Boldpush

If you work in events, you know what I am talking about. A successful event, in many cases, is uneventful in the minds of attendees. People are arriving, staying, and leaving safely. Sessions delivered great content. Awesome venue. Good F&B. It’s part of working behind the scenes. Yet one single mistake and your event is all over on social media. There is a lesson in this for all those working in the event industry. • Making successes more evident  • Raising awareness of the impact of events • Celebrating and recognizing event professionals Should be part of the game. Did you experience frustration because your event did not get the credit it deserved? P.S. My mission is to build an army of event strategists. If you want to join, the first step is to sign up for my free newsletter. Link at the top of my profile.

20 Frameworks, Checklists and Cheat Sheets to plan better events. What: The Event Planning Mega Bundle is BACK- the result of months of research and content creation. What’s included: 20 PDFs The New Event Attendee Journey How Event Touchpoints Shorten the Funnel The Best Event for Your Objective Events and The Funnel Event Industry Skill Matrix Planning Events for Gen X vs Millennials vs Gen Z 2024 Event Industry Acquisitions Connection Activities Quadrant What Event Planners Want from Suppliers Trade Show Touchpoints Checklist Where to host your event in North America Pyramid of Connection Event Tech Key Players 2024 (Q3) Event ROI Checklist Dopamine Management at Events Event Connection Map Event Planner vs Event Strategist vs Event Marketer Event Brand Checklist A Guide to Microevents 14 Tactics to Combat Late Registrations Who is it for? Chief Events Officers, Heads of Events, Event Marketers, Heads of Event Technology, Event Managers, Event Coordinators. How to get it: Like and comment and I’ll share the link. Timing: I’ll keep it up for a week.

Change is coming to the event industry. And I am here for it. A new generation of event professionals is rising. It’s got nothing to do with age or demographics. It’s about people who love and want to make the event industry better. What do they believe in? I speak to them at events, read thousands of their comments on LinkedIn, and listen to their feedback. There is one thing they want: Change. The pandemic taught us how ephemeral the event industry can be. Never again. Events are now at the center of a marketing revolution, the natural antidote to AI-generated fakeness. MPI, one of our largest associations, says that when we meet, we change the world. It is time to change events. This how I see events changing next year. Are you in? P.S. I am training the next generation of event professionals. If you want to join in, the first step is to sign up for my newsletter. It’s free and the link is at the top of my profile.

A party is not networking. It’s not an opinion. It’s facts. I was going through the FANTASTIC Freeman research to prepare for our 2025 Event Industry Outlook and Trends (next week!). I bumped into a powerful stat. 55% of planners think that parties are the networking attendees want. But only 34% of attendees want parties. This is a disconnect many experienced in the event industry post-pandemic. Many planners interpreted this strong desire to be back in-person as an unstoppable need to party. That may have been the case for ’21 and ’22. Since ’23, things have changed. Purpose and collaboration are what attendees need. Many also confuse the need to get together in small, intimate events with meaningless drinks and dinners. Throwing people in a room and expecting the magic to happen is a waste of money and energy. What’s the plan then? • Structured networking. Especially around topics of interest. • Intimate gatherings with true peers with a theme or items of discussion. • Content that connects. Workshops, collaborative seminars, facilitated sessions. There is no room for budget waste in this environment. How do you connect attendees? P.S. Every Wednesday, 11K eventprofs open my newsletter within one hour of me sending it. If you want to know why, join us. The link is at the top of my profile.

The suppliers in my industry are under an incredible amount of pressure. Venues are packed.  AV companies celebrate record profits. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Behind the scenes, these event professionals are struggling. Prices go up. Wages not as much. As I am preparing my 2025 Outlook event (next Thursday), a lot of research points at the quality of the service going down. Those workers left from the pandemic have to deal with shipping 10x the events with considerably fewer people. And when they have people, they joined the industry 2 or 3 years ago. What about eventtech? Brutal. The amount of change these event professionals had to go through during and after the pandemic broke even the strongest personalities. The problem is that our suppliers are an integral part of the experience. There is no easy solution, but there are things that can be done: - We are in a relationship industry. Understand that this goes both ways. - Choose fairness. You select suppliers for your event. Reward suppliers that treat people fairly. A high turnaround (with some exceptions) is never a good sign. - Onboarding. We need associations to bring suppliers up to speed with the needs of our industry. Enough with the ‘remove your stress’ sales pitch. We want people who understand the business. What do we want from suppliers? See the image below. Are you a supplier? What could help make things better? P.S. If you want to understand what event professionals want today, consider joining the 22K eventprofs reading my free newsletter. The link is at the top of my profile.

