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"Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

  • 1.  "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 02-10-2021 11:08

    Hi Cvent Community! Greetings of the New Year. We hope you are staying healthy and keeping safe!

    We are so excited to kick off the new year with our new 'Share and Tell' series in the Open Forum. Through this Share & Tell series, we encourage you to share the industry 'do's and don'ts' that you have learned from your event experience. This series is a by the customers and for the customers, format focused on best practices and adapting to the changes in the event industry (virtual & hybrid) through your real-life stories. 

    Learn from your industry peers through their stories on what worked well for them, and what to avoid, as the event industry has changed rapidly over the year.

    I am sharing the template of the discussion below which you can use to start your own Share & Tell story in the Open Forum. If you have a success story to share, we would love to hear it from you in this new series! So why wait, share your best practices that you tried and tested and worked well for your event. Copy the template at the end of the post and don't forget to use the hashtag #ShareandTell when you post your story.

    To get started, share your story by copying the below template > pasting it to a new discussion post > fill in the details and post!  Speaking with @James Rose and @Maribeth Bluyus I believe they may have success stories to share.

    *Note to venues: Feel free to share your story from events at your property/in your destination city!

    TEMPLATE:

    Check out Cvent Connect 2020 success story below from Taylor Bohn 

    JOB TITLE – Event Technology Lead

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Cvent CONNECT is our flagship user conference. We took things fully virtual in 2020 and executed a 40,000-person event all on our brand-new virtual platform, Cvent's Virtual Attendee Hub. We were the first event to ever use the Virtual Attendee Hub, and it was a smashing success!

    EVENT DATES - August 25-26

    TYPE OF EVENT - User Conference

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -

    TESTING, TESTING, and MORE TESTING - We did a test run of using the Virtual Attendee Hub with our internal employee base a couple of weeks before Cvent CONNECT Virtual. We were able to work out all the kinks and also gather a great sense of confidence going into the event, knowing that we were going to be able to do it, and it would work and work really well.

    The end is near - Remember your end goals of the event, and keep those in mind when building, architecting, and working towards an event. Data output and engagement tracking are more important than ever. Keep all of that in mind when building your event. Collect the necessary fields in registration, utilize Engagement Scoring in Cvent to track your highest engaged attendees, and follow up with them afterward.

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –

    Less is more - Keep things simple when it comes to virtual events. There is a TON out there, and attendees are getting bombarded every day with advertisements, invitations to events, etc. Keep yours simple and enticing. Do not make a lengthy/complex registration process, do not overwhelm invitees, and do not let them leave your virtual event, keep them engaged!

    Relax, take it easy - Things happen, it IS technology. Do not panic at the moment if something goes awry. Have a backup plan in place, and then have a backup plan for that backup plan. Being prepared is a must and will let the show go on. Prepare emergency comms for attendees, and contingency plans for all aspects of the event. If you are hosting live sessions, pre-record one of your dry-runs and have that recorded asset ready to play in case of emergency. Remember, these things happen all the time, and often, the attendees do not even notice.

     
    ADDITIONAL EXCITING NEWS:

    Start sharing your stories now and help other users incorporate your successes in their events. Once you post this to the Open Forum, you will receive the 'Story Teller' badge within a week of the post. Check out all of the Community badges you can receive here.

    Be sure to support your peers by clicking the 'Recommend' button or replying to their post with words of encouragement or questions on their strategies.

    Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback on our new series! #ShareandTell

    ​Copy the template from here

    JOB TITLE –

    EVENT DESCRIPTION –

    EVENT DATES -

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: (Event/Web Build, During Event, Post-Event)

    TYPE OF EVENT -

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –


    #BiddingonGroupBusiness
    #Miscellaneous
    #ManagingVirtualEvents

    ------------------------------
    Megha Jetley
    Team Lead
    Cvent Marketing Department
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Posted 02-17-2021 14:06
    Copy the template from here

    JOB TITLE – Global Travel and Events Manager

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Global SKO 2021

    EVENT DATES - Jan 12-14, 2021

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: (Event/Web Build, During Event, Post-Event) Event Complete

    TYPE OF EVENT - Global Sales kick Off

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -
    1. Multiple tracks in multiple countries and time zones. Sessions specific to tracks and GEOS. VAH really hellped keep this very orginaized and ran very smoothe.
    2. Ability for people who could not attend at a specific time to get the content on demand within minutes of the live sessions. Replay live session recording in GEO's were the live session time does not work.

