Down for the Count

Last week, The New York Times listed 11 popular pastimes that, thanks to Covid-19, may already be "things of the past."

According to reporter Bryan Pietsch, you should no longer expect to see people:

• Blow out candles on a birthday cake
• Drag on a buddy's vape pen
• Let their kids jump into a ball pit
• Get a department store makeover
• Play in an escape room
• Drink at a crowded bar
• Sip from a scorpion bowl
• Host a poker game
• Perform karaoke
• Shop for pleasure
• Shake hands, kiss, and hug

I'd add a 12th activity you're unlikely to see people engage in again:

• Attend trade shows

Wait, what?

Face-to-face events are vital.  

Schmoozing is irreplaceable. 

Trade shows mean business.

Yes, once upon a time, that was true. 

But the world has been turned upside down by a microbe.

It's hard to imagine a world without trade shows. 

But whoever thought trains, alarm clocks, encyclopedias, maps, drive ins, and pay phones, would disappear?

Eighteen years ago, SARS dealt the trade show industry a body blow; but the disease was contained swiftly, and the industry rebounded.

This time 'round is different. Covid-19 isn't SARS. 

The punches keep coming.

Fond Memories of a Forgotten Industry

If you want to know where the future goes to be seen, look here.

― Charles Pappas

Charles Pappas, reporter for Exhibitor, has compiled a lighthearted treasury of trade show tales titled Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords: How World's Fairs and Trade Expos Changed the World. 

It's a whimsical wayback machine that whirls you through a century and a half of gadgets and the shows that made them famous.

Pappas' goal isn't to spotlight the stars, but the stage. 

Although worth about $100 billion today, trade shows are a forgotten industry, he says, "as invisible as the oxygen in the air around us."

And that's ironic because shows are much more than "product platforms," Pappas says: they help launch social movements.

You'll find tons of delightful trivia inside his 250 pages.

Among my favorite:

• We owe our obsession with dinosaurs to an 1851 London show
  
  
• We eat bananas because an 1876 Philadelphia show popularized them
  
  
• The seed money for the Statue of Liberty came from shows in Paris and Philadelphia
  
  
• Aunt Jemima owes her fame to an 1893 Chicago show
  
  
• The electric vibrator premiered at a 1900 Paris show (where else?)
  
  
• The Patriotic Food Show promoted eating roadkill to help ration food in 1918
  
  
• Space travel launched at a 1927 show in Moscow (30 years before Sputnik)
  
  
• Picasso's "Guernica" began life as a trade show mural
  
  
• The run on Nylon stockings began at the 1939 New York show
  
  
• The term "Con" (as in Comic-Con) was coined by the same promoter who coined "Sci-Fi"

Pappas' book suffers from the author's overuse of puns, but they're easily overlooked amid the fascinating stories he tells. 

Don't miss Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords. It's a lot of fun.

Why are Events Attracting Publishers?

While events are no easy money, publishers are onto them like white on rice.

Digiday reports that Forbes, in a move "symptomatic of an industry in change," is shifting from magazine to event production, firing print people and hiring event ones.

"Forbes’ struggles aren’t unique, given the carnage that befell both traditional and digital media outlets in 2017," Digiday says.

What's behind the carnage?

A new study by Reuters suggests readers are done with digital content—there's too much of it, both good and bad—and that content shock is slaying the golden goose digital publishing represented 20 years ago.

Today's readers spend only eight minutes a day on publisher's content—and most (92%) are  unwilling to pay for it. That's made it nearly impossible for publishers, reliant on advertising income, to sustain profits—no matter their investments in cool platforms and reputable content.

"The content bubble will eventually burst unless more robust business models are found," says Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, coauthor of the study.

One "more robust business model" may in fact be events, where margins hover around 30%.

More on James' Hierarchy

A colleague asked me to rate his organization's events on the 5-point scale I proposed earlier this week.

The events are among the most important, prestigious and successful in the market they serve.

