeting Professionals International for the leadership shown in extending their July World Education Congress (WEC) with a virtual event. Not only did it allow MPI to distribute access to some content and exhibitors to those who did not attend, or continued access to those who did, but, as an event organization, it provided information and an example to their membership.

The decisions they made in how they did this exemplify the issues we all face in facing this new opportunity. What to charge for? How much to charge? Will it cannibalize existing attendance? What to put online and what not to?

Similar questions marketers face with every new technology.

There are no perfect answers, and we should not wait for them. We’ll only figure out best practice by diving in,  making the best judgments we can, and comparing notes.

Some of MPI’s decisions:

• The full $625 access pass for the physical event includes the virtual event. (Good call.)
• The Virtual Access Pass was $299. (About half price.  Logical.)
• The General Assembly alone was $19. (Hm.  I’d be inclined to make this one free.)
• The virtual event is open for six months.  (I bet this is partly to allow a down time between ‘events’ to build interest for the following year.

I don’t have their attendance figures.  Generally the combo physical and online events this year have seen similar attendance figures to what they expected without a virtual event (down slightly from 2008), but a much higher total combined audience.

Did it cannibalize attendance?  No way to prove it one way or the other, but it certainly did not create a major dip in physical attendance that hurt the event.

Every survey says that people prefer the physical event: and some simply can’t make it whether you offer the alternative or not.

 

Interactive meeting tool

There is a real trend toward adding interactivity to conferences…from encouraging Q&A to whiteboarding, breaking out into table-sized discussion groups, or giving the attendees a specific problem to solve.

But for some meetings, the interactivity is not simply a learning tool. Or an opportunity to contribute to the industry.

Sometimes it is the whole point of a meeting.

Like when a company is rolling out a new strategy or vision, and needs immediate employee feedback–both to improve the vision and to ensure full buy-in.

The June issue of Convene includes the article Faster Feedback, highlighting the abilities CoVision’s meeting software.  The idea is that after the presentation, each table group discusses the ideas presented, while a table moderator captures the key points on a networked PC.  A “theme team” 3-4 people who are skilled at seeing trends in responses, synthesize the collected ideas into a usable summary that quickly goes back to the presenter.  After a break the full group is already discussing how to modify or act on the original ideas.

Interesting that CoVision takes the automation only as far as it logically goes, but no farther.  Some day you can imagine pattern-recognition software replacing the 3-4 people in the theme team.  But I  would worry about whether that was an advantage.

It can be daunting to manage the process of really getting feedback from a large group.  In this case, Q&A would not get you there…and how many companies have decided that a lack of Q&A when they rolled out a new strategy meant that everyone was on board…to disastrous results.

This reminds us…there is no excuse not to get the group feedback.  There are tools to help.

 

Improving event flow

Run across ethnoMetrics yet?  They put 45 video cameras with 360-degree panning in the ceiling of a convention center and watch what really happens at an event.  A lot of the value comes in analyzing the behavior of attendees at individual booths…information that, if acted on, could really improve an exhibitor’s results from an event.

The data is also useful to the show producer in looking at overall event flow.  A case study in the May 2009 issue of Expo discusses what RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) does with the data it receives from using ethnoMetrics over multiple years.

• Instead of eliminating the poster area, they realized its importance, but poor layout.  It has now been redesigned in a hub-and-spoke plan with sessions organized by topic.
• Video analysis showed large numbers of people leaving at lunchtime, due to long lines at the center restaurants. The new RSNA Bistro resulted in a 30% reduction in cab activity from 11 – 2, and a 20% increase in lunches served at the center.

Once they leave, you don’t know if they come back.

• Cab loading was redesigned, with two lines working simultaneously, to cut wait times in half.
• Registration was also streamlined… in layout, to speed registration for exhibitors, whose self-serve area was roadblocked, in staffing (reducing after peak days), and in repurposing much of the area by the third day.

These are all great ideas any event can learn from.  And while ethnoMetrics can give great data, it isn’t cheap.  But if you know what to look for  many flow issues can be seen at eye-level if you take the time to look.

 

What attendees want

HCEA (Healthcare Convention and Exhibitors Association) presented the findings of their 2009 study of what medical event attendees want from events at the Annual Meeting in June.  “How Physicians Would Design the Exhibit Hall of the Future.”

We get used to repeating what we did last year, but step back and re-think your program based on what the healthcare providerssay they want from your event.  (Most of these comments apply to any industry.)  Make the attendees happy and the exhibitors will keep coming back.

• Events serve a very important function
  • Opportunity to see everything related to their speciality under one roof
  • Hospitals and small practices need events more than ever, as they have less exposure to pharmaceutical reps in their normal practice than previously
• Organize the event by therapeutic area
  • Mixing all exhibitors up is confusing and difficult to navigate
• Navigation: Large signage, information desks, representatives
• Schedule: Extend hours and start early.  Drs are used to it!
• Multiple lounges and refreshment areas.  Wifi
• Exhibitors:
  • Put product experts in the booth: Clinical peers, not just sales reps
  • Educational approach
  • Interactive demos or virtual simulations
• See exhibit hall as
  • Providing a break from the dark lecture halls
  • Social time–interacting with peers while interacting with exhibitors
• Schedule meet the expert round tables