Event trends and shifts are…well…ever evolving. A trend is a passing fancy, like the Pantone Color of the Year. In the last five years Pantone has made this interesting, including ‘ultraviolet’ and ‘greenery’ and for the complexities of the 2020 and 2021 they addressed it with two colors. Ultimate Grey with Illuminating (yellow) “Practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, the union of PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating is one of strength and positivity. It is a story of color that encapsulates deeper feelings of thoughtfulness with the promise of something sunny and friendly.” 

This eloquently sums up what 2021 needed as we returned to live events. When we emerged from our government-imposed cocoons, we were less likely to find participants content with trends that met pop culture standards but rather shifted and sought those that tied into the deeper values they had put to the test over those cray past year. How will we need to respond?

To consider attending a live event in 2021, we will need to understand how we will remain safe across the entire journey, whether a 3-hour or a 3-day event. Communication from the first touchpoint must answer the questions every experienced traveler will have. From the website to the app, emails to clear signage pathways on-site, clarity is key for all participants. 

Our Duty of Care may well require an on-site health screening, arriving with results showing a negative Covid test, proof of vaccination or showing our digital health passport as step one, with many airlines, countries and counties having these requirements in place. Next is the Social Contract, the new Code of Conduct with the event where we agree to maintain safe distancing, wear masks and to not participate if we are feeling unwell. There are a number of resources including the CDC who offer guidance – understand this is critical and will require time to plan and communicate.

In 2021 the only thing we are touching is our own device. From airport and hotel check-in, security lines and event registration will be enabled with automatic doors, mobile ticket scans and facial recognition and on-site services will continue in this fashion, from collecting information and exchanging e-business cards while networking. As we enter public event spaces, we will be temperature scanned, logged in for both our learning CEUs and contact tracing, reminded to wear our masks. From here we follow the directional information to our socially distanced seating, meeting and eating spaces. Food and beverage service will evolve from lines and buffets to service in individual containers or plates and offered with minimal contact points. 

We will greet friends without hugs and colleagues without handshakes. This is the one touch we will crave and celebrate the return to. As we gain herd immunity through a global vaccination program and decrease physical distancing among humans, we will have set up the systems to ease our way through many hospitality and travel functions. Technology will remove friction points and forge touchless access everywhere we go.

One of the greatest challenges leaders face is managing and inspiring individuals when the rug has been pulled out from under the organizational structures we all knew. Traditional reward and recognition systems have changed. Every layer, every role, every individual has been affected in some way. Those who remain employed are working harder than ever, often with less constraints (ie. I am able to work from home) and more challenges in the multiple roles that we face at home.

We are also without the rewards we typically receive from work that are beyond a salary. This ranges from treats shared in a kitchen, the opportunity to glance across the meeting table when someone offers up a particularly fabulous idea that gets you siting up straighter or someone walking past your desk and giving you a high five or a verbal ‘well done’ continuing through more formal celebrations, merchandise or the ultimate reward, a travel incentive. Whether your meetings now take place in a boardroom or a zoom room, finding ways to show appreciation to individuals and our teams visibly remains critical. 

There are still ways to connect now, replacing a live teambuilding day where you all go out in new matching shirts to a digital shared experience from a cooking class to an escape room as examples. We are gifting with items ranging from a new mug with a favorite beverage and snack to celebration boxes including everything from champagne to streamers and whatever else can be imagined. We have seen experiences from fabulous speakers to 24-hour extravaganzas bringing global teams to shared moments. 

The ultimate reward of incentive travel has been mainly on hold through 2020 and stalled for much of 2021. Some organizations have hosted smaller groups or ‘bubble travel’ for individuals to benefit from an earned getaway. Reports including the Joint Industry Incentive Index indicates travel remains desired and will return through 2022 and beyond with can’t buy experiences rising again and delivering inspired, transformative moments for the individuals that travel with you will be the currency that delivers retention.

For several years we have seen a technology enabled shift to inclusive hiring, facing down unconscious bias and creating more diverse teams with a recognition this leads to more innovative design across any product or service offering. We recognize who we are is much more than what is seen, from how we look, our gender, mobility, orientation, the job we have or our age; we are linked by our values. With values alignment we become great contributors and are more engaged. As we all navigate from digital events to live events, we have much to consider, starting with inclusion at internal events. 

Event professionals are the designers of the environments that support the social architecture created by organization’s leaders. We must design content and express it in a way that represents the culture of our organization and brings together divergent viewpoints. It is welcoming diverse voices that allows us to build stronger communities and this will be necessary for survival in a global marketplace. How we move forward is a responsibility we all share, and with a return to live events we must craft experiences and content to have maximum positive impact.

Yes, it is like planning two events in one timeframe. It requires resources to do it well. It also leads to the next Shift, the Content Candy Store and becomes an where you need to plan how your organization will stand out. As we rebuild teams for the return to events, having specialists on your team who understand digital and hybrid integrations will become the new imperative. Hybrid is a tool that has been used to build FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in the past for the “cool” events and is now a way we can continue to grow audience share, educate your participants and build connects across borders. It requires the strength of the platform with the marvelous work of the event designer to deliver on its promises now and in the future.