That understood, I gave them a single star.

To recap the rating system I proposed: 

• 1-star events focus on everyday needs, satisfying attendees' needs to navigate without stress through physical space; meet other people and chat; acquire useful information; and talk business.

• 2-star events cater to fantasy, satisfying attendees' needs to lessen anxiety and escape reality.

• 3-star events provide cheap thrills, satisfying attendees’ needs to be wowed and titillated.

• 4-star events provide genuine thrills, satisfying attendees’ needs to be awed by proof of human ingenuity and displays of daring.

• 5-star events focus on melioration, satisfying attendees’ needs to improve not only themselves, but to better the lives of others.

If you are honest about your own event and can at best award it one star, remember that to earn a 1-star rating from Michelin, a restaurant has to represent, “A good place to stop on your journey, indicating a very good restaurant in its category, offering cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard.”

Even celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants all don’t have a Michelin 1-star rating.

James' Hierarchy

Like gourmands, event attendees crave a "5-star" experience, and event producers should want to deliver one.

But how do you define a 5-star experience? Or, for that matter, a 1-, 2-, 3- or 4-star one? 

To my knowledge, nobody's offered a definition. So I will.

With a nod to Abraham Maslow, James' Hierarchy of Experiences presupposes:

1. Experiences can be categorized by their capacity to fill attendees' needs, and
   
2. Experiences can be ranked hierarchically.

So, from the bottom to the top, here goes:

Everydayness. This term characterizes the experience delivered by the vast majority of successful events; cribbing from restaurant-rating systems, you might label them "1-star" events. Events in this category more or less satisfy attendees' basic needs to (1) navigate without stress through physical space; (2) meet other people and chat; (3) acquire useful information; and (4) talk business. Of course, many events don't meet even this rock-bottom standard: their signage is inscrutable; they over-schedule attendees; they make every session a panel; and they treat suppliers like lepers.

Fantasy. This term characterizes "2-star" events like Mardi Gras, Coachella and Fantasy Fest. Events in this category fill not only attendees' everyday experiential needs (to navigate, converse, learn and do business), but their next-level needs to lessen anxiety and escape reality. Disney has mastered the delivery of such experiences. The more event producers can emulate the company, the closer their events will advance toward "2-star" status. Virtual reality is a quick and dirty way to accelerate that advance.

Cheap Thrills. This term characterizes "3-star" events like Comic Con, Burning Man and Bike Week. Events in this category fill not only attendees' everyday needs and their needs for fantasy, but their needs to be wowed and titillated. Remarkable stunts, goofy sideshows, celebrity appearances, and novel tchotchkes abound at events in this category. Every producer should strive to produce an event that delivers cheap thrills; few do.

Genuine Thrills. This term characterizes "4-star" events like CES, Sundance, and the Indianapolis 500. Events in this category fill not only attendees' everyday needs, their needs for fantasy, and their needs for cheap thrills, but their needs to be awed by (1) proof of human ingenuity and (2) displays of daring. The delivery of genuine thrills is the reason the Colombian Exposition, The 1964 New York World's Fair and the 1992 Summer Olympics made the history books.

Melioration. This term characterizes "5-star" events like TED, SXSW and the Aspen Ideas Festival. Events in this category fill all of attendees' needs, including the very highest-level ones: to improve not only themselves, but to better the lives of others. Maslow would call it self actualization.

NOTE: The term everydayness is borrowed from the philosopher Martin Heidegger; and melioration, from the philosopher William James (alas, no relation).

Who Attends B2B Events?

According to American Express' 2018 Global Meetings & Events Forecast, five kinds of folks show up at B2B events.

