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Manchester Central at what they can do – they have some really cool LED bars , so were giving people what they would normally get when they leave the venue and go to the pub .
“ You can create different types of experiences within the venue .”
Step Connect2 spent the pandemic galvanising their communities .
“ In March 2020 what was really fascinating was looking at ‘ what actually do we do ?’ How can you still communicate and serve and bring your community together ?”
They ran a pilot with ASP ’ s Gateway product and are now creating a Netflix-style streaming platform to house all their content .
“ If you can bring your community together 365 and they see you as that facilitating enabling factor your brands become a lot more engrained in the community . You become
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“ Live events are inherently fun ... they bring communities together ”
a trusted source of information .
“ The pandemic made us more robust and our clients really responded to what we were doing . From commercial perspective we ’ ve seen really strong renewals .
“ We can say to our clients ‘ we can do the live event for you , but now we can also do webinars , roundtables , bespoke events , fireside chats .’
“ Done in the right way it can be a really galvanising factor .”
Lee explains their strategy for keeping visitors engaged as follows : “ You have
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pre-connect , connect and reconnect . Connect is your live event , but if you can work it with digital content – apps or whatever – you can engage registered attendees to start communicating with each other . It also means visitors can present that to whoever they need to get sign off from – so they can see actually that ’ s worth them going to that show .
“ As an exhibitor and attendee you get that opportunity to make connections throughout the year .
“ The traditional way of finding out of its working is doing survey and all that , but the best way I can gauge how an event is going is being out on the floor , speaking to visitors , asking how their experience is going . Just walking about , looking , are people using the feature areas you ’ ve put on , are people smiling ? That feedback there and then is invaluable .
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“ You can get statistics through apps and start to get idea of people ’ s habits , but at the end of the day it ’ s walking around . Seeing if people are smiling . It ’ s a simple as that .”
“ It ’ s going to be an interesting few years ahead , but it ’ s going to be those organisers that are fun and put smiles on faces that thrive .
“ Pre-pandemic , we started to see people dropping the ties . “ Business events don ’ t need to be boring . It ’ s those that aren ’ t and are doing that in the right way – not necessarily massive dance festivals , that are succeeding . “ If you look at how the work-life balance is blending – that ’ s happening with people coming to our shows , it makes sense .
“ We will have business lounges and touchdown spaces if people need to jump on a Teams call or a quiet space to answer emails . But it ’ s understanding audiences , what drives them to attend a show and then giving them the best experience they can take away from that , so they come away saying ‘ wow , that was really interesting . I learned a lot from that . I must put it in my calendar for next year . What other events is that organiser doing ?’”
Lee also believes that there will be a ricochet effect of success within the exhibitions industry .
“ A good event leads to another good event , he says . “ As an industry the more the positivity there is about going to live events the better it is for all of us .” EN
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April — 17 |