As we head into a new year, we continue to move further away from the isolation of 2020, where lockdowns, layoffs, and a global pandemic were at the top of everyone’s mind. Now, more than three years later, people continue to crave live interactions, and as a result, meetings and events are booming! According to Hospitality Technology and Knowland data, meetings are up 350%, near 2019 levels, and Corporate meetings represent 70.1% of meeting and event business.

Cvent, the event technology platform for live, virtual, and hybrid events, recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate how meeting strategy and event execution have evolved over the past few years and where they are heading. As a part of the study, Forrester surveyed 509 meeting and event decision-makers. Here is a summary of their findings:

• Events are now much more important to driving top business goals

• Companies benefit from optimizing in-person engagement while leveraging digital reach and insights

• Event leaders want to consolidate technology to gain a more holistic view of event performance.

• Virtual-savvy attendees now expect digital event features to continue, even during in-person events.

In-Person Events Are Back in Full Force

Post-pandemic, the need for real human connection has caused in-person event attendance to rise drastically. This surge in face-to-face interaction offers companies an unprecedented opportunity to deepen relationships, increase customer engagement, and raise brand awareness by actively participating in corporate events and conventions. 

“Respondents report that events are [critical] in delivering on their firm’s top business goals.” - Forrester

According to Forrester, corporate stakeholders are using events to increase revenue for their businesses, deliver great customer and employee experiences, improve efficiencies and business agility, and accelerate their digital transformation efforts.

Along with greater interest, event planners are witnessing wider engagement from a larger group of corporate stakeholders in event strategy and technology decisions. The Forrester chart below illustrates the evolution of stakeholder involvement in events over the last two years.

Digital Expectations and Demands

The lockdown abruptly stopped all in-person events in 2020. Consequently, many events transitioned to digital platforms, focusing on online engagement with audiences. However, as in-person events returned, Forrester discovered that in-person attendees continued to express preferences towards the digital features they experienced online, creating new digital expectations for event planners to satisfy.

Expectations are high, and as the number of hosted events increases, event planners must often rely on third-party platforms and service providers for event hosting. With numerous third-party tools and vendors in use, poor vendor coordination is a real risk and could substantially threaten any event’s success.

“With data flowing between more systems and being used by more stakeholders, event leaders struggle to effectively integrate and make sense of this flood of information to support constituent needs and Interests.” - Forrester

One solution to help event planners avoid technology-related crises during events is to consider bringing in technology consultants who will lead a Technology Advisory Council on their behalf. A Technology Advisory Council helps foster communication and coordination between vendors and services to ensure that events run smoothly and the technology functions as intended. 

Leveraging a Technology Advisory Council

In the run-up to a recent major corporate event for a Fortune 100 company, the event planning team encountered an issue with vendor coordination that threatened the success of the event.

In response, the event planner enlisted Xpodigital to manage the Internet and Wifi networks. Although Xpodigital had pre-existing solid working relationships with many of the event stakeholders, in order to provide the most effective support possible during the event, Xpodigital knew it needed to deepen connections with the teams responsible for registration, A/V, and the general sessions. 

To make that possible, Xpodigital formed a Technology Advisory Council and encouraged all technology vendors to appoint representatives to this council. The council met regularly during the weeks and months leading up to the event to discuss topics of interest and concern to the various stakeholders, and develop working solutions to identified issues. In the process, all stakeholders were able to develop effective working relationships and a familiarity that encouraged communication and collaboration both before and during the event.

The outcome was remarkable: The event technology worked as planned, guests and sponsors were impressed, and the event was executed smoothly. This is the power of coordination and communication facilitated through a Technology Advisory Council.

Rely on Experts You Can Trust

For over 20 years, world-class event planners and major venues have turned to Xpodigital to help design, install, manage and support their critical event technologies in order to optimize their events, free up valuable resources and improve the attendee experience. Learn more at: https://www.xpodigital.com/event-technology