Planners Moving Forward Series- Sarah Sentes, Manager Tools
Sarah Sentes, of Manager Tools, brings 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.
Luke Whalin
Sep 7, 2022
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: Sarah Sentes
Company Name: Manager Tools
Job Title: Public Conference Director
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?
Perfectly! We have a huge community of people who listen to our podcasts and have been waiting for months for the world to be ready for in-person events again. We're definitely experiencing a rebound-effect at our in-person events due to folks who've waited 2+ years to join us.PLUS, during the pandemic, we converted all of our in-person conference offerings to a virtual format, giving us even more more ways to serve our community. Some won't be comfortable with in-person, that's ok, now we have options for both!
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?
The largest change is that we're gathering more information from our community about the locations which we visit. We host around 38 events annually, in the past I've chosen those dates purely based on data around previous events and our listener community. This year though we're asking that members of our community tell us where they'd like to see us. We've posted on our website 50 events and have asked our community to express interest in the ones that they're interested in. By taking into account their input we hope to build an event schedule that meets the needs of our community, better than ever before. Additionally, we've changed our approach and are now seeking higher-cost venue's for our in-person events than we had before the pandemic. We've been really cost-conscious in the past, but nearing the end of the pandemic we started noticing issues with these lower-cost properties. It's hard to find staff, the mid-low end properties are struggling with this the most, leaving us unsupported onsite. Hotel brands, especially those on the lower cost end, have opted to do less housekeeping and rooms being cleaned less often has resulted in poorer sanitation. And food availability in hotel's is not as robust, especially in lower cost hotels, and our presenters and attendees need to eat!
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?
Fully in-person ALL THE WAY! The learning experience in-person, compared with all the options out there, is truly unbeatable. It's so easy to do practical activities when in person (break out sessions, group activities, etc.) and adults learn by doing. Participants are so much more comfortable asking questions and engaging with the materials in-person, without the barrier that virtual platforms insert into the conversation. And everyone is focused on learning new concepts and being more effective since we’re without any distractions.
In your opinion, what do you think the biggest value for your attendees is in regards to returning to live events?
Networking and relationship building. Cohorts of people who attend a shared virtual event rarely leave having added people to their networks. People who sit in the same room together for 8 hours, have group work sessions, have multiple coffee breaks and eat lunch together, rarely leave without having everyone in that room's contact information.
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?
I really hope that hotels maintain the high degree of flexibility that they exhibited throughout the pandemic. We were so blessed to have been treated like gold by the majority of our properties and weren't held to contractual obligations regarding cancellations and reschedules. In many cases hotels COULD have invoked penalties, their grace has ensured we'll be customers for life. In addition I hope hotels keep their loose guidelines in regards to room capacity and don't return to trying cram big groups into tight spaces. At our events we do a lot of break out activities and need more room than is "required", it used to be hard to convince hotels to put us into larger spaces but not anymore
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.