Our first immersive event planning seminar took place in Los Angeles. Here is what happened, how planners reacted, and how you can get involved.
I never wanted to start a blog about event planning. I always wanted to change the way we do events.
Improve them, make them more effective, more technology friendly, more engaging.
I think we achieved that with EventMB. With hundreds of thousands of readers, a community of 380,000 event professionals, over 200,000 downloads of our reports. But also unprecedented research that has changed the way technology and innovation impact events.
There is also an army of event professionals that think like we do. They are hungry for change, they want to do things differently.
This is why we created the Event Innovation Lab™. This is not just an event. We are connecting the dots around the world to start a revolution in the event industry.
We think that the time to say we want change is up. It’s time to walk the walk.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many innovative events doing awesome things out there. Yet our plan is to create a movement, not to just run another event.
If you feel like we do, join us.
We started with Los Angeles. Tough crowd, incredibly challenging and unbelievably passionate. We had an amazing room with the best of the best.
We are making this revolution possible thanks to our partners Convene and Evenium. If you want to support future editions, get in touch.
The revolution started by investigating the four pillars of Event Innovation. Or as we call it the f+i+r+e formula.
Check out what happened and the planners’ reaction:
The Next Step: Event Innovation Lab™ New York
There are a lot of learnings we gained from Los Angeles. This event evolves over time and each edition is different.
Here are some of the things we learned and we are changing for the New York Lab on June 15th:
- Better RSVP Management. We received way more applications than spaces available for the meeting. We now have a more dynamic way of managing RSVP and a more responsive waiting list. You can still apply here. There are a lot of moving parts in a free event with such a small number of attendees, we are now more aware of the profiles that need to make the room and how to ensure they will make it to the event.
- Scalability. The scalability of the event will happen more in terms of coverage rather than the size of the room. Ideally, the group is at 20 attendees. 30 is fine, we can stretch it to 50 but hardly more than that. We will cover more cities worldwide but the room needs to feel intimate. This was achieved in LA thanks to a relaxed room layout and several opportunities for peer discussion.
- Vetting. We now review each application and schedule calls with those that pass initial scrutiny. This process is giving us a lot of insight in terms of what event professionals expect and what they really want. It is also a great motivation tester. The objective is to have attendees that genuinely want to make a change. Unifying the room under one objective has been incredibly effective in Los Angeles. Having one-to-one calls are proving to be extremely powerful to align objectives.
- More Customization. Having short 10-minute interviews with our Lab candidates is also helping us to customize the content even further. While keeping a strategic overview on our four pillars of the f+i+r+e formula, we deep dive with relevant examples and case studies.
- Guest Speakers. We successfully introduced slots for guest speakers in LA and we will keep adding more in the future. We also beamed one of them via hologram from New York, which was quite an experience for attendees. With time we see the hours of the event expanding to six hours and have guest speakers that can add a highly curated perspective on growth.
- Free. The event will be kept free (sponsor-supported only) for now. I still want to have the freedom to pick the most inclusive room, with motivation being the driver over budget. I want to give the chance to entrepreneurs and young event planning startups to join us while we start the movement. A fee will be inevitably introduced later as demand grows.
You can submit your application to attend by June 10th. We will have a waiting list in place until last minute.
Announcing New Advisors to the Program
Revolutions need capable leaders to join, by no means that can be achieved by EventMB alone.
This is why I am glad to announce the induction of two advisors to the Event Innovation Lab™:
Michelle Thornton, CMP – An industry leader with an incredible career that includes brands such as Autodesk, Disney, and Johnson & Johnson.
Karen Hartline – An event entrepreneur with an incredible portfolio of technology clients such as Mashable and Twilio.
How To Get Involved
If you are tired of the usual and want to change things you have several options to get involved.
Attend an event. Come to New York June 15, 2018.