
Velvet Chainsaw
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Velvet Chainsaw is a business improvement consulting firm who helps conference organizers grow or transform their major face-to-face programs.
Velvet Chainsaw
2M ago
Our friends at Leading Tagoras are conducting a survey to help guide your association’s future learning strategy. We’re sharing this because Tagoras has a great track record of doing high-quality research and sharing the insights with those participating in the survey. To contribute and learn about the trends that will have the most impact on ... [Read more ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
4M ago
During a recent client roundtable, we had a lively discussion around the challenges of changing up the way awards are presented during general sessions at events. While all agree it is important to celebrate professional accomplishments, award presentations are one of the hardest event features for leaders to agree to modernize, change, or make more ... [Read more ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
6M ago
The Exhibitor Advocate recently released its 2023 Annual Survey of Exhibition Rates. This report compares material handling, labor, and equipment costs across 24 major U.S. destinations. Here are two takeaways you should consider. Not only is the Annual Survey of Exhibition Rates a handy tool for comparing exhibitor costs in one city vs. another, it ... [Read more ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
7M ago
“What gets measured, gets managed,” is a phrase coined by management guru Peter Drucker. For annual conferences, this is best accomplished by identifying and adopting a combination of leading and lagging performance measures. Not all metrics can give you the insights you need right now. Lagging indicators look at the past — the end results ... [Read more ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
7M ago
Here’s a simple project-management tool that can help streamline internal communications — and clarify accountability — for annual meetings.
Some components of planning an association annual meeting involve multiple departments and competing priorities. Membership wants one thing; publications, marketing, and chapter relations, another. Having too many cooks in the kitchen — and no clear owner — leads to wasted time, energy, and frustration.
As a product and project manager for your annual meeting, you can address this challenge by leading a collaborative process to clearly define individual ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
8M ago
Focus by Jared Cherup
I’ve been a big fan of Customer Centricity, a book written by Wharton’s Peter Fader for quite some time. Fader advocates that “in the world of customer centricity, there are good customers … and then there is pretty much everybody else.” He recommends focusing and investing in retaining the former, while not ignoring the latter.
To apply the concepts of customer centricity to Annual Conferences, identify the attributes of your most frequent full conference paying attendees (top 5 or 10%) over the past five years or so. Attributes may include firmographics like industry ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
1y ago
Conference organizers know that the “main course” of their education offering and value proposition is in the concurrent education sessions. These learning experiences are primarily guided and selected by committee members who have little to no training or experience in adult learning principles. This model can be very risky. What happens in those rooms will make or break their overall satisfaction and future decisions to attend.
Don’t Leave Education to Chance
Imagine what could happen if you invested in developing your conference committee members and speakers to increase the quality of the ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
1y ago
A number of associations we work with have seen their annual convention exhibit space sales lag attendance, which has recovered since the pandemic. Conversely, sponsorship revenue is back to pre-pandemic levels and has upside potential. If your sponsorship menu and prospectus look similar to 2019, a refresh can help you seize this growth opportunity.
Here’s a step-by-step guide for auditing and refreshing your sponsorship menu. The first two steps are critical for organizing your sponsor data for analysis. Steps three through five should be done collaboratively with a small workgroup.
Itemiz ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
1y ago
According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), the business-to-business exhibition industry is still in recovery mode. The bad news is that full year performance for 2023 participation and revenues is expected to be 9.5% below 2019. The good news is that 2024 is expected to eclipse 2019 results by 3.6%. (One can only hope!)
Whether your results are better or worse than the CEIR index, I think it is a helpful top-line metric for benchmarking and sharing with your organization’s leadership. For most business event professionals, rebuilding attendance and overall revenue is pri ..read more
Velvet Chainsaw
1y ago
Many of our clients have had to navigate unchartered waters as venue contracts (that were secured years ago) are now being questioned and challenged by members in states that have adopted discriminatory and women’s health laws that go against the mission and values of the association.
In response, we posted this article back in April to provide decision-making resources and examples of communication strategies for boards facing these very difficult decisions.
Creating a Safe and Welcoming Environment
Last week, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) hosted a one-hour webinar led ..read more