In December, I did some end-of-year cleaning as one tends to do. And what did I find, you ask? Well, I found a recap from an industry meeting held in March of 2013! A quite interesting recap, I might say!
First of all, let’s clear something: Yes, I do clean more often than every 12 years! But this specific cleaning session was going through all of my meetings and events industry material – stuff that I’ve saved because it meant something to me (or maybe because I thought I would make use of it at a later point, as one tends to think but never does!). However, I’d realized that it was time to let some of it go. And that’s where I found this recap.
findings of an old recap
The recap didn’t make it to the paper recycling bin, though, (yes, it’s on paper, like real printed paper!) because I couldn’t help myself but to go through it to find out how far we’ve come since then. And while it wasn’t revolutionizing reading material, I did find two specific themes that we still talk about today: One where we’ve come a long way since, and one that we’re still sort of struggling with.
Healthy food and beverage at events
Back in 2013 topics like brain food and sustainability in F&B didn’t seem important. Actually, quite a few comments circle around cutting down on these things and concentrating on getting the basics right, ie concentrating on buying and selling meeting rooms and packages instead of adding crazy bling like healthy, sustainable food … yes, this is my interpretation of the notes these 12 years later. I remember attending the event, but I don’t remember the exact words said.
Fortunately, we’ve come a long way regarding this topic, and today the entire industry is aware of the impact that the food and beverages we serve at our events will have on the minds and bodies of our attendees. Dietary differences, choosing your own menu, non-alcoholic options, and sustainably sourced menu items are the rule more than the exception.
Can we still do more? ABSOLUTELY! We’re definitely not there yet, but we’ve come a long way during the last 12 years. And we have to remember the progress that we have actually made.
Return on investment
A question in the recap reads ‘Have you got a clearly defined objective for your events, and do you measure if you’ve met the objective?’. The question has 18 answers and 9 of these answers are some form of not having an objective and/or not measuring if they’ve met it, and from my experience in the industry I’d say that this percentage is the same today.
A lot of event providers survey their attendees (more or less successful), but most don’t measure actual return on investment – as in what impact the event has had for the attendee and for the event provider. This measurement takes time and effort, and since we operate in an industry where no one rests on their laurels (one each event is done, we’re off to the next), we don’t take the time to do so.
This means that there’s still room for improvement, and I’m positive that more event providers will implement measuring of ROI in the future. I see a movement towards a more strategic approach to events* (yay!), which requires collecting data such as measuring ROI (there are lots of other data to collect, but let’s stick to ROI for the sake of this post), so no matter if we find it difficult, we’ll have to pull up our socks and get to it.
That’s it! These were the two topics that I found most interesting comparing 12 years apart. Did they surprise you? Or do you agree/disagree with me?
What is an event strategy?
* When I talk about event strategy, I specifically think of the strategy of an entire event portfolio – not the strategy for each event (which in my opinion is not a strategy, but a plan … but hey: Potato, tomato, right). You can read more about my take on event strategy in the blog post The power of a true event strategy.
