Dec 07
maureen-pickellTrade Shows Event Industry Networking, meeting attendance, meeting industry, meetings quest
Last week I was on the road again, this time to sunny California for the Meetings Quest Anaheim Show!
Here are some photos I wanted to share with you all…
Our booth at the show – I gave lots of site tours!
Dawn Venters, Convention Sales Manager for the Anchorage CVB, talks to planner customers at Meetings Quest Anaheim. They also won the prize for the Best Booth based on both the design and friendliness of the sales team. We’re proud that they are loyal supplier partners of ConventionPlanit.com!
I hope you enjoyed my photo tour of Meetings Quest Anaheim. It was a very intimate show and I had the opportunity to speak to many meeting planners one-on-one!
If you attended the show, leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Jun 14
Ashley ChalmersNews hsmai affordable meeting, meeting attendance, meeting experiences
Our friends at HSMAI and Affordable Meetings polled attendees of their recent Mid-America show, and found that 49% percent of the meeting planners feel increased pressure to show metrics and statistics to portray the success of events.
Meeting planners said the most common measurement indicators are:
- event evaluations/satisfaction surveys
- net revenue
- attendance size
- room night count
- sponsorships
- ability to stay within budget
- rate of repeat attendance
- level of responsiveness to client needs
- increased service per attendee per dollars spent
Meeting planners also listed their top five factors for venue selection:
- size of the meeting space
- guest room cleanliness
- customer service
- location of the venue
- price
As a meeting planner, do you agree with these trends? What is most important to you? How are you achieving these measurement indicators?
Thanks to htrends.com for sharing this information with us!
May 24
maureen-pickellTrade Shows imex, meeting attendance, meeting experiences, meeting industry
Greetings from Sunny, Warm Frankfurt! Your intrepid ConventionPlanit.com Blogger arrived today to be ready to welcome our 16 hosted buyers to the IMEX 2010 Extravaganza!
Lufthansa provided their usual fine service, hampered only by wind shear issues that delayed the departure. At least volcanic ash wasn’t the culprit!
Beginning tomorrow with Association Day, our planners will be educated and entertained by suppliers from around the world for three days. Thanks go out to Stephanie Kreps, ConventionPlanit.com Marketing Coordinator Extraordinaire, for handing all the arrangements for the Group.
I’ll be busy setting up the CP stand and preparing for the Meet & Greet Reception at the Maritim Hotel.
Looking forward to a great week..more to come!
Mar 11
Ashley ChalmersTips meeting attendance, meeting education, social media, technology, webinar
I’ve participated in a number of webinars lately, and wanted to share some tips that I’ve accumulated from both my positive and negative experiences. Hope you find them helpful – and feel free to share your own thoughts!
-Establish a Twitter hash tag prior to webinar and include hash tag with dial/login instructions. While attendees may converse via the virtual meeting chat platform, if your audience is accustomed to Twitter, this is most likely where they will opt to connect. Be sure to have an organizer monitor comments for feedback, questions and technical assistance.
-Strong preparation should not be overlooked. By the time attendees sign into the platform, technical glitches are worked out and introductions are made, the time for information sharing is short but vital. Practice your speech to ensure you have enough time to present the information. Thorough presentation slides can assist with this.
-Traditional face-to-face presentation best practices still apply. You’re not off the hook just because attendees cannot see your face. Content must be engaging and informative just as much, if not more so than if in person.
-Since presentation slides are the sole visual for the webinar, these must present the information in a clear, concise manner. Remember, presentation slides can be posted as a resource after the event. Attendees will appreciate thorough and entertaining slides that are consistent with the flow of the presentation.
-Familiarize yourself with the webinar software. Utilize the attendee mute button while the presenter is speaking. There’s nothing worse than an attendee placing a call on hold and disrupting the presentation with hold music, or hearing typing or phones ringing in the background!
-Leave adequate time for questions. Whether you choose to answer questions along the way or at the end of a presentation, it’s vital for a successful webinar to include the audience’s comments and questions.
What do you think should be added to this list? Share your own experiences and ideas!
Feb 19
Ashley ChalmersTips for Meeting Planners, Trade Shows attendee interaction, meeting attendance, meeting ideas
Redefining value has become more important than ever before. What worked last year or the year before may be out the window, especially with a rapidly changing economic landscape and competitors scrambling for market position.
Here are some creative marketing ideas to help build meeting attendance:
Go Viral – Forget the swine flu! We’re talking about viral exposure in the social media. Come up with unusual – even outrageous – ideas for your meeting that will start tongues wagging and tweeters tweeting. Get your executive director to volunteer to sing a song onstage at the Opening General Session if the meeting attendance sets a record (be sure to post a video of him/her singing a few lyrics on YouTube as a sneak preview). Then have your Board members, convention planning committee members, and other leaders start tweeting about this and posting links to the YouTube video and your meeting website.
Talent Search – Everyone has talent, right? (OK, maybe some people are more talented than others.) Have a “Talent and Great Ideas Show” at your next meeting. Use your e-newsletter, online convention promotions, and the social media to recruit members to participate. Each person needs to demonstrate their talent for a minute or so (do a card trick, play a musical instrument, sing, dance, juggle, do an impersonation, etc.) and then deliver one industry-related great idea that attendees can take home and use in their business. Record a couple short videos with willing members to show how it works and post these on YouTube as examples. The show will add fun and value to your next meeting, and create powerful social media marketing leading up to the meeting to promote attendance.
