I’ve had the fortune this week of speaking with some smart people who are doing neat things, Colin Crawford at Conferize and Brian Perkins of Highliner Events. Both are working on vehicles or events where the emphasis is on “who’s there” rather than “what’s there.”, In other words, they are forwarding the idea that the actual list of attendees of an event is becoming a more and more important marketing tool to convince those who weren’t familiar with the brand, to think about jumping on a plane and attending an event.
This starts some interesting thoughts inside my head because with Michelle Bruno, I have actually have embarked upon the second EastVirtual Event Workshop, the emphasis of which will be teaching event and content professionals how create a strategic and tactical plan in building a digital or virtual event.
Can these two ideas jive?
I believe that although there may be less need for the number of physical events than there was five years ago, the ones which still exist perform a more important role than ever before, and that building personal and business relationships a hard-wired human desire. The desire to meet other people in the field seems to be more necessary and rewarding than ever. Thus the redefined importance of physical events in today’s compartmentalized economy.
Virtual events exist to serve another need … to be able to consume information immediately and in a deeper way; you don’t need to wait nine months for the next event to roll around to consume ‘deep’ content. It’s funny that I have insisted that the EastVirtual be a face-to-face event, but who knows what the future holds.
I guess I consider the content an event to be the lead generator for most events, but the list of participants the closer.