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –
    1. Make sure your session and track titles are clear and detailed. Especaily if different tracks have the same session titles.
    2. Try and pre-record as much as possible and then add live Q&A at the end of the recording.



    ------------------------------
    Scott Sward
    Global Travel and Events Manager
    Viewpoint, Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Posted 02-23-2021 10:31

    I am unable to aceess this thread. Could you send me a new link?

     

    Best Regards, 

    Eva T. Roig

    Implementation Specialist

    Cvent Program Coordinator/EMS

     

    Commons Event Services | University of Texas at Austin

    10100 Burnet Road | Bldg 137 | Austin, TX 78758

    Office: 512-471-2686

    Email response within 24-48 hours, Monday-Friday

     

    cvent-resized Virtual Event Certified EMS logo 1

     

    Want to talk about Cvent? Book a call

     






  • 4.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 02-23-2021 10:43
    Hey Eva, 

    If you have a success story to share, we would love to hear it from you! You can copy the template at the end of the post and paste it to the new discussion thread in the open forum, fill it with your success story and publish :)
    Don't forget to use the hashtag 
    #ShareandTell when you post your story. 

    Copy the template from here

    JOB TITLE –

    EVENT DESCRIPTION –

    EVENT DATES -

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: (Event/Web Build, During Event, Post-Event)

    TYPE OF EVENT -

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –



    ------------------------------
    Megha Jetley
    Team Lead
    Cvent Marketing Department
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 02-23-2021 10:50

    Hey venues and suppliers, we didn't forget you. As the series has kicked off, you can share your story on how your organization pivoted to getting more tech-savvy or adopted to newer technologies to support hybrid events, the best safety measures you are taking as we go back to live events, best practices used to bond with planners in the current situations and how you are stepping up your operational efficiency (such as new tools & technologies being adopted to replace any manual efforts).

     Share your experiences with others:

    To get started, share your story by copying the below template > paste it to a new discussion post > fill in the details and post! 

    TEMPLATE -

    JOB TITLE –

    TOPIC OF SHARE & TELL-

    SPECIFIC EVENTS/INSTANCES-

    TYPE OF EVENT/PLANNER SUPPORTED-

    TOOLS/TECHNOLOGIES LEVERAGED-

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –



    ------------------------------
    Megha Jetley
    Team Lead
    Cvent Marketing Department
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Posted 02-24-2021 08:34

    JOB TITLE – Event Coordinator, Planner

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Live Virtual and Self-Paced professional learning events for our member base that provides training courses for educational institution accreditation reviews are some of our most popular events. We host up to 50 courses each year, and we rarely have to promote the events!

    EVENT DATES - (most successful to date 2020-2021 year) 8/25/2020 - 11/30/2020 with the series averaging registration at 89%. 

    TYPE OF EVENT - Live Virtual Preparing for the Engagement Review, a series of 11 courses each containing 3, 90-minute live virtual training sessions. 

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -

    PLAN WHAT TO SAY & HOW TO SAY IT - We worked with our client care team, client support team, improvement services team, and marketing team in a very collaborate and frank way to understand how to speak to our audience in a more concise way. We also made a better plan so that separate teams were not overlapping each other in communications. Too much, and we get opt-outs. Too little, and we get low registration numbers. We searched for the 'sweet spot'.

    DROP THE EGO - Our events are about our members or potential members. We are providing information and training to better serve them. Sometimes our thinking was clouded by how we understood our events internally. We got stuck in a pattern of referring to documents, shared work spaces, and communications by nicknames (and not everyone called these the same thing!). We also focused too heavily on our goals. Do we want higher registration - yes. However, do we want people to register and attend and have a stellar experience - even more yes!!! Being egocentric is so easy to do, but it doesn't put the best foot forward.

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –

    USE COMMON TERMS - Keep things simple when it comes to engaging with registrants. They want to know the 5 Ws and not a whole lot more than a sentence or two beyond that. Pontification leads to confusion, and it excludes several of the reader types - 'skimmers', 'swimmers', and 'divers'. Our constituent base are rarely 'divers' because they work in education!  They don't have time to decipher our event jargon.