We have a plethora of content available to us in a wide range of price points from free, to member-only to widely available, covering any specialty interest. To stand out you must be able to micro-target your content to the specific audience that will derive the most value from it. Time is a resource that even for those between roles, remains a commodity so be clear about the relevant take-aways available. 

Sustainability is not a buzzword and climate change is real. Event professionals have an opportunity to lead the way in how we return to travel, manage our groups of any size in destinations anywhere and come out with a net-positive people-planet-profit result. Now is the time to dig into how you can do this and there are many great resources, including the Global Destination Sustainability Movement and the Sustainable Event Alliance. The reality – the organizations you work for and with likely all have a sustainability policy and baking good practices into your events is simply good business.

From bringing side hustles to life, to starting new ventures and reinventing offerings, organizations from solopreneur to our largest event agencies, associations and corporations have been deeply impacted in a multitude of ways. This has caused us to dig deep, to ask for help, to find ways to connect when we cannot connect live, to prove our resilience, sometimes needed on a daily basis. Both organizations and individuals have responded with creativity because this is ultimately who we are, individuals that seek to serve, to collaborate, to create and to transform.  

Do we have a lot to think about going forward? We sure do, but back to being creative, resilient powerhouses – you got this!

As the world of events continues to pivot, we see a rush of technology solutions popping with the promise of seamless virtual events. But most of the conversation is being driven by marketers who have an agenda, not actual event experts. We want to change the conversation by amplifying the voice of industry leaders who are on the battlefield, confronting the real challenges event planners are facing daily.

We had the opportunity to talk recently with Tahira Endean, CITP, CMP,DES,CED, Head of Events at SITE (Society for Incentive Travel Excellence), about the future of events. Tahira describes herself as the world’s biggest event nerd. Her experience, enthusiasm and expertise are matched only by her creativity. She has worked in the meetings and events space for over 25 years. A certified Event Designer and Digital Strategist, Tahira holds a Diploma in Event Management and a Bachelor of Hospitality Management. She is a Certified Incentive Travel Professional and a CMP Certified Meeting Professional. She is also the author of “Intentional Event Design”, a book about creating events based on seven distinct intentions in order to drive stronger, better results.

As we approach the end of a challenging and transformational year, we chatted with Tahira about the state of the events industry, what innovations have appeared and what’s to come.

Everybody’s job [in the event’s industry] has been shifted in some way. It could be that they’re doing more with less resources. It could be that they don’t have a job anymore, that they’ve been laid off or they’ve been furloughed. Some event professionals may have found new jobs; some haven’t. Some have pivoted to doing virtual and digital events, and some are still just trying to figure out how they’re going to do events next year.

The biggest lesson has been that there’s just no easy way to all of a sudden change everything that you’re doing and to not know what exactly is going to happen next. People have had to really dig deep for courage and resilience, and to really look at what they want to do, what they’re energized by, and how we can help our organizations at a time that’s really difficult. There is a lot of opportunity, but there’s also a lot of pressure.

The events that have been the most successful are the ones that have made it more about design over platform. One of the events I’ve enjoyed the most was one that SITE produced in September, our Young Leaders Conference. They are generally between 25 and 35 years old with less than five years specifically in incentives. But we had people from a broader range than that attended the event.

What I loved about it was that the committee planned it. They were all in. Everybody participated in making sure that it was successful. And we did it all in Zoom, which was a choice driven by economy. We said “Well, if we’re going to just have it in Zoom and not use a cool platform, then how are we going to make it awesome?”. We set the expectation: if you’re going to attend, be prepared to participate. Because we’re creating an agenda that will benefit from your participation. Everyone had their cameras on.

Being new in their career, many of those people have lost their jobs. So, they were doing something different, or looking for new things, or trying new things. This was their opportunity to ask questions, get interesting answers and look at things in different ways. The event was over three short days (2.5 hours per day), and a lot of people stayed for the three days.

A few elements that worked well:

I watched an interview the other day with Microsoft who pivoted $200 million worth of events into digital. I loved it, because what he was saying was all of the things that we had learned along the way, which was “make mistakes, go into this with your team knowing that you’re going to make mistakes and blame is not going to be late”. We’re all going to learn together how to do this better. We are definitely seeing digital fatigue, so we have to figure out ways to make things interesting and finding ways for people to connect, not just listen.

I just did a series of micro webinars. It’s exhausting to continually listen to one-hour webinars, so we did a series of 12-minute talks. David Allison works with Valuegraphics and has this amazing data about how people think and approach things and what kind of core values our participants are showing up with. We did this 12×12 series on YouTube that was really good fun.

I think that what we will see will be much like what we saw after the recessions. The events that we do might be smaller, but the people who are attending them have more reasons for being there. Events will become much more purpose driven and  much more people centric. These are the two things that I think are the most important in what we do.

