Reactive or Proactive: Are You A Follower Or A Leader?
Most people in business are followers. They are the people will neither create anything nor be the first to jump opportunistically on a new market or innovative theme. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but without innovation or creation, nothing new or transformative will emerge. It takes someone with a creative spark for innovation […]
Why I’m So Sick of the Quick-Fix Approach to Everything!
Are you sick of hearing that technology or some silver bullet is going to turn your event around? Sure there are some tools and processes which will make your event more efficient and easier, but none will fix an event which is poorly conceived, researched and not wanted by your prospective audience. I launched […]
Ready to Jump on the Customer Grenade?
I recently came across an article about a long-time exhibitor, Mile High Comics, and their decision to drop out of the San Diego Comic-Con event, ending a 44-year run as a customer. I mention the situation, not necessarily to beat up on San Diego Comic-Con, but rather to ask a question of all my readers. […]
Copying Your Competition − The First Step on the Road to Event Failure
An interesting column in last month’s Convene advocated working with your competition or co-opting them as competitors so that everyone can benefit. The piece included a link to a Harvard Business Review article that has a great quote: ‘It’s not who your competition is, but what it is.’ This means that you need to consider […]
Launch, Acquire – Or Die….
Before I started The Event Mechanic! there were two types of companies for which I worked: 1) an event generator and 2) an event buyer. In both situations, the owners of those companies realized that revenue growth and profitability required a pipeline of new products. Such offerings could be added to the ‘cash cow’ events […]
How Not to Engage Your Attendees
Many years ago, I was hired as a ‘secret shopper’ by a large conference company that did not feel it was ‘gelling’ with its audience at a particular event and sought help in figuring out why. What I discovered during that experience was a set of behaviors that showed me what not to do if […]
The Traits of an Indispensable Event Person
There’s been considerable discussion in recent years regarding the imminent replacement of many elements of the labor force with robots. The proposition got me thinking about times in the past when I managed a staff of seventeen people who executed four reasonably-sized events in a year. Now, I would have to do the same number […]
Six Factors That Will Kill Your Event
During my time in the events business I’ve seen a fair number of successful events, as well as witnessed some failures. In my experience, there are some key factors that, in some combination, will guarantee the failure of your event. Here’s what I believe are the critical mistakes that event organizers make. 1) Taking […]
The Four “Forks in the Road” of an Event
Recently a client asked how I would describe the lifecycle of an event. The question prompted me to ruminate that an event involves decisions that must be made at various stages, with its ongoing viability governed by those decisions. What are those stages? 1) Do you launch the event? You’ve got an idea and […]
No One Wants to Exhibit at Your Event
No one cares what you have to say It’s funny that in my 25+ years of working in this industry, I’ve come to anticipate that frequent demand that “you’ve got to get [fill in the blank exhibitor] to sign up. They must be there.” And for many years my quest was to find the perfect […]