    K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple... uh... Staff :D  We had documents awry everywhere online and on our servers and on cloud spaces. No one could find anything. You would try to "get back to 'that document" and not be able to pull it up in a planning meeting without hunting and pecking and opening the same wrong one multiple times - Yikes!! Our company is a merger of two other companies that had vastly different workflows. Plus, our staff has changed or shifted dramatically from 2019-2021. We ended up attempting to track so granularly that we had a mountain of data with no purpose for it. Having data for data's sake is something that can be a time-waster. Simplicity, consistent tracking that is frequently talked about in meetings, and naming conventions for our planning documents really helped. Also, repeating the name of a document, no matter how long, keeps everyone on the same page.



    ------------------------------
    Amanda Adams
    Mid-Atlantic Territory Client Services Coordinator
    Cognia, Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    User Group Member
    Posted 09-15-2021 13:49

    JOB TITLE – M&E Technology Lead

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Two-day hybrid event for volunteer opportunities.

    EVENT DATES - October

    TYPE OF EVENT – Employee Engagement

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU -

    Trying out the new Hybrid features and starting early – We tried the new hybrid setting to see if they would work for us. Unfortunately, since they had sessions that were in-person they wanted to allow virtual attendees to see (with capacities) we could not use this new hybrid functionality. Since we started the build early, we could quickly start a new build with the virtual setting.

    Lots of testing – With this level of complexity and number of sessions we had everyone on the team test. This allowed everyone to learn the workarounds we used, find issues we needed to quickly fix and more. Go TEAM!

    WHAT TO AVOID –

    With a lot of sessions keep the descriptions brief – We had so many sessions so it's important to keep the session descriptions brief but you can add filters to help categorize them if needed vs. adding lengthy descriptions.

    Roadblock – Don't stop at the roadblock. Call Cvent support to see if there is a workaround you are not thinking of. We tried the new Hybrid feature and with what we needed it would not work for our specific event but Cvent Support gave us some amazing tips so we could still proceed ahead and make our site a smooth success.



    ------------------------------
    ~
    Jo Anna Chapin
    Meetings & Events Registration Lead
    Accenture
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    User Group Member
    Posted 09-27-2021 14:32

    OB TITLE – Corporate Events Manager

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Over the last 18 years, Transplace's Shipper Symposium has become a symbol of educational excellence in the logistics industry. An audience of global executives are given the opportunity to learn from domain experts through thought leadership content, industry and market trend discussions, networking events and legislative updates. All aspects are geared toward strengthening our commitment to trusted outcomes that thrill our customers and helping operate supply chains more efficiently. This event ended up being a hybrid event with a select few sessions utilizing the Attendee Hub.

    EVENT DATES - September 13-15, 2021

    TYPE OF EVENT - User Conference

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S)

    1. The Attendee Hub worked great, I assigned a colleague of mine to help me set up the platform in advance and familiarize herself with the platform overall. 

    2. Having sessions available live for those unable to attend in-person provided an additional level of connectivity for our customers. 

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS)

    1. Don't try to manage it all yourself, make sure you assign someone onsite to manage the virtual piece
    2. Don't take away the networking function from attendees, it's not available to be added back in once you take it away



    ------------------------------
    Rebecca Quinn
    Corporate Events Manager
    Transplace Texas, LP
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Community MVP
    Posted 12-09-2021 13:44

    JOB TITLE – 2021 High Desert SCC FLC

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Leadership conference for members of our association living in the High Desert area of California. 

    EVENT DATES - Nov 19-21, 2021

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: Post Event

    TYPE OF EVENT - Association Meeting

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU
    Having clear Health & Safety Guidelines
    - Being back in-person did not happen without trepidation, and during the planning phase we workshopped the worst-case scenarios for various situations: what if an attendee doesn't have a vaccination proof or negative test? What if an attendee refuses to mask? We worked with the hotel to have the hotel staff on board with our restrictions and special food service etc. The path of escalation with the contact info of the relevant parties, as well as the list of local rapid test locations came in handy. 

    Catering staff served buffets
    - While the science has shown that contamination through contact is minimal, we wanted our guests to feel at ease so we opted for a fully staff-served buffet in lieu of the usual self-serve. We budgeted more time for attendees to go through the line and kept our lunch keynote short and sweet and towards the end of the time dedicated for lunch. 


    WHAT TO AVOID
    Contact tracing
    - We used the Mobile App tech of session check-in to do voluntary contact tracing, but attendees complained that our session codes were too long and that they had trouble entering them using the app. We also had some luddites who were unhappy that the contact tracing was tech-based. We are considering using the OnArrival QR code scanning feature instead for our next conference. 