Whether it’s doing safer air travel or having a better hotel experience, or having a meaningful event experience. It’s all about taking the things that we’re learning, and the things that we already know but don’t always apply. Good learning design principles – make people learn in 10 minute chunks; don’t make people sit down for 60 minutes and watch something.

Think about the reality that we are in, not just putting content out there. What people are craving now more than ever is ways to connect. It’s about finding ways that you can have those genuine connections with people and build our community around that. And that’s going to be the next piece of the puzzle that we really need to overcome in the next year.

There’s a lot of good stuff happening out there – really great quizzes, team building, virtual escape rooms, and all different ways that people can interact digitally. And it just goes back to what’s the purpose of your meeting. Figure out what the purpose is.

Let’s use IBM Think as an example. It’s a super well produced event. It would usually happen around March in Las Vegas, and they would have around 30,000 attendees. Well, March this year happened to be when you couldn’t have a 30,000 people event in Vegas. So, they crafted a very well executed digital event, and 100,000 people showed up.

Because they are a technology platform, they’re using their own great skills they already have from a production and technology perspective, and they’re working with experienced experts in event design and creating a beautiful flow of an event that’s well executed and people will stay and watch it. It was new and fresh. It’s about creating the purpose and telling a story. And they told that story really well.

If your purpose is to share a message with tens of thousands of people, you have to be really clear on crafting that messaging and then create digitally engaging, well-produced content to do that. If your purpose, like ours with the SITE event, was to connect 100-200 people who are newer in their careers and looking to get some inspiration, connection and ideas for how they can move their careers forward, you’re going to design that event in a totally different way.

I don’t think I’ve seen a quarter of what’s available out there to connect people online. There’s lots of great platforms out there. I think it’s about exploring what the opportunities are, because there are some different networking platforms that are really great.

Who would ever thought that people would go to escape rooms? Ten years ago, there were very few escape rooms in the world. Now there are 15,000 escape rooms in the world. And more, now that there are digital escape rooms. They’re a terrific way to get people to work together in small groups to solve problems and to come out on the other side stronger as a team. That’s their purpose.

Another example: using trivia as a way to get salespeople to connect to the information that you’ve given them about your product. That’s still effective. You’ve given them some information and you want to test that information with some kind of a digital game right away. Do you want to take that digital game into a mobile app and connect it to your learning management system? It all depends on what the need is, but there are lots of different and amazing ways to connect people.

It’s going to take a while before we get to any kind of herd immunity that’s going to take us back to a pre-pandemic sort of state. And we’re far away from this reality right now. We’re going to have to rethink everything that we’re doing and how we’re approaching a duty of care.

When you go into a hotel and everything is behind plexiglass and people are wearing masks – that’s going to be around for a while. It’s very different to facilitate a conversation between people who can stand in an open bar with a drink in their hand and have a networking conversation and I can see you across the room. For example, if I bring somebody over to meet you at an event, there’s a good chance we’ll be wearing a mask and that we still need to have some kind of physical distancing. That fundamentally changes events where we’ve relied on at face-to-face meetings.

How we design moving groups through our space, how we design seating, how we feed attendees, and how we get them to have dialogue – these have all fundamentally changed. I’m going to say for the foreseeable future, we’ll get past it. But not for a while. We just have to start at the beginning basically and continue to rethink events.

There’s a great whitepaper from IMEX about how we need to go back into events thinking about creating it regeneratively. I think that’s really important. It’s not just thinking about sustainability but thinking end-to-end, cradle-to-grave circular economy.

We need to step back and not just return to events as they were. Not back to that place of non-sustainable tourism meetings and events. We need to think about people’s safety and about the land that we’re on and the way we’re using it. We need to think about the people who are there to create things that are going to have a positive impact for the destinations that we’re in, and a positive impact for the organizations that we work with.

We’re at a great time of experimentation. Do we need to get slightly slicker at it? Possibly. We still need to keep it really human. That’s probably going to become even more important than when this started back in March. There is no possible way that we imagined that eight months later we would still be going back into lockdowns. There was a lot of optimism back in March. We thought we’d be meeting by August and in August we would be meeting by December, and by December… maybe we are meeting next June.

A lot of big companies have said that they won’t be doing live meetings for 2021 or at least until summer 2021. And maybe not just until 2022. That’s a massive impact on the 12 million people that are employed in the meeting industry and another 10 million people that are employed in the hospitality industry. All of these industries were impacted since we paused in-person events across the spectrum. We can keep doing digital events, but we also need to get back to safe travel and smart, regenerative, thoughtful meetings and events.

Anything that helps to understand how organizations think is going to be useful, whether that’s Simon Sinek, Jim Collins or other resources.

Some great podcasts that I listen to regularly:

We thank Tahira Endean for her time sharing her insights with us! 

You can connect with Tahira here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahira-endean-citp-cmp-des-ced-918a868/