Event Industry News Podcast

This week, we were joined by the managing director of the event industry’s charitable social enterprise, EventWell. Helen Moon joined us ahead of Event Wellbeing Day on 26th February to discuss the important issues surrounding mental health within the event industry. With one in three event professionals suffering from ill mental health each year, EventWell is dedicated to providing the industry with resources, advice, knowledge and support on mental wellbeing. #EventWell20 is the overarching umbrella that now encompasses two campaigns: #EventWellbeingDay on 26th February and #EventWellbeingWeek that will run from 21st-27th September. “We’ve got quite an ambitious aim this year,” Helen stated. “I felt that it was important we where we do something where we promote action, for people to do something now and take ownership within their organisations and also as individuals to be better at looking after their self-care.” Through a partnership with Time To Change, Helen created the EventWell Manifesto. Throug

On this week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast, James is joined by Anita Howard, the director of the ICE community. This community is renowned in the industry for supporting in-house corporate event planners with its ICEAWARDS, ICEPAPERS and, more recently, its ICEINSIGHTS. Established in 2015, the ICEAWARDS were created exclusively for in-house corporate planners and to recognise and support their achievements. Launched in 2019, the ICEINSIGHTS research was created to explore the support currently provided for in-house corporate planners. During the podcast, Anita explained the research that created the ICEINSIGHTS. It explored how in-house event planners can work more effectively, their relationships within their businesses and how data and tech can be utilised to coordinate efforts. An area that was explored was the ‘proactive v reactive’ approach among in-house corporate planners. It states the proactive approach allows organisers to “prioritise events as part of a wider strategy with a focu

Joining James this week on the Event Industry News podcast was Lennart Hohneck, the business unit lead for event management platform Fanomena. Joining us from his offices in Germany, Lennart discussed the company’s rebrand from Eventbaxx and the advantages a digital goody bag has over a physical one. Founded in 2015, Eventbaxx was created to provide a digital version of an event goody bag. It is nearly impossible to monitor the interaction of physical goody bags and they are often discarded. Digitalising it created a plausible means of monitoring its engagement, offering a strand of measurement to sponsors and organisers not otherwise available before. Physical goody bags also create questions regarding sustainability and cost: is the handing out of physical ‘goodies’ responsible in today’s climate and can sponsors correctly estimate how many they will need? “Massive amounts of these goody bags end up in the trash minutes after being handed out. That’s why we think it’s not very efficient at all,” Lennart

Joining the podcast from Copenhagen, Denmark, was professional keynote speaker, Samuel Scott. With a background in journalism and marketing, Samuel turned his professional attentions to being a keynote speaker in 2016, where he delivers marketing truths “with the mindset of an expert trade journalist with nothing to sell.” Commenting on the rarity of attaining a keynote speaker with absolutely no agenda, podcast host, James, advised that organisers should be conscious of hiring speakers who may have bias/other intentions. Agreeing, Samuel explained, “if you bring on someone who works for a marketing agency, they will be promoting the services that the agency provides.” Particularly if the speaker is not being paid, they will attempt to gain some benefits from the session by pitching their company or services. Approaching a speech with no side agenda allows speakers to offer nothing but honest opinions and assessments. This is not only picked up on by the audiences, but the event organisers as well. Delive

VP and head of marketing from Certain, James Huddleston, joined podcast host, James Dickson, for this week’s podcast. In the episode, Huddleston discussed how event marketers can revamp their event strategies for the new year. Huddleston has been a senior figure at Certain for three years, first as the senior director of product marketing before becoming VP and head of marketing in September 2019. Certain is a provider of end-to-end event automation software that helps organisers and planners deliver top results. Huddleston stated that marketers have become more “data-driven” in recent years than ever before. He explained that marketers can now utilise an unprecedented amount of analytics, attendee information and event results to design marketing strategies. This hard evidence of data, therefore, helps justify marketing ideas. Though data is essential, we may be at risk of suffering data-overload. Huddleston stated that events offer attendees the advantage of having that one-to-one contact with prospecti