    You can't please everybody - while we had a great turnout, we could have reached more attendees by opening registration earlier. We also had comments about the hotel we picked (a mid-range Vegas venue), but nicer Vegas hotels would have been out of range of our attendees to afford the sleeping rooms. And there's not much that can be done about smoky casino floors if we decided Las Vegas was the most convenient place to meet! 



    ------------------------------
    Béline FALZON
    Conference Program Specialist II
    California Teachers Association
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    Community MVP
    Posted 12-14-2021 16:44
    Copy the template from here

    JOB TITLE – Director of Sales & Marketing 

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Managing your venue profile

    EVENT DATES - N/A 

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: N/A 

    TYPE OF EVENT - N/A 

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) - Ensure the following is current and relative:  1.)  Hot Dates 2.) Promo's 3.) All pictures of venue are uploaded 4.) Attach Video's of venue 5.) Fulling complete what your venue located by

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) – Don't leave items blank, Don't forget to go in monthly and update 



    ------------------------------
    Colleen Beck
    Director of Sales & Marketing
    The Westin Tampa Bay
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    User Group Member
    Posted 05-25-2022 09:41

    JOB TITLE – Head, Brand Marketing

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Virtual event - 7 editions

    EVENT DATES - July - September 2021

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: (Event/Web Build, During Event, Post-Event) Post- Event

    TYPE OF EVENT - Virtual

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -

    Cater to your geography: We wanted to run a series across the globe on slightly different industry topics but with a similar overarching theme. While some topics could work across multiple geographies, we still continued to tweak the messaging and even the imagery utilizing photos containing people from that geography to assimilate the event and topics more to the viewers.

    Do create a mix of sessions. Our event ran for a few hours and rather than keeping people in one session where you'd eventually lose their attention, we kept things moving switching them between 1-4 people panel sessions and bringing them into breakout rooms to engage and discuss with different people on the topics we were discussing. 

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –

    Don't overcomplicated. We wasted a lot of time building this entire event environment (Demo booths, library of data, games and engagements). Know your audience and be respectful of their time. We didn't give much break middle of the sessions for people to do these things but spent weeks building it out only to find nobody really engaged with any of it.

    Use data tags or keep info simple on the sites. In the weeks leading up sessions were tweaked nonstop and we'd have to update the content in 15 different spots. Really engage with page metrics and see what people are really even looking at and keep those other pages simple to save yourself time and rework.



    ------------------------------
    Rachel
    NJ
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    User Group Member
    Posted 05-31-2022 08:39

    JOB TITLE – Marketing Specialist 

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – Internal Technical training conference

    EVENT DATES - April 2022 

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: Completed

    TYPE OF EVENT - Hybrid

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) - 
    -event registration worked great, people were able to register for sessions easily.
    -cvent app worked great, attendees were able to locate their schedules easily.

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) –
    -Make sure to test, test, test. Ran into an issue day of event that forgot a check box and had to go into every session and fix. This prevented the virtual users from opening the teams link outside of attendee hub. I thought i had it checked when creating the virtual piece on the session that i tested, but maybe during the mass import of teams links i accidently changed it.
    -Make sure AV knows what do to with a RTMP URL. Ran into this issue as well. We couldn't get the RTMP link provided by cvent to work, last minute switch to zoom and it worked out. Made for extremely stressful time right before go live.
     



    ------------------------------
    Amanda Sharp
    Marketing Specialist
    Insight Direct USA, Inc.United States
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: "Share & Tell" Your Successes - Template Included

    User Group Member
    Posted 06-08-2022 08:32

    JOB TITLE – Senior System and Tools Specialist/System Trainer/Web Build Lead

    EVENT DESCRIPTION – I support all users in all types of events - hcp trainings, national sales meetings, internal sales meetings, advisory boards, trade shows

    EVENT DATES - many

    PHASE OF EVENT PLANNING: (Event/Web Build, During Event, Post-Event) - all phases

    TYPE OF EVENT -

    WHAT WORKED FOR YOU (DO'S - write at least 2) -  clear detailed event websites, emails that are clear and detailed and sent at different event intervals.

    WHAT TO AVOID (DON'TS - write at least 2) – providing less information and making it so attendees have to contact you, not asking enough information during registration.



    ------------------------------
    Amy Lum
    Senior Systems and Tools Specialist
    Boston Scientific CorporationUnited States
    ------------------------------