Happy Wednesday everyone! Let's kickstart with our next edition of the Tip of the Week discussion! There are many reasons to be optimistic about the state of the event industry. 2022 saw the resurgence of in-person events. On the other hand, some challenges have emerged, including the impact of rising inflation and ongoing staffing shortages across the board. Despite this, however, demand for events remains high and continues to grow.
As we look ahead to 2023, here are the top trends & tips and how they will impact your meetings and events.
Focus On Cost Savings & Efficiencies
With a potential recession looming, businesses will focus heavily on making cost savings and finding efficiencies across their event programs. The need to control costs will also place greater emphasis on event organizers to prove event ROI
Top tip: Get visibility across all of your meetings and events to identify where efficiencies can be found and costs reduced. Create standardized processes and use technology to help automate manual tasks
In-Person Events Embrace Digital Elements
Events post-pandemic have become digital. In 2023, in-person events will incorporate more digital touchpoints, supported by technology. More digital touchpoints also offer the opportunity to extend the engagement of your event beyond its traditional start and end dates
Top tip: Plan to integrate digital elements into your in-person events to enhance and measure attendee engagement before, during, and after your event.
More Strategic Use of Event Data
Event organizers can capture more data insights than ever before, thanks to digitization. Using event data strategically will also help event organizers translate the impact of their events into quantifiable, measurable outcomes
Top tip: To be able to capture the right data, you need the right tools. Ensure you have the right technology in place to see key metrics and inform future event planning.
Events Designed with ESG in Mind
ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) policies demonstrate a company's commitment to key issues like sustainability and diversity
Sustainability
Sustainability is at the forefront of everyone's mind. The 2022 ICE benchmarking report found that 59% of event planners see sustainability as a challenge for their businesses.
To tackle this, event organizers will be looking to focus on measuring and reporting on the impact of their sustainability efforts.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We've seen an increased effort to improve DE&I initiatives within the event industry and this will continue to be a priority in 2023. It could also mean making sure that speakers are selected from a wide range of diverse backgrounds
Health and Wellness
It's no secret: the stress of the last few years has led to many event organizers feeling overwhelmed and overworked. To mitigate this, there has been a shift to focus on the health and well-being of employees within the industry.
Rebuilding Partner and Supplier Relationships
The event landscape is changing rapidly. Faced with staffing shortages and a more complex set of event requirements, event organizers will need to rely on extended teams of suppliers and partners to help execute their events.
Top tip: In this complex landscape, ongoing training and education will be key to staying ahead of the curve and leveling up your skills.
Technology consolidation will be necessary
To achieve greater efficiencies, reduce costs and increase visibility across their meetings and events, companies will look to consolidate their technologies by integrating their tech stack. An integrated tech stack to help flow the data between internal systems, such as Marketing/CRM, HR, finance systems, and more.
Top tip: Ensure that your event data isn't siloed from other internal systems. Use a robust event platform that can integrate with your core systems to create a single source of truth and improve measurement.
Question for you:
- 2023 looks set to be a promising year for meetings and events. How do you plan your events so you can get maximum ROI?
- Which of the above tip do you find most useful?
As always, feel free to drop your suggestions in the comment section below! #CventTip
#MeetingsManagement#Creating/ManagingEvents------------------------------
Megha Jetley
Assistant Manager
Cvent Marketing Department
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