Joining our podcast host, James Dickson, on this week’s podcast was ICC Belfast’s head of digital, Charlie McCloskey. During his time with us, he discussed how the venue utilises digital marketing to drive revenue and increase exposure. Charlie is the first head of digital at the ICC Belfast, having joined in April 2018. He designs and delivers the digital strategy for the venue, using its website and digital marketing channels (such as email marketing and social media) to accomplish his goals. In the past 18 months, Charlie and the team reviewed all their “customer touchpoints” to work towards improving them, create a more targeted approach and enhancing the customer experience. Some of the changes they made involved removing steps from their website’s booking forms, improved the seating map and added more information. Within a short space of time after doing this, Charlie found the basket abandonment rate dropped by 30%. Not only did Charlie dive into the site’s analytics to learn how consumers were usi

Speaking from Universal Live’s Bradford base, our podcast host, James Dickson was welcomed by its commercial manager, Neil Clappison, and creative graphic designer, Gaby Watson. On this episode, Neil and Gaby explained the creative design process the team at Universal Live undertakes with each project and how it may differ from client to client. They delved into the various tools, hardware and programmes they use as well as discussed how they generate ideas from brief to brief. The Universal Live duo discussed the tools and programmes they use in the design process, stating that drawing their ideas is much more beneficial than trying to describe them over email or on paper. Having a visual representation of their ideas immediately allows clients to understand exactly what they are thinking, and discussions become a lot more fluid. Additionally, Gaby explained that if her creative process was dependent on the tools she already had at her disposal, she would already be starting off on “the back foot”. Neil a

Fifth Element Group is an award-winning live experience company that is recognised throughout the world for creating large-scale galas, events, fundraisers, conferences and activations. On today’s podcast, president, Aaron Kaufman, spoke to our host, James Dickson, on how to keep events “real”. Speaking from the head offices in Canada, Aaron stated that Fifth Element Group was born from him discovering a “gap in the industry” 16 years ago when clients’ expectations were not being met properly. Aaron wanted to merge the management and design of an event into one firm. Transparency between event planners and clients regarding fees is critical for a successful relationship. Aaron explained the planner should break down each rental/purchase to the client who then, in turn, appreciates where their money is going. Hiding costs suggests the planner is not confident they are providing good value for money.  Aaron also claimed that healthy competition is ideal within the industry. “Going after” your competitors and

Joining the Event Industry News podcast this week was Deborah Henley, the founder of Vivacity Consulting. Deborah is a professional speaker and former event booker with training in psychology. Though her education in psychology may not be event-related, she stated that it has given her a deeper understanding of audiences, languages and how to engage people. Deborah used her time on the podcast to discuss how best to choose a speaker for your event and describe her top practices to get the best out of them. Deborah lives by what she calls the ‘KFDs’. Before speaking, she asks herself, what does she want her audience to know by the end of her presentation; what does she want them to feel and what does she want them to do. Additionally, she claimed that if your speaker can describe in simple, concise terms what their subject is about and the key points they wish the audience will take away, you, as an organiser, can feel reassured that they will transfer this concise description to their presentation. “If [y

For this week’s episode, podcast host, James Dickson, spoke to CEO and founder of Conference Compass, Jelmer van Ast. Founded in 2010, Conference Compass is an event app provider for the conference sector. Speaking during the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) Congress, Jelmer explained the benefits of designing and developing an app for one specific sector.  Due to the event industry being so broad, the technology that supports it has to be adaptable. Though both are live events, a band concert in a park and a multi-strand conference are two very different occasions, therefore, they require different products, services and technology. This is also the same for the event app. Focusing on creating apps for the conference sector allows the team at Conference Compass to develop sector-specific solutions for organisers. “Pick one thing and do it well,” James agreed, stating that an app that is suitable for different events would offer a “diluted” offering as opposed to something that is

