If you’re organising a conference, it’s essential to think about delivering the most value for not just the event sponsors, but the speakers, attendees, and everyone in the audience as well.
Having decades of combined professional experience organising conferences for various industries, we’ve learnt what differentiates an average conference from a great conference.
In this article, we share 7 valuable tips for improving the overall conference experience of your attendees and leaving lasting impressions in their minds.
7 Tips for Organising an Amazing Conference
Tip #1: Find a unique and interesting venue
Convention centres, among other typical conference venues, have become almost synonymous with conferences. At times, it can become somewhat uninspiring and monotonous for the attendees. Why not deliver a unique experience to the attendees by finding an interesting venue for the conference?
Nothing works better than incorporating your event’s USPs right from the early stage. When you select a venue with a ‘wow factor’, you’ve already achieved what most conference planners fail to achieve.
Tip #2: Provide the speakers with the much-required professional support
Speakers always feel delighted when the conference organisers go above and beyond to ensure they receive adequate assistance and support for their presentation. As a conference organiser, when you ensure speakers are well-prepared and well-assisted with their presentation delivery, you’re also doing the attendees favour since they will receive better content and overall experience from it.
Also Check: Virtual Events in UK
Tip #3: Spice it up with entertainment
Many industry experts believe entertainment is a must-have addon for conferences. On-site performances, such as a musical performance or a standup comedian, can make even the most boring events seem lively again. So, it’s always a nice idea to incorporate live performances into your conference agenda.
Tip #4: Optimising the content to suit the audience’s expectations
If the content presented at your conference isn’t liked by the audience, you will get criticism and poor reviews. As a rule of thumb, the talks shouldn’t be too far off-topic or irrelevant, too advanced, too basic, catering to a demographically narrow audience, and especially not too “promotional” – or else it may lead to a build-up of frustration in the audience.
Tip #5: Be clear and precise with communication
If you don’t like being bombarded with a number of questions you will receive as an event organiser, it’s advisable to ensure all the crucial pieces of information are shared with all the stakeholders and the audience. Here are some of the most important points for which you need may need to send out the communication to the respective stakeholders and audience segments well in advance:
- Conference agenda
- Logistics
- Transportation
- Availability of parking at the venue
- How to attend the conference online
- How to contact organisers
- Wi-Fi password, access codes, etc.
- FAQ
Tip #6: Make it easy for attendees and presenters to network
What’s the best part of the conference, apart from the presentations? Of course, it’s the networking opportunities and the likelihood of meeting some key people from your industry. This is why it’s a great idea to have an online network, a mobile website or mobile app for your conference that simplifies networking for your attendees and presenters.
Tip #7: Request feedback and use it constructively
Some of the best conferences to attend are usually the ones that not just listen to their sponsors, speakers, and attendees, but also take their feedback seriously. Post-event surveys can certainly help identify what worked for your conference and what didn’t, so next time your organise it, the organisers can improvise, and make the experience even better next time.
Final Thoughts
It takes plenty of experience and effort to organise a conference successfully. To ensure everything goes off as per the plan, you will need to train your teams to coordinate and ensure the success of the event.
If you want conference organisers and event planning experts to handle everything for you, from event planning to on-site event management, contact us today!
