Where we’re going we don’t need roads.

12 Global Trends
Shaping Events In

Experts in event design, venue

management, and event technology
share what’s to come in the year ahead.
Intro

FEATURING
Modern event organizers need to
be collaboration artists. That means
knowing when to reflect, and knowing
when to ask questions. We decided to
ask questions and bring three industry
leaders face-to-face, to kick off the
conversation about meetings and
events in 2017. Chris Kelly, Co-Founder
& President, Convene
Social Tables and Convene brought
together Larry Abel of Abel McCallister
Designs, Convene co-founder, Chris
Kelly, and Social Tables CEO, Dan
Berger, for an hour-long discussion
about 2017’s biggest and most
surprising event industry trends.

This guide recaps their conversation

Larry Abel, Partner,
and highlights twelve trends that will
Able McCallister Designs
shape events in the coming year.

Read on to learn how event design,

the future of meeting spaces, and
event technology will change events in
the coming year. Prepare yourself
and your team to take advantage of
the latest technology, and find out
what today’s attendees want from
a modern event. Dan Berger, Founder
& CEO, Social Tables

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Chris Kelly, President & Co-founder, Convene
At Convene, Chris leads marketing, revenue generation and
strategic planning. Convene provides premium meeting spaces,
award-winning cuisine, the latest tech, and simplified pricing for
small and medium sized events. Chris has been recognized twice in
Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30” list of most promising entrepreneurs.

Learning to Leverage Social Capital

People will continue to be invested in their social capital. Today
corporations and governments have an unprecedented ability to
monitor our online habits. Still, a majority of consumers aren’t
worried about the fact that their online presence is being watched.
They’re actually more concerned about not being seen or heard.

Everyone wants to be an influencer,

and to some extent we all are. CLICK TO TWEET

We invest so much time and effort in our presence on social media,

and that’s a trend that’s growing with younger generations. So what
does that mean for events?

As you think through the events that you’re producing, ask yourself
if you’ve created a program that will get attendees to stop, take their
phones out, and share. Treat participants like the influencers and
tastemakers they aspire to be. Tap into your attendee’s social
currency by giving them ample opportunity to share enviable event
experiences with their followers.

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Chris Kelly

Meeting Spaces Are a Blank Canvas

Should meeting spaces start to look more like an empty warehouse?
Some hoteliers think so, and they’re already redesigning their event
spaces so that they’re more of a blank canvas. Multi-purpose meeting
spaces are optimizing A/V and connectivity and ditching the stock
furniture and layouts. That’s because increasingly meetings and
events aren’t just about one thing.

It’s not just the dinner, or the networking, or the speaker sessions.
Planners are turning to meeting spaces that are able to include all of
those things, but also more interactive and entertainment elements.

Be prepared to think like more of an artist and less like a planner

coordinating logistics. Today’s event coordinators will have more
flexibility to create any event they envision, but it also means striking a
balance between education, entertainment, and interactivity.

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Chris Kelly

The Future in Four Bullet Points

Let’s take a long term view at the world. Here’s what we’ll continue to
see over the next five to ten years, but be prepared to capitalize now.

• If it can be done better and faster,

a solution will present itself.
It’s human nature to optimize for speed
and productivity. In the last five years
we’ve seen event technology take the pain
out of designing event diagrams, and make
venue sourcing less of a chore.

Look at your own event planning process

and see what you can optimize. If you can’t
come up with a better way to do it
yourself, find the technology that can help.

• We have a voice wherever we go.

Remember how we’re all influencers (or trying to be)? Today’s

media landscape isn’t just about everyone having their own platform,
it’s about the fact that we can share our thoughts whenever and
wherever we are.

How can you apply this to your events? For starters, take
responsibility for an attendee’s experience the moment you send
out the first invitation, and not just after they’ve checked in. You
have the opportunity to inspire and delight your event participants
before, during and after the event. Get participants to react and join
the conversation at every stage of the process.

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Chris Kelly

• We only want to see what we care most about.

They key word here is personalization. As a planner, you have to

continue to find ways to make events deliver more targeted
experiences for smaller niches and communities. That means that
planners will be tasked to manage a greater number of events, with
each event targeted to a fewer number of people.

Challenge yourself to make your events more targeted, or to segment

attendees at larger events into programs that are custom tailored to
what they want most. Every participant should feel like they’re
experiencing something completely unique; build personalization into
your events wherever possible.

• Work and life are integrated.