Founder and MD, Holly Moore, from Make Events joined our podcast host, James Dickson, on this week’s episode to discuss the role of women in the event industry as well as her personal journey.  Make Events is a corporate event agency based in Cheshire that revolves around creating the “ultimate experience” for top brands including Garmin, Myprotein and Twitter. Last February, Holly ran an event for her staff. She believes that the best way to drive a message home is through a live event and so she put this into practice for her own team which served as the delegates to the two-day conference.  This event allowed Holly to communicate the agency’s strategy for 2019 as well as remind the team of Make Events’ core values. “The event was two-pronged: to drive the message of Make Events forward for the financial year and to give them [her team] the experience of an event that they loved so that they could sell it to clients,” Holly said. She stressed that the devil is in the detail when it comes to planning. D

This week on the Event Industry News podcast, our host, James Dickson, welcomed the director of exhibition sales at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC), Dan Thurlow.  The SEC is a meeting and event venue in Glasgow composed of three buildings: the SEC Centre (five interconnected exhibition and meeting spaces), the SEC Armadillo (3,000-capacity) and The SSE Hydro (a 13,000-capacity concert, sporting and special event arena). Originally the SECC (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre), the venue rebranded to the SEC to offer more clarity on its venues and services. It offers event spaces suitable for conferences, exhibitions, sporting events, concerts and corporate events. It can be accessed via train, taxi or plane; the SEC shares a city with Glasgow Airport and has a dedicated Metro station on the campus. Dan described the in-house team’s approach as hands-on, helping with concepts and discussing with clients about their objectives and requirements. “We want to make shows as strong as possible – we don’t

Joining our podcast host, James Dickson, on this week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast was Will Curran and Brandt Krueger. Brandt is a technical producer, educator, speaker and consultant for the meeting and events industry who describes himself as a “geek dad and husband”. He is the founder of Event Technology Consulting and is based in Minnesota, USA. Will Curran is the founder of Endless Events, an AV production company that has been running for 12 years.  Both guests are hosts for a weekly podcast dedicated to event technology. Explaining that he believes there is a “time and a place” for all models of AV production, Brandt stated that the occasion dictates whether it is best to use in-house AV, a third party or to buy/hire in your own AV equipment. Over the course of the podcast, Will and Brandt described some of their worst experiences in the AV sector, drawing on these examples to demonstrate where certain situations went wrong. Overpricing proved to be a common “malpractice” in the w

Digital Innovation Director and Co-Founder, Neil Mortimer, joined our podcast host, James Dickson, on this week’s episode to talk about how events can increase value for organisers, clients and sponsors. Wonder is a creative events agency composed of experienced event specialists. It works with companies such as Google, BT, VISA and Deliveroo to design and create events across the B2B, B2C and B2E sectors. Yesterday, it launched Future Live Today – a new agency to fulfil the evolving requirements to build more technology into events’ ecosystems so they increase in value. Stating that event technology and marketing technology are complex facets in the world of events, he believes that clients, event organisers and even event agencies need additional support to make efficient decisions. “Decisions that seem straight forward at the time aren’t always the best decisions financially or effectively,” he said, stating that Future Live aims to educate and inform professionals to make better decisions. “I think w

On this week’s podcast, our host, James Dickson, was joined by the CEO of Manchester Central, Shaun Hinds, to discuss the future of sustainability at the tech-advanced venue. With more than 25 years in the hospitality, property and business service sectors, Shaun was appointed CEO in June 2017 after serving in leadership roles at the Association of Event Venues, YourWelcome and the BridgeStreet Global Hospitality. “We’re proud of our heritage but we need to remain relevant and we need to remain contemporary in a very fast-moving world,” Shaun stated when explaining how Manchester Central facilitates the needs of the modern event organiser. The team at Manchester Central commits itself to provide a flawless infrastructure so that clients can deliver unique and top-of-the-range experiences. The team works with specialists and its existing infrastructure to explore that they, as a venue, can offer their clients. Situated among universities, Media City, hotels, stations and retail areas, the venue lends itsel

