Event planners strive to deliver a memorable experience to the attendees. It’s one of the most crucial aspects of the event that you need to focus on if improving retention numbers and increasing word of mouth marketing is one of your goals for the event.
Having said this, coming up with innovative event design techniques can be a demanding task for many, especially with all the marketing and event organisation required in the whole process.
In this article, we have picked some of the best event design trends and techniques to provide you with actionable ideas and guide your event planning for delivering a memorable attendee experience.
Event Design Techniques to Wow Your Audience In 2019
Focus on Your Event EQ
Concepts like Wellness, Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence, and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) have been around for quite a while. They appear frequently on most resolution lists for the New Year’s, and they are quickly moving up the ladder in terms of priority for expert event planners too. It’s something almost everybody in your audience is probably trying to incorporate in their personal lives, so they would really appreciate if these can play a major role in your events as well.
To adapt to this emerging trend, you can:
- Encourage movement around the event arena by including fun activities or outdoor adventures.
- Offer your attendees quick chair massages after those hour-long sessions of continuous sitting.
- Have a special zone at your event for creativity or wellness.
Rethink Content Delivery
Since the coming of social media networking, delivery of content has gone through some major transformations. This has made speeches at events seem so 1980s! If you don’t want your participants to lose interest quickly, it’s imperative to rethink content delivery.
Having said this, you can make learning much more meaningful and enjoyable if you can:
- Employ a learning coach at your event to guide participants on their learning and networking journey.
- Include activities like group discussions.
- Use gamification concepts to improve learning and consequent retention.
Improve Security
You will need enough security to ensure attendees feel safe at your event but not so much that they feel anxious. To achieve this, you can:
- Use biometric security (facial recognition, fingerprint sensors, etc.) to ascertain the ones you let into your event premises are actually your registered event attendees.
- Achieve safety certification.
Leverage Persuasion
It’s not recent news that neuroscience has entered the world of marketing. Now, it’s time for event planners to leverage this science to achieve better results.
To make your event more persuasive (and not “salesy”), you can:
- Build public consensus. This always works because we are humans and we tend to take social cues and insights from other humans.
- Employ active learning and have activities that make them reiterate what has already been learned their own words.
Make them feel at home
To make your attendees feel at home, you can:
- Select the right kind of music that makes them really feel at home.
- Use voice assistants that are already a part of their daily life.
- Set up food catering based on their personal preferences.
Final Thoughts
If you noticed an underlying current that’s flowing through almost all of these trends that we mentioned in the article – you will quickly recognise they are all related to a further embracing of our human side in the event world. This is why recognising that the event attendees “are” the event and addressing their concerns should be of paramount concern for an event planner.
For more tips and guidance in this regard, don’t forget to check out this space for Part 2 of this article.
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