Knowledge Seekers. These attendees want to improve themselves. Content and speakers drive their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Target your content to them
• Invest in a high-profile speaker
• Offer lots of choices
• Provide for note-taking and session-materials archiving in your app
• Offer creative meeting-space set-ups
• Include sessions that feature attendee-speaker interaction
• Provide great post-event information

Tech-Savvy Networkers. These attendees value relationships. The volume of opportunities to connect drives their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Include features in your app that ease connection
• Gamify your event
• Provide tons of networking sessions
• Offer speed networking sessions
• Supply the attendee roster before the event
• Keep conversations going post-event

Inspiration Seekers. These attendees crave purpose. The volume of experiences drives their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Include motivational speakers and self-help and coaching sessions
• Offer brainstorming and co-creation sessions
• Offer chances to become immersed in the destination
• Use alternate venues that remove them from the traditional one
• Offer community outreach or CSR experiences

Social Butterflies. These attendees love meeting new people—and sharing the experience. The volume of meet-ups drives their decision to show up. To woo them, you should:

• Offer tons of opportunities for interaction in breakout sessions
• Offer informal meal settings, to encourage socializing
• Pack your event with entertainment and leisure activities
• Ask Social Butterflies to be your advisors
• Give them opportunities to be influencers through your app

Reluctant Attendees. These attendees are introverts. Professional obligations—and nothing more—drive their decision to come. To woo them:

• Make the professional benefits of attending clear in promotions
• Offer ice-breakers early during the event
• Include lots of breakout sessions
• Point out content that is forward-thinking or research-based
• Include ample free- or down-time
• Include a recommendation engine in your app
• Provide a virtual version of your event

Brand Fanatics. These attendees are devoted followers. Opportunities to get the "inside scoop" drive their decision to attend. To woo them:

• Include plenty of gadgets
• Provide access to key brand representatives
• Offer chances to win exclusive merchandise and experiences
• Provide product demonstrations and early access to new products
• Hold focus groups to allow them to share their insights and ideas
• Showcase the brand end to end

Events' Uneventful Downfall

Humankind's oldest, events remain, if not the cheapest, the best marketing channel.

But CMOs aren't keen on them, according to a report by The CMO Club.

While 7 of every 10 CMOs surveyed say events accelerate sales, 2 of every 3 say events aren't measurable; and 7 of 10 say events' "accountability gap" throws into question the event spend.

The accountability gap "creates challenges at budget time when the funding decisions are being made about events," according to the report. 

"While events are deemed critically important, they often lack the supporting financial data to objectively prove their value. Compared to other components of the CMO’s marketing mix that have become more sophisticated in measuring ROI, event marketers are lagging in their ability to connect the dots between activities and demonstrated results."

The accountability gap also makes choice difficult―the chief reason companies exhibit in the same events repeatedly, complaining all the while about lack of ROI.

What's a marketer to do? The report suggests you should:

Set unique goals for each event. "Not all events have the same purpose," the report says. "Some are designed to generate new leads and accelerate opportunities currently in the pipeline, while others are focused on strengthening relationships with key customers and gaining feedback to improve how marketers can better respond to their needs." Setting unique goals "will create a foundation for capturing the appropriate data to analyze the events against the stated objectives."

Create unique plans for each event. "Silos" often prevent cooperation between marketing and sales, pre-, at-, and post-event. Preparing written plans will knock down the silos and encourage both groups to capture relevant data.

Deliver an experience. This is mandatory. Quit simply checking boxes. Pick up the phone and call people before every event, be ready with a strong value proposition, and deliver it on site. If your event isn't an experience, it's a waste of time.

Feed your marketing automation and CRM systems. "Rarely are events judged on the revenue produced at that event," the report notes. "Opportunities discovered at the event take time to close and require significant post-event nurturing from marketing and follow-up from sales." Unless you import event data into your marketing automation and CRM systems, you can't track results.

Measure both activities and sales impact. Data captured at events should demonstrate ROI, not just reflect a bunch of activities. Ask your CMO to help you create C-suite-appropriate reports.

If events don't become a measurable marketing channel, they'll continue to be seen as a grievous expense, rather than an income-producing asset, the report concludes.