On this week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast, Exposure Analytics’ commercial director, Rob Murdoch, joined us to offer a preview of his forthcoming talk at Event Tech Live on Wednesday 6th November. Here, Rob will engage in a panel discussion on the correlation between design effectiveness and data effectiveness. Returning to the podcast for the third time, Rob explained the role Exposure Analytics plays in live events: “We help brands and agencies determine how effective their events are through the use of data and footfall analytics.” Data, as Rob explained, is only effective when people know how to use it. The data that is presented from experiential analytics companies can accurately demonstrate where footfall was heaviest, the number of entries, the flow of visitors and dwell time, among other things. “What our clients are interested in is the truth. Whether it’s a good number or a bad one; they want to know because then they can act on it,” Rob stated, explaining that receiving high stat

Hellen Beveridge, the data privacy lead from Data Oversight, joined our podcast host, James Dickson, to discuss GDPR within the event industry. Having given a presentation on the subject at the Event Tech Live Exhibitor Masterclass in September, Hellen was invited on our podcast to elaborate. Data protection is not a new concept with the previous data protection act being enforced in 1998. However, within the last 20 years, technology has changed in such a way that laws were struggling to keep up. Particularly within the event industry, professionals use various databases in their day-to-day jobs and handle copious amounts of data. Cautioning event companies that buy data, Hellen said: “Be really careful when buying data. Because buying data is like putting a drop of oil in your water source; the minute you buy dirty data, your entire database is dirty.” She described data as a person’s most important asset, so businesses need to take care when collecting it and ensure they only collect the data that is n

Recording from Universal Live’s base in Bradford, Yorkshire, was commercial director, Neil Clappison. Alongside him was Jason Cardy, the event director at Capita Travel and Events. Universal Live is a technical event production company while Capita Travel and Events is a travel management company. Together, the two professionals were able to use their combined experience to discuss the client-supplier relationship in the event industry. Reviewing the long-standing partnership that Universal Live and Capita Travel and Events have had, the two event professionals explore the supplier chain when planning events. “It’s a ‘one-team-approach’ all the way,” Jason said, describing his opinion on how clients and suppliers should plan the events. He stated that both clients and suppliers alike should be open with each other when discussing the pitch. Agreeing with this, Neil said one company won’t be experts in every facet of planning events: some may be proficient in event management, another in production. It is,

On this week’s podcast, we discussed how podcasts can benefit live events. Offering their expertise on the subject was Cvent’s marketing manager, Brooke Gracey, and team lead, Cody Liskh from their offices in Portland, Oregon. As hosts of the How Great Events Happen podcasts, Brooke and Cody were able to offer our podcast host, James Dickson, invaluable advice on how to use podcasts for events. Podcasts are useful for event professionals to broaden their scope of expertise and knowledge. They are also convenient, accessible and not restricted by time or location – they can be listened to anytime, anywhere! Technological advancements have been such that digital content can be created easily and inexpensively. Easily produced, Podcasts are beneficial for creating or expanding the topics of conversation out in the industry, offering professionals otherwise inaccessible information/education. Additionally, podcasts are an added platform to market events: professionals can easily use them to “tease” content ou

Joining James on our weekly podcast was Event Resources Group’s director, Kevin Waters. Kevin entered the event industry in 1992 when he started his own agency and has since been a board member for the International Live Events Association (ILEA). He is now the director of event consultancy firm, Event Resources Group. Here, he discussed the various training and qualifications we can now receive within the event industry. “Never dry”, the event industry is constantly evolving, with new techniques, practices and technologies being introduced all the time. Various training courses within the industry may help professionals from being left behind. However, is there such a thing as ‘over-education’? Should those hoping to gain entry into the event industry focus on work-based education rather than classroom-based? The event industry is no longer focused on hosting a repetition of conferences or parties; it endeavours to move audiences’ emotions to create memorable experiences. Professionals hosting the same,