This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.
Name: Avani Patel
Company Name: Ultradent Products
Job Title: Event Planner
Years of Experience: 10
How do you think you are positioned, after months of persevering with the pandemic, to take advantage of our new and disrupted meetings/events landscape?
As event planner we are now positioned to take a look at the events we did in the past years and redefine them. For me personally it was a great opportunity to take a deep dive into the events we were doing, why we are doing and what type of ROI were getting. From there I was able to create and pilot a new program that focused more on innovative and creative events for our attendees.
As our community moves forward with planning in person meetings, what new technologies or processes are you implementing that you may have not looked at before?
As we are moving forward we found ourselves doing more online seminars. When COVID first strict we were all forced to find ways to help events stay alive and engage with our clients. Doing online free seminars pre recorded and live was something we never looked into before. Now we are continuing with them and finding that it is a great way to reach audiences that we never would have before.
As we see virtual meetings transition back to face to face, hybrid meetings are beginning to be the vehicle to return to normalcy. What are your thoughts on hybrid meetings versus traditional fully in person meetings?
Hybrid meetings are a great way to connect with audience who don't have the time, money or resources to come to in person events. You are able to still gain new customers and was a great way to connect during the pandemic. Now customers are eager to get back to face to face events. They want to be able to fully immerse themselves in the culture, esthetic and networking of an in person event. In person events will always create a experiences that virtual events will not be able to do.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
The biggest value for our attendees in live events is the networking opportunity. Virtual events will always lack the opportunity for attendees to get know and share ideas with each other while at live events. What I found was on virtual events their were so many distractions for attendees and to try to hold the attention of those attendees after the meeting was over was event harder. I think one of the best parts of live events is letting the attendees talk and share experiences, stories, ideas with one another either at a mixer, over lunch or in the seminar itself. I love seeing our attendees connecting with one another and learning from each other. Attendees want to connect with each other and through in person events they can do this. You never know what next big idea will come from your attendee connecting at an event.
This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlight's planners across the industry to bring awareness of how they adapted to COVID-19, communicating and lessons learned and sharing how they are viewing the meetings and events industry in a post-pandemic world.