Year: 2017

Dec 14, 2017 by Michelle Bruno
Many exhibition organizers still thrive on selling traditional sponsorships like banners and brownie breaks. But event technology sponsorships are helping them expand the inventory of sponsorship offerings and meet sponsor objectives more effectively. Technology sponsorships fall into three categories: New technologies. Think about a product placement or banner advertisement inside a virtual reality environment. Attendees naturally gravitate to what’s new. Sponsors benefit from the expos...

Dec 06, 2017 by Michelle Bruno
The lounge—a place to sit, relax, and maybe even do some low-key networking—is a staple at most trade shows and conferences. But as new ways to enhance the attendee experience and express the sponsor’s brand emerge, lounges are becoming more than an out-of-the-way oasis from the chaos of the meeting. They’re becoming a destination. As with any room or area design, the first step is always determining the purpose of the lounge. For example, if the main reason to put a lounge on the tra...

Dec 06, 2017 by SmartSource
Event Trends:    Yes! Flowers are Affordable Again Flowers can bring warmth and visual appeal to even the dullest event space through color and texture.   Combined with lighting and sound, flowers can help evoke nostalgia or influence mood. This is especially true during the holiday season, when the scents of winter can be assembled into stunning seasonal bouquets. But floral arrangements and centerpieces have been low on the priority list for most meeting planners because of cost. It’s...

Dec 06, 2017 by SmartSource
You’re almost there. The venue is booked, the menu is set, the invites have gone out. Now all that is left to do is wait for the big night, right? Wrong! Here are three tips to make sure your bases are covered and to help give your party the modern elements every event needs to be successful. Tip #1 – An Open Bar is Not Entertainment Have you thought about entertainment? I don’t mean the DJ or open bar. I mean the toasts, the accolades, and the boss taking center stage and speaking w...

Nov 16, 2017 by Michelle Bruno
Many conferences—especially those hosted by technology companies—provide product training for their attendees. Breakout sessions at these types of gatherings are more complicated than the freeform panel discussions or one-on-one interviews on a comfy sofa at non-technical meetings. They involve room setups and equipment that facilitates learning by actually doing. Here are the key things to keep in mind when designing a temporary training lab: Seating for comfort and elbow room ...

Nov 16, 2017 by Candy Adams
Have you ever heard somebody say when you’re planning your trade show exhibit, “Don’t worry about what you wear in your booth. It’s a trade show, not a fashion show!” In my stakeholder team meetings, I can easily plow through everything else on my agenda and reach consensus on the show strategy and tactics and then come to a screeching halt when the discussion comes to the exhibit staff “uniform.” So how do you get your staff to buy into a corporate look in your exhibit? The eas...

Nov 01, 2017 by Lisa Apolinksi
[embed]https://soundcloud.com/smartsource-936987538/pairing-booth-content-with-attendee-expectations[/embed] Click Link On Image to Hear Podcast RELATED ARTICLE FOLLOWS If you haven’t noticed yet, content is king, and our audiences are always searching for more. A recent infographic from The Word Pro shows that in just 60 seconds, 4 million posts are engaged with and liked, 300 hours of video are uploaded, and nearly 350,000 tweets are sent. Wow, that’s a lot of content engagement. Whe...

Oct 31, 2017 by Danalynne Wheeler Menegus
Event marketing can occupy a substantial portion of a company’s overall marketing budget. So it’s important that the events be effective. A previous article in this series discussed establishing goals and objectives for corporate meetings and trade shows. This article focuses exclusively on the human resources and technology required to achieve the maximum return on investment from events. Get Buy-In From Sales Staff Event marketing and sales staffs need to work together to fully realize t...

Sep 13, 2017 by Danalynne Wheeler Menegus
By Danalynne Wheeler Menegus Corporate event marketing is a numbers game. Whether you’re hosting your own event, or exhibiting at someone else’s, it’s important to establish goals and objectives. It can be challenging in a corporate environment where there are multiple stakeholders investing time and budget into the same event. Be Explicit About Your Metrics As an event planner, how do you go about setting event objectives and goals? Are they measurable? Do you differentiate betwe...

Sep 13, 2017 by Michelle Bruno
The data is mounting that video content is popular, compelling, and highly motivational. It makes sense then that companies hosting corporate events would turn to video to deliver important messaging and enhance the attendee experience. But the process for delivering video across multiple devices can be challenging. Technical meeting and event production expert Brandt Krueger has some advice on best practices for deploying video at a corporate event. Matching the digital files with the devi...