Emerging Trends in the Event Business

For the last two weeks, Brian Solis and I have been discussing events and the role that blogging has had on them. We’ve done this largely as we actively engaged in the process at a variety of events in the Bay Area. More than a year ago, my life with syncPEOPLE was dedicated to the study of the role that social media can and would play in the event/conference business. It was a difficult process filled with fear and uncertainty. I’m happy to hear that there has been quite a sea change and the tide is moving in the right direction.

One of the major trends I have been observing is the migration to media. Almost every event organizer wants to hold onto the audience they have and to grow it in as many ways as possible. Remember this simple fact, sponsorship can’t grow without growth in attendance (up to the point of saturation, that is). It is this understanding of the world that has driven a lot of the experimentation in the conference industry. The truth, of course, is that there is not much room to not embrace new media and methods. Attendees have ever-changing needs and event organizers must adapt to new models.

In the last 2 weeks alone, I’ve been approached by no less than 4 events to assist in integrating social media into the attendee experience. I think it is a definite sign that more and more, everyone is looking back to the social dimension of events. It’s quite amazing how unsatisfying many events seem now when this is not properly planned and accounted for - after all, conferences are really about the contacts more so than the content.

This post was inspired by some discussion flowing today regarding the Nielson BuzzMetric client-only conference. The official word from the organizer was that the event was intended for its clients and that there were presentations of case studies from a variety of clients. Steve Rubel’s poses a broader question in response, “Should conferences ban blogging?” My simple answer: it depends.

While there are a number of reasons that organizers should consider integrating blogging and other social media into their event experience, I can undertand that under certain circumstances they might seek some privacy - though I do beg they consider it very carefully. In this case, it was a private event and there is no requirement for transparency. Naturally, asking people not to do something is often more like demanding they do the opposite - potentially undoing any attempt to “contain” the content.

Ultimately, I think we need to be more constructive in our criticism (Scott Karp agrees). While we all are empowered with our new suite of media tools, entitlement is still something quite different.