Jeopardy – Think of an important topic in your industry and imagine how that might play out in a Jeopardy-style game. (Remember, answers must be phrased in the form of a question!) Creativity is the bottom line, of course – think about how the game can be built into into a PowerPoint presentation, for example.
What are you waiting for? Step out of your comfort zone, toss ideas around with colleagues, and think about the wow factor!
Feb 11
Ashley ChalmersNews economy, meeting attendance, meeting industry
2010 seems hopeful for meetings and events in Las Vegas, based on numbers released earlier this week by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Meetings in 2009, overall, suffered a 13% decline from the previous year.
December, however, is the fourth month in a row that year-over-year visitor numbers increased. Even meeting figures saw an increase!
Have your meetings picked up in 2010? Hoteliers, are you booking more business? We have seen a dramatic increase in RFPs from planners using the RFP Valet service. Let’s stay busy and meeting in 2010!
Jan 14
maureen-pickellTrade Shows economy, meeting attendance, meeting industry, pcma, upcoming meetings industry events
Well, the PCMA 2010 Annual Meeting wrapped up with another strong day of education beginning with a Plenary Session entitled “The State of the Meetings and Travel Industry.” The theme of “cautious optimism” that has run through the conference was reiterated once again – this time with hard numbers presented by Peter Yesawich of YPartnership.
His panel included Minaz Abij of Asset Management, Thomas C. Dolan, PhD., CAE, American College of Healthcare Executives, Brian Phillips of FedEx Office, Thomas W. Storey, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and Frits van Paasschen of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. The consensus of this distinguished group is that business meetings are coming back slowly. The 2nd quarter will see the emergence of small and mid-sized events with large meetings surfacing in the 4th quarter. Association business will pick up with higher attendance at annual conferences because of the pent up demand for face to face encounters.
According to Thomas Dolan, “You still need to see to sell and convince.”
It appears that 2nd quarter will see a rush to get these meetings launched. To help our planners manage their “time poverty,” ConventionPlanit.com offers the RFP ValetTM service. Instead of spending time researching facilities and chasing properties for timely responses, we do the work for you. To learn more about this service, click here.
Your dedicated blogger was virtually overwhelmed by the wealth of information presented during PCMA 2010 – Convening Leaders. I’ve attempted to share some of the highlights with you over the past 4 days, but in order to comprehend the wide scope of the education that was offered, go to www.pcma2010.org and click on Video to view the PCMA-TV News Summary.
We’ll see you at PCMA 2011 in Las Vegas!
Dec 01
Ashley ChalmersContests, Tips for Meeting Planners, Trade Shows ASAE & the Center, attendee interaction, meeting attendance
As conference attendees consider the events they will continue to attend, or are forced to justify attendance to their employers, the value of the conference must be high.
What better way to incorporate the needs and desires of your attendees than to value their feedback?
Karen Freeman, CMP with VSR Financial Services, Inc. says:
Incorporate feedback sheets for your conference as a way to gain insight on how your attendees feel. Collect them as they leave or ask them to fax or mail them to you. Put your address and fax number on the feedback sheet so they don’t have to hunt for the information later. Then read them and listen to what folks have to say.
The most important step is to incorporate some of the ideas into the next conference. When folks know you really listen they feel more like they are a part of the conference. And all meetings are created for the attendee…right?
I received an email yesterday about ASAE & the Center’s 2010 Annual Meeting & Expo. The message focused on the changes for 2010 based on attendee feedback, in a question answer type format. (First by identifying the problem followed by the solution.)
ASAE is utilizing attendee feedback to create a better experience for the attendee…and what better way to engage the audience than by taking their opinions to heart? An attendee whose input and ideas are implemented will be more likely to continue and increase involvement within the organization.
So let’s keep the feedback forms coming!
Karen Freeman’s advice won the November ConventionPlanit.com Stellar Tip Contest. If you have a meeting related tip to share, submit your thoughts for the December contest – and respond to this post, too!
Feb 20
Ashley ChalmersMisc Tidbits, News, Tips, Tips for Meeting Planners, Trade Shows economy, meeting attendance, meeting industry, meeting planner help, meeting planning services
The electronic petition, Keep America Meeting, is now live at http://keepamericameeting.com
Sign the petition to “help send a message to our legislators nationwide that we need them to take the proactive step of publicly supporting the meetings and events industry in order to hasten the U.S. recovery.”
Feb 02
Ashley ChalmersContests, Tips, Tips for Meeting Planners, Trade Shows meeting attendance, meeting education, meeting experiences, meeting ideas, meeting planner feedback, Tips for Meeting Planners, Trade Shows
Insuring Meeting Success
“Before hitting the road for your next meeting, train your total staff to insure its success: Whenever a staffer encounters one of your members in a conversation, ask one simple question: “What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned thus far?” Acknowledge and reinforce their response.
Using this simple technique, you’re getting your members to verbalize their ROI on-site. If they say it, it must be true!”
…this new meeting planning tip comes from Dr. Elliott B. Jaffa, President of Dr. Elliott B. Jaffa Associates in Arlington, VA, who just won our January Stellar Tip Contest.
What do you think? Will you use this question at your next meeting or conference?
Be sure to check out the Stellar Tip Archives for more helpful tips – vote for your favorite or post your own advice!
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