That could be their downfall.

Should Event Producers Mimic Luxury Retailers?

Luxury retail is dog-eat-dog. Unlike event producers, players in the business must stay ahead of audiences to survive. That's why they're hyper-focused on consumer trends.

Sabre identifies five of those trends in a new report, The Future of Luxury.

To survive in luxury retail, the report says, you must satisfy "individualized and transformative forms of luxury consumption" that deliver a cosmopolitan and existentialist jolt.

"More consumers are becoming aware of the isolating effect of social media ‘echo chambers.'" the report says. "This is accompanied by a growing desire to not only broaden personal horizons, but to find purpose and cultivate empathy for others while doing so."

Consumers' craving for self-actualization manifests itself in these five trends—five trends event producers would do well to acknowledge:

The Quintessential Self. Luxury brands that abet self-discovery are hot. For just $3,500, Maverick Helicopter’s Yoga in the Desert will whirl you by helicopter from Las Vegas to Valley of Fire State Park for a 75-minute yoga class.

No-Frills Chic. Luxury brands that shout "simple" are hot. For just $140,000, Airstream will sell you a camper trailer you can haul into the woods.

Premium Redeemed. Luxury brands that better the planet are hot. For just $2,125, you can stay a night in Nekupe, a posh resort in Nicaragua’s countryside that helps local farmers earn a living without the slash-and-burn technique.

Extravagance on Demand. Luxury brands that harness phones are hot. For just $3, Recharge lets you book a high-end hotel room in New York City by the minute.

Customized. Luxury brands that are personalized are hot. For just $169, DNA Unwrapped lets you plan vacation trips based on your chromosomes.

Sponsors Want Spillover

Rigid thinking causes most trade show organizers to continue peddling sponsorships like they were ads, when today's sponsors want something much more valuable.

Sponsors want spillover.

Spillover results when attendees transfer their good feelings about an event to its sponsors―an effect no ad can produce.

While today's marketers believe awareness―the outcome of advertising―is hard to measure and cost-justify, they don't feel that way about engagement―the outcome of sponsorship.

Today's marketers will sponsor an event to engage people within communities; to build relationships and demonstrate market leadership, customer care, and social responsibility. 

They'll even do it merely to block a competitor from doing it.

But they won't sponsor an event for awareness.

How to Make Moments Customers Remember

How do you create an experience customers will remember?

That's the question Chip and Dan Heath answer in their forthcoming book, The Power of Moments.

You'll recall the brothers' skills in science-based storytelling from their previous best sellers, Made to Stick and Switch.

The Power of Moments repeats those performances.

The Heaths call memorable experiences "flagship moments" and claim they're made from four ingredients:

• Elevation (flagship moments clearly rise above the rest)
• Insight (they rewire our thinking)
• Pride (they catch us at our best) and
• Connection (they bring us together)

It isn't easy to engineer a flagship moment, else every marketer would do it. Few do.

If you want to acquire the skill, the Heath Brothers advise you to "think in moments" and pay particular attention to three:

• Milestones (regular occasions like holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, etc.)
• Transitions (ritualistic events like bar mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, etc.) and
• Pits (moments of downtime like waiting in a line, undergoing a medical procedure, etc.)

The astute marketer not only spots these moments, the Heaths say, but shapes them, by blending some or all of the four ingredients that yield a flagship moment.

And their recipe is simple: "Transitions should be marked, milestones commemorated, and pits filled."

The Power of Moments' 300 pages are packed with examples of moment-making artistry, and make the book worth reading.

You probably know Disney distracts you while you wait in long lines, Southwest clowns around during the flight-safety announcements, and Starbucks honors your birthdays with a free-drink coupon.

But you might not know that all Pret a Manger employees can give away free food, based on how much they like a customer's looks; that Sharp Healthcare, by bringing all of its 12,000 employees to a convention center for an annual pep talk, keeps patient satisfaction in the ninetieth percentile (unheard of); and that John Deere welcomes all new employees on their first day with banners, gifts, lunches, and personalized videos.

