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: Coral Carson
Company Name: Trend Hunter
Job Title: Director of Events
Years of Experience: 8
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?
Throughout the pandemic, Trend Hunter hosted many virtual events including webinars and merging our Future Festival events into the digital space. I feel that while the pandemic created many barriers for the events industry, it also expanded our capabilities in what we can now do with hybrid events as well as connect further with our attendees to create elevated experiences. We just finished our 2022 series of 1 Day Innovation Conferences throughout the United States and we are so happy to be back in the live events space. We are now able to offer great follow-up materials and action items pre and post-event that elevates the attendee experience both live and virtually.
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?
We can connect attendees together more so now than we've ever been able to before. Our communication and itinerary portals are all-encompassing of every Trend Hunter event that the attendee has participated in and we are continuously implementing new ways to make the attendee experience accelerated.
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 an excellent way to expand your audience and have a global reach. I feel that hybrid events are the new normal and having recordings, follow up materials, webinars, or other ways to access content is now an expectation that people have when they sign up for events. I feel that hybrid events have allowed event organizers to strategically think of other ways and avenues their content could be utilized which is beneficial for the organizer and the attendees.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
Future Festival is a very unique experience where our attendees participate in hands-on immersive experiences through our Trend Safaris, Future Party, and networking events. Our biggest value stems from our content and flourishes throughout all other aspects of our event that truly creates and fosters a playground of innovation. Future Festival World Summit is from September 27th - 29th in Toronto, Canada this year and we are so excited to be bringing back these epic live experiences for our attendees.
As the pandemic fades away and we return to face-to-face events what do you hope changes, either for planners or hoteliers, in the traditional RFP and proposal process as a result of all of the learnings from the last 20+ months?
Our partners have been fantastic to work with throughout the pandemic so I would hope to see the continuation of flexibility and understanding throughout the entire industry.
This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where HopSkip spotlights 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.