I have an announcement to make. I have been preparing this for 12 months. Every year for the past decade, I’ve shared the trends that will change the way we plan events. This year it is a special one. I’ve never attended so many events, and never have I presented trends at so many conferences and trade shows. For the 2025 Event Industry Outlook and Trends, I will also present the results of 320 top event professional research. This will be a two-hour event you can’t miss. Next Thursday - Dec 12. The amount of value is just incredible. It is not free, but I also introduced a more accessible price point for those who want to attend live, catch up on demand, or access the slides. Let me repeat that. Yes, it will be recorded. If you want the link to register, please leave a comment. As a solo content creator for the industry with no funding or a large company behind me, I appreciate your support.

The way we experience events has changed dramatically. So has the technology associated with it. This graphic is my attempt to map the new eventtech touchpoints affecting the attendee journey. Many changes from before the pandemic: / In-person events are powerful touchpoints in a year-long content strategy. Therefore, virtual events and content repositories are becoming vital to keeping audiences engaged. / AI has also officially entered the playground from matchmaking to facial recognition and analysis to data crunching. AI is now creating economies of scale. / From a marketing perspective, Boldpush research says that 58% of the eventtech spend goes to registration platforms. They remain at the core of the eventtech journey. I am excited about the evolution of eventtech. This map is just the start. What did I miss? P.S. I share more advanced analysis in my free weekly newsletter. Event leaders from Apple, Google, Meta, and many Fortune 500 companies joined. Link is at the top of my profile.

The fastest-growing profile in my industry is event marketers. Exciting? Yes, but we need to talk: CMOs are all over events. Many sources report events being the number 1 or 2 channel for B2B marketers. Yet the way event marketers function within companies is still confusing. I’ve witnessed event marketers reporting to VPs of content, HR,  and VPs of Demand. Where should event marketers sit? Ideally, under Chief Event Officers (CEO). CEOs? A whole other level of mess. Yes, because very few companies give event professionals a seat at the table. Yet GTM Partners recognized event-led as one of the top GTM motions. What’s the call to action? / We need clear career paths. As we have CMPs, we need CEM - Certified Event Marketers / We need better education about how companies use events across the board. / We need associations to step it up and educate CEOs and CMOs on how to grow this function within companies. Thoughts? P.S. 70% of my 22K newsletter subscribers are event marketers. I want to build an army of them, changing the event industry for good. The link to join is at the top of my profile.

I wasn’t going to post this today. But I changed my mind. Holidays start tomorrow in the US. For the fighters still around: It can take up to 50 touchpoints to close a sale in B2B. One event can provide as many as 10. What does it mean? Events can accelerate conversions. Solely relying on online can take a very long time to lead to conversions. Many channels and different skills are needed to deliver online. Newsletter, ads, social media, video. One well-planned event can provide multiple touchpoints and dramatically accelerate sales. Some pointers: • Events are high trust. The most trusted channel according to research. • Events are highly engaging. You have to show up and take action. • One event serves multiple funnel stages. They move multiple prospect profiles. • Events are brand rich. They offer immersive branding opportunities. If the event is owned, the pipeline acceleration is faster. If it is third-party, there are fewer touchpoints, but there is still a high degree of engagement and trust. These are key reasons why many brands are doubling down on events. Online can be chaotic, less trustworthy, spam-prone, and low touch. A combination of a data-rich, laser-focused online environment, and a sound event strategy is unstoppable. This graph visualizes how events can accelerate your funnel. P.S. I am on a mission to build an army of event strategists. The first step to join is to subscribe to my free newsletter. We are 22K. The link is at the top of my profile. P.P.S. The 50 touchpoints figure comes from square2marketing experiment on 50 B2B companies

A quiet revolution is happening in the event industry. It’s small but mighty. Communities are self-organizing. This trend can turn awry. I just heard of a large show that lost one of its most prominent exhibitors. Instead of spending 90K on a booth, they rented out an amazing venue and invited many attendees and clients to their activation. Undivided attention. There is also good news. Spontaneous communities are popping up. Breaking free from the transactional script of many events creates opportunities for genuine human connection. Look at us, we are in Barcelona. There are no pitches involved. Great humans with a shared passion, spending time together. I feel lucky. This LinkedIn community, the newsletter, and Boldpush+ subscribers are becoming a close group of people who want to change the event industry. I am starting to think we can actually make it. In 2025, I plan for more in-person gatherings like what you see in the picture. My mission is to build the next generation of event strategists. Data-driven, content savvy, and human-first. The first step to joining us is to sign up for my free newsletter. The link is at the top of my profile.