The Power of Moments will give you plenty of ideas for "turning up the volume on reality" and delivering experiences your customers will remember. And you don't have to settle for only the examples in the book. The Heaths will soon offer free podcasts featuring more.

Doctor, Doctor

Why do 7 in 10 B2B marketers say events are the very best marketing channel?

The answer's simple: ROI.

Events routinely deliver big brands 5X ROI; small ones, 3X to 5X ROI.

"In-person events simply have more impact than all the social media posts and email newsletters in the world," says Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group.

Events allow you to generate leads and close sales; connect with buyers' emotions; expand your community; drive social media engagement and website traffic; and create months' of newsworthy marketing content.

But as importantly, Brenner says, events let you diagnose the cause of buyers' pain.

For inquisitive marketers, chatting with buyers over coffee, recording their comments at conference sessions, or conducting surveys through your event app may be just what the doctor ordered.

"You may discover a problem with your product or service that is the root of unexplained customer churn," Brenner says. Just as likely, "You could uncover strengths you didn’t realize you had."

Fight of the Century

Tradeshow versus Digital is going to be a slugfest, says event-industry consultant Francis Friedman in his new, 287-page book, The Modern Digital Tradeshow.

Nimble contender Digital could handily clobber the out-of-shape champion.

Digital has already driven Tradeshow from marketing's "center stage" onto a "specialized side stage," Friedman says; and, unless the latter regains its magic, Digital could win by a knockout.

Friedman prescribes a rigorous, three-legged regimen to help Tradeshow get back in trim:

• Redefinition. The tradeshow industry's "analog" business model is passé. "Our industry must change from its static 'show' industry self-concept," Friedman says. "We must view our future as a branded content and experience provider, and integral omni-channel member of a target community." Unless the industry rediscovers a purpose—its raison d'être—it will be excluded from the b-to-b marketers' club.
  
  
• Transformation. Organizers need to embrace event tech—now. There's simply no more time to debate the topic. "The tradeshow industry must now play catch-up to the changing digital marketing landscape through a fundamental shift in its historical business model and product configurations," Friedman says. Event tech that "animates" events and enables exhibitors to verify ROI will matter most—gizmos like VR, AR, AI, beacons, bots, holograms, and drones.
  
  
• Rebranding. The event industry needs to discover and express a new and dynamic "personality," or its transformation into a digital player will go unnoticed. "In the current tradeshow organizer model, 'the show' is inanimate, occupying a specific date and time on the calendar of its marketplace and unable to 'act.'" Friedman says. "'The show' per se has no arms or legs, no voice and no ability to act or interact with its market. 'The show' is just booths on a tradeshow floor at a given time and in each place."

Friedman for years—via keynotes, articles, books and white papers—has been prepping tradeshow organizers for the coming match. With The Modern Digital Tradeshow, he's provided the playbook they need to go the distance.

NOTE: The Modern Digital Tradeshow is available free on the author's website.

Is Your Event Profit Proof?

What's the "inconvenient truth" about selling online?

You'll go broke, says blogger Steven Dennis.

"Only a handful of venture capital-funded “pure-plays” have (or will ever) make money," Dennis says.

The rest (including Amazon) operate at below-average margins for the retail industry, amassing huge financial losses year upon year.

Of themselves, free shipping and liberal return policies guarantee these companies will remain "profit proof," Dennis says.

Worse yet: the cost to acquire a customer. When it comes to customer acquisition, web retailers suffer "diseconomies of scale," Dennis says.

"Many online brands attract their first tranche of customers relatively inexpensively, through word of mouth or other low cost strategies," he says.

But then, marketing costs start to escalate.

"As brands seeking growth need to reach a broader audience, they typically start to pay more and more to Facebook, Google and others to grab the customer’s attention and force their way into