Keeping the show
OnAIR the road
MEI’s chief operating office, Andy Rice, tells CN how partnering
with EventsAIR kept their show on the online road
MEI is a business development
consultancy that acts as an
interface between the organisers of
major events, such as the
Olympics, Commonwealth Games,
Pan American Games, and
European Championships,
connecting them with best of breed
suppliers. The company aims to
help mitigate risk, minimise cost,
and maximise revenues and
engagement. Part of this process is
putting together summits that allow
suppliers and organizers to come
together.
Challenges
The challenge for MEI was to turn
its flagship event, Major Events
Summit (MES), into a successful
online conference. The online event
needed to provide the same level of
engagement and value as the
traditionally physical conference,
which could not go ahead as
planned due to the Covid-19 global
pandemic. The organisers required
an online event that would allow
suppliers and decisionmakers,
involved in the world’s most prolific
sports and performance events, to
enjoy the same levels of connection
and interaction as they would at the
physical event.
“Networking and the transfer of
best practice knowledge is very
important at our summits,” said
Andy Rice, chief operating officer at
MEI.
“The 2020 MES was due to take
place in Birmingham in June, but
when Covid-19 hit in March, we had
to decide whether to cancel it or
switch over to a virtual event.
Through our relationship with
EventsAIR, we were encouraged to
go virtual. So, we gave ourselves an
extra month and started planning a
virtual summit.”
The process
The first step involved finding
exactly the right platform on which
to host the event.
“We needed to be confident that
we had the right platform,” Rice
explained. “So, we researched the
different platforms on offer. It was
a competitive pitch and EventsAIR
won because of their flexibility and
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extreme
Case study
willingness to
work with us,
which we felt was especially
important.”
Having selected the OnAIR virtual
and hybrid event platform created
by EventsAIR, MEI had to recruit
speakers. Thanks to the support,
training, and encouragement
EventsAIR provided, MEI was able
to recruit 55 speakers. This was no
mean feat as many speakers were
unsure of what to expect and what
would be required of them, but the
EventsAIR team and the OnAIR
platform made it easy for them.
“We had 1,150 delegates
registered. On average, we were
looking at about a 150 to 200
delegates per session. Normally for
our physical events, we would
expect between 300 to 500
delegates, so we more than
doubled the number of people that
we could reach,” said Rice.
Which features proved popular?
The OnAIR feature the MEI team
liked the most was the on-demand
service that allows delegates to
access all the sessions in their own
time after the event. This ability to
attend the sessions they missed
during the live event or revisit talks
that they particularly enjoyed,
provided immense value that they
would not get from a physical
event.
“During the event, we were able
to tell our delegates: ‘Don’t worry if
you can’t listen to this session now,
you can always access it later’. That
was extremely valuable!” said Rice.
MEI will continue to use the
OnAIR platform in the future as it
allows them to offer both virtual
and hybrid events.
“With OnAIR, when the
environment changes, and we are
able to meet in person again, we’ll
be able to offer a hybrid conference
experience. This will allow us to
bring in a wider range of speakers,
improve our reach and allow more
people to join us. I definitely see us
continuing to work with OnAIR,”
Rice concluded.
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