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: Denise Miller
Company Name: Medical Group Management Association
Job Title: Sr. Meetings Manager, Exhibits & Sponsorship
Years of Experience: 28
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?
We've been through it! After many lessons learned, we produced two virtual mid-pandemic 2020 events, and then we went back; live, safe, and onsite in San Diego in October of 2021, followed by a virtual production of that same event two weeks later. Intentionally or accidentally, inside our determination to be flexible and versatile, we seem to have found a secondary audience of members who want their education delivered virtually and would prefer to spend 3 days online to acquire their needed CEUs. I feel like our team is built of wise brave warriors now! We continue to listen to how our audiences (both attendees and exhibitors) want to interact and we'll continue to build experiences both live and virtual, that our customers find valuable.
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 experimented with "Safety Sponsorships" to include our exhibitors in the "safe meetings" mantra that we chanted for months. We also employed a risk management consulting firm that helped us with Vaccine Mandates and a safety app for safe entrances and checkpoints.
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?
I'm still not sold on hybrid meetings simply because it splits the teams' ability to be fully present for both audiences. (in-person and online). We've found such success in hyper-focusing a live in-person event, complete with FOMO and lots of video from onsite -- followed by a fully virtual event in the weeks after, but literally tailored, shot, and re-edited or recorded for the online audience and set up for interactive chat and networking. At this time (we're still learning!) I am of the mind that catering to these two separate audiences and giving them the content as they wish to receive it, is the sweet spot for MGMA currently.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
Learning from each other. There are fewer opportunities online to actually have a conversation and get to know someone or hear directly about someone else's experience in a virtual environment. As an old-school tradeshow producer, I stand firmly behind, "you can't replace face-to-face!"
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?
Well, this isn't exactly what was asked, but I hope we stick with the change we did make in how we sell exhibit space and/or the experience of our next event to our exhibitors and sponsors. The flexibility and creativity we've been almost forced to find and use in creating new opportunities for sponsorship and involvement in the product (content) of the show have been appreciated and adopted by our sponsor/exhibitor base.
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.