When Maritz studied when 360,000 conference-goers registered for the same 30 trade shows (i.e., 90 show instances) spanning diverse industries over three years, what emerged is how COVID remains the events industry’s biggest plot twist. While last-minute registrations spiked during the COVID years, that challenge hasn’t resolved itself. According to Maritz’s “Registration Insights Report,” in 2023, 45 percent delayed registration until less than four weeks before the event; more than one in four waited until the final two weeks before the show to register; and 9 percent registered once they a ..read more

Event organizers are worrying about increasing costs and attendance numbers at their events this year, according to responses to a recent survey conducted by AAE Speakers, a speakers bureau and talent agency. While this will come as a surprise to no one, the “2024 Speaking Industry Benchmark Report” — which includes the responses of 340 organizers planning corporate, nonprofit, academic, and other kinds of events, and 378 experienced speakers — yields valuable clues about the role organizers see speakers taking when solving for those challenges and in overall event programming. Two out of fiv ..read more

Showcase — presented by PCMA and Destinations International during Business Events Industry Week in Washington, D.C. — began with a discussion about “The State of Sourcing.” (EPNAC photo) The topic for panelists participating in “The State of Sourcing” discussion kicking off Showcase — presented by PCMA and Destinations International on April 10 during Business Events Industry Week in Washington, D.C. — was RFPs: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Jamie Murdock, Maritz’s managing vice president, sales, served as the moderator for panelists Melissa Fenwick, senior manager, event sourcing, Meet ..read more

Creating a speaker coaching webinar or tip sheets for your speakers can help them better connect with your audience. Don’t let the fact that you don’t currently have it in your budget to create a speaker coaching initiative stop you, advises Sarah Michel, CSP, vice president for professional connexity for Velvet Chainsaw Consulting, and a professional speaker. There still are a lot of small steps you can take to invest in improving your meeting’s education. Besides, she told Convene, “if you want your meeting to be sustainable in the future and to potentially grow, you can’t afford not to ..read more

Brisbane, Australia–based speaker and author Sally Foley-Lewis has worked with more than 20,000 middle managers across industries to help them become more effective leaders. The professional development expert, who will present a keynote at PCMA APAC’s The Business of Events conference on April 15 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, shared a simple approach to becoming more efficient in the workplace: Pressing Pause — “One big hurdle to productivity and self-leadership combined is a lack of prioritizing,” Foley-Lewis told Convene via email. “In a very busy work environment, tasks, demands, deci ..read more

The panel survey questions are designed for planners who organize — as well as those who attend — panel discussions, in addition to moderators and panelists. In 2013, professional meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold decided to devote her full attention to the art of moderating panel discussions. As she recounts on her website, she had “just watched two extremely boring back-to-back panels in the morning at a very high-level meeting,” which she was attending because she was facilitating a roundtable discussion that afternoon. Arnold wanted to explore how to radically improve th ..read more

PCMA’s Catalyst community offers members a platform to ask each other questions, share ideas, or, as the website says, “communicate and collaborate.” Here’s a sampling from a recent Catalyst discussion. “We will be hosting a conference in the U.S. in August that will have some international attendees,” Shelley Cohen, meeting manager, Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering Energetics Research Group, wrote on the Catalyst forum. “The last time we ran this conference in 2018, upon request, we provided letters of invitation to international attendees to use for their visa applicat ..read more

When Courtney Mesmer, CMP, DES, CES, became vice president, events, at the human resources organization WorldatWork®Total Rewards Association two years ago, her primary assignment was to modernize the organization’s annual meeting. At the time, the meeting — now called Total Rewards, which refers to the HR function that handles compensation, benefits, well-being effectiveness, development, and recognition — had a typical agenda for a traditional association meeting. In other words, three-hour plenary sessions, combined with breakout sessions that ranged in length from 60 to 75 minutes — and ..read more

Taylor Swift: The Conference Era When: Nov. 3–5, 2023 Where: Gayle Karch Cook Center for Public Arts & Humanities at Indiana University Bloomington Website: ArtsAndHumanities. indiana.edu/ Attendees: ~700 Taylor Swift has proven she can make the whole economy shimmer with the success of the Eras Tour, a career-spanning concert that kicked off in March 2023 and will run throughout 2024. According to the U.S. Travel Association, the tour’s total economic impact on the U.S. last year likely exceeded $10 billion, with “Swifties” spending an average of $1,300 in local markets to shake it ..read more

Dominic Thurbon will facilitate a session called “Connecting the Dots,” on April 16 at PCMA APAC’s The Business of Events conference at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Dominic Thurbon, a partner at the consulting firm Ernst & Young Australia, where he works in climate change and sustainability services, is in the business, he told Convene, “of helping people ‘do’ change in the face of disruption and uncertainty.” An entrepreneur who has founded two companies and created behavioral change programs for clients around the world, including Apple and IBM, Thurbon has also led the research for ..read more