Skift Take
Event planners and brand marketers want to collaborate to design better event programming and experiential marketing content, but there are significant challenges for organizations to make that marriage work.
The Future of Meetings & Events
Arguably the biggest conversation in the meetings and events industry over the last five years has evolved around innovative meeting design and punchy content to drive audience and brand engagement. However, in a new Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) report, only six percent of senior planners ranked “Design and content” as their highest priority, behind “Setting objectives to support overall business goals” (53%), “Planning logistics” (19%), and “Return of investment/objectives” (19%).
The fact is that planners are often too busy or they’re too distanced from the process to focus on advanced meeting user experience and content development. Understanding this, organizations are looping their marketing teams into the event planning mix to deliver more experiential programming and high-impact content, and according to the GBTA report, the majority of senior planners want that collaboration.
There are challenges, of course. Read the full story to learn what they are.
— Greg Oates, Senior Editor
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Social Quote of the Day
“Who’ll win the #IMEXpitch at #IMEX16: @EventCollab, @EventGeek, @GripNetworking, @invitethemedia or @Showslice? http://j.mp/2dtYDqj”
Next Generation Event UX
Event Planners and Marketers Are Finally Seeing the Benefits of Collaboration: Event planners and marketers need to combine forces more aggressively to co-create large meetings and conferences, because the next generation of interdisciplinary event design and experiential marketing is far too complex for planners to navigate on their own anymore. Read more at Skift
The Event Industry Is Booming — Are You Ready to Grow With It?: Here are eight reasons why the meetings and events sector is exploding. Some of the more compelling factors include the growth of online/offline tribal societies, the rise of experiential marketing and pop-up marketplaces, and the “festivalization of events.” Read more at BizBash
A Prescription for Disruptive Design: Former IDEO Design executive Stacey Chang says design is a discipline that transcends aesthetics to become “a uniquely different approach to problem solving, especially in complex systems that are human-centered, iterative of nature, and collaborative.” Read more at Convene
Facebook Just Launched an Events Discovery App – Here’s How to Use it for Events: The new Events From Facebook standalone iOS app helps people explore and organize their personal and professional event schedule, which can be synced with users’ calendars. The big question from a meetings industry standpoint is if event planners can gain more organic reach by posting their events on Facebook. Read more at The Meeting Pool
Meet the Finalists of IBTM World’s TechWatch: Here are the 10 event tech finalists pitching their digital tools at IBTM World’s Tech Watch session in Barcelona next month. A few of the more established event solutions companies participating include Aloompa, EventGeek, GruupMeet and Groupize. Read more at Event Tech Blog
Intelligence Community Conference Emphasizes Mainstreaming Innovation as a Habit: Spy and military agency executives organized a conference to discuss how work cultures can integrate innovation into standard operating procedures by adopting best practices from the tech startup community. Read more at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
Place + Space Making
Guam Wants to Be Asia-Pacific’s Next Meetings and Incentive Travel Hub: Guam presents an interesting option for Asia-Pacific conferences because it’s a tropical island with mature tourism infrastructure and decent airlift, but there’s a lot of work to do to show American meeting planners and attendees that the long flight is worth it. It’s easy to say you want to be Hawaii, and another to actually be it. Read more at Skift
Moving Beyond Delegate Numbers In Dubai: At this year’s BestCities Global Forum in the U.A.E., the curriculum will be centered on inspiring, empowering, and training both international association conference planners and host destinations how to develop programs that leave lasting legacies and transform communities on a long-term basis. Read more at PCMA
The Big Lesson Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge Winners Can Teach Other Cities: Innovative civic tech platforms such as Comoodle in England, Synathina in Greece, and SmartData in Chicago are helping organizations and community groups share resources and collaborate on projects. Why can’t destinations active in the meetings industry develop platforms like these for event professionals? Read more at CityLab
Event Spotlight
XLIVE 2016: The annual XLIVE conference in Las Vegas in December will be organized around four tracks: music, technology, food and beverage, and eSports. The technology track will explore the best digital platforms for every type of live event, including the future of VR, AR, AI, and RFID at large conventions and festivals. We’re looking forward to the XLIVE Innovation/Startup Showcase featuring a handful of event data and analytics sessions. Read more at XLIVE 2016
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The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift senior editor Greg Oates [[email protected]]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.
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Photo credit: XLIVE 2016 in Las Vegas this year will be organized around four tracks including: technology, food and beverage, music, and eSports. XLIVE