These days, fewer people care

about finding work-life balance.
They want to be in an environment
where they get the same stimulation
and joy from their work lives, as they
do from their personal lives.

That means that the places we work

and play in are starting to mix. We’ve
seen this in the way modern offices
are designed, and we’ve already seen
this in the programing, entertainment
and food at our events. Events can’t
just serve one purpose anymore.
Today, for events to be truly great
they have to serve our work lives
and personal lives equally.

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Larry Abel, Partner, Able McCallister Designs
Larry Abel is the co-founder of Abel McCallister Designs where
his team designs award-winning boutique brand experiences that
push the envelope of events and retail. His work has garnered
numerous awards, and you may have seen him on Oprah in 2010,
when he recreated her entire set out of pure Godiva Chocolate!

Mixing Reality and Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality! Now there’s a

buzzword we’ve heard about a
million times this year. So why
would attendees want to jump
into a virtual reality (VR)
experience after arriving to a
face-to-face meeting?

VR can’t replace the kind of

interaction participants can
have when they’re in a room
together - at least not in the
next decade. But now that VR
has been tested, and is
becoming more affordable, it’s
also starting to find it’s niche as
part of our events. VR is used
best when it’s combined with
the sensory experiences that
we can only get in person.

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Larry Abel

At a recent tradeshow event, Larry and his team built an experience

that featured the outdoor facade to a small restaurant. The goal was
to get attendees to walk in and see what the real restaurant was
actually like. Only instead of walking into a room with tables, chairs
and hungry diners, attendees were given a VR headset. Through the
headset, they could navigate a 3D video of the busy restaurant.
Then, without warning, an artificial scent machine would produce the
aroma of a plate of food that had just come up to be served.

Given the technology today, virtual reality can make events more
memorable by extending what’s possible in the reality of your event
space. In this case, the combination of the constructed facade,
the 3D video, and the aroma was blended seamlessly into a
memorable experience. Afterall, smell is the closest sense linked
to memory.

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Larry Abel
Getting Smarter About Event Budgets
Budgets are what they are, it’s
up to planners to use what we
have as wisley as possible. In a
recent study conducted by
Social Tables, surveyed planners
indicated that budget outlook is
highly mixed. Just 53% of
planners said their budgets
would grow in 2017.
That means planners need to be
smarter about two things. How
they choose to put their dollars
to work, and the partners they’ll
align with in the coming year.
Only 53% of planners
expect that budgets will
grow in the new year.
Today it's more feasible than
ever to outsource a number of
the tasks we once managed
in-house. Instead of tirelessly
searching for the perfect
venues, we have the option
to work with partners that
“turn-key” the entire
operation. The best planners
have close relationships with
many of their venue partners,
but if you can take this part out
of the equation, it can free up
the time and resources you
need to double down on more
important tasks.
The next step is to work with
vendors that are less motivated
by profit, and are more
interested in being long-term
partners. That way when you
tell them that your budget has a
hard ceiling, they won’t deny
your business, they’ll offer high
quality work at the relative price.
CLICK TO TWEET
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Larry Abel

Meetings are Not “One-Thing” Anymore

In the same way that work and life are blending, and the way
that we’re seeing more flexibility in event venues themselves,
meetings increasingly serve more than one purpose. We’re
already seeing this trend come to light. Today every venue is
fair game, from art museums to dude ranches. Experiences
are merging in ways we’ve never seen before.

If that tells us anything it’s that there’s no better time to break

out of the traditional hotel ballroom than in 2017. How can you
entice attendees by going beyond free food and drinks?
Is there a sought-after experience in your city that’s in-line with
your more traditional event goals? Consider the ways you can
you make a busines event less of “a thing” you go to, and more
of a place to hangout with like-minded people.

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Dan Berger, Founder & CEO, Social Tables
Dan has been described as a “relentless and focused entrepreneur”
and recognized as a 40 Under 40 leader in the meetings industry by
Collaborate Magazine. Social Tables brings event planners and
properties together through a suite of event management tools,
used today by more than 4,000 customers worldwide.

Augmented Reality Augmented reality (AR) has

Is Finally Happening
There’s a major difference
between virtual reality and
augmented reality. Virtual
reality is active (meaning you
have to decided to take part of
a VR experience), augmented
reality is passive. It’s can be
used throughout the day as
part of our everyday lives.
Think of it like the difference
between playing video games
at home on the couch, and
playing games on your iPhone
while you’re in line at Starbucks.
major implications for both
planners and properties. For
example, you may find that the
venues you work with will start
using AR technology to
showcase their event spaces.
Imagine arriving to a site visit,
and getting handed a set of AR
glasses that show you layout
options for your event as they
would appear in the room
around you.
This technology is closer than
you think. We may even see
some early incarnations in
2017. As a first step, planners
can encourage properties to
upload imagery to Google
business photos. The service
already offers full support for
3D photos and video.

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Dan Berger
But will AR actually make your
events more engaging? When it
comes to participants, today’s
augmented reality is found
mostly in the form of toys.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
Interactive photo a video
filters on Instagram and
Snapchat are pure fun,
and they’re a mainstream
representation of what AR
can do today.
Even if you can’t find a way to
directly link face filters to the
contents of your event,
encourage participants to get
together for group selfies,
augmented by fun filters. It’s an
easy ice breaker and energy
booster for participants.
PRO TIP
Snapchat makes it easy
for any planner to create a
custom geo-filter for their
event. Which make it
possible for Snapchat users
at your business events to
filter their photos and videos
with a custom branded
design. Soon enough, we’ll
be able to do the same thing,
with a custom AR experience
- exclusive to your event.
Simply go to snapchat.com/
geofilters to set up a
custom filter today.
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Dan Berger

Automation and Another avenue is venue

Machine Learning
Machine learning can guess
the objects in our photos,
recomend movies to us based
on our tastes, and optimize the
way our holiday gifts are
delivered. How will artificial
intelligence like this impact
business events?
Hoteliers such as Hyatt are
experimenting with a new
Social Tables feature that can
instantly suggest room-set
designs based on RFP data. All
a planner has to do, is submit
an order detailing their event’s
objectives and specifications,
and Hyatt can return a series of
sourcing. Let’s say you have
all your objectives, goals, and
attendance targets in place, but
you don’t have a venue. That
same data can be used to
surface event venues in your
city, optimized to planners that
are similar to you. Think of it
like a list of Amazon products
or movies on Netflix,
recommended to you to you
based on your tastes.
Machine learning
and automation is
built on the back
of tons, and tons,
CLICK TO
of data. TWEET

layout options specific to their

venue. Let’s take it a step As long as it’s increasingly
further. If an algorithm could convenient to collect data at
incorporate data from events, machine learning has
participants that reviewed a major potential for planners.
prior experience, it could
suggest layouts and interactive
experiences that are known to
have resonated with people
similar to your participants.

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Dan Berger

Participants Have Changed, Events Haven’t

Most complaints for events

stem from the same reasoning…
It’s the same old song and
dance. Today’s consumers are
bombarded with a huge variety
of media, it’s no wonder our
events don’t stand out.

Planners tend to stick to the

agendas and event flows that
worked in the past. The problem
is that when participants seek
new ways to interact, and your
events haven’t changed,
communication falls flat. So
what can we do to make events
feel fresh again?

Start exploring new ways to personalize event experiences.

Consider segmenting attendees into a handful of niches. Offer color-
coded badges that guide them through a more tailored experience.

Lean towards under-programing instead of a traditional rigid agenda.

Instead of thinking about how to make your event’s content relevant to
attendees, consider how you can empower attendees to learn more
from one-another. When you give participants this level of flexibility, be
sure to steer them in the right direction in the form of an assigned
concierge. - Real people working with specific individuals at your event
to optimize their time. Finally, be outrageous. The craziest experiences
are always the most memorable.

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Change
Is Your
North Star
If you only take one guiding principle into the new year, it
should be to make change your north star. In the world we live in,
doing the same things that worked in the past, is a certain path to
failure. The real risk is keeping things the way that they are, even if
you’re happy about the results.

The challenge is getting clients to take that risk with you. Proposals
can be fluid. Budgets and execution can be moving targets. Every
trend you read about in this guide can be used to your advantage,
as long as you’re willing to take the risk.

Stay connected with Social Tables

For the latest resources and industry news, connect with
Social Tables on your favorite social network.

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 Social Tables brings planners and properties
together online with a world class suite of
event design, and managment software.
socialtables.com

Abel McCallister produces “boutique” brand

experiences within high profile events for major
brands including Godiva, Spring and Mars Inc.
abmcd.com

Convene provides premium meeting spaces

that include award-winning cuisine, the latest
technologies, and simplified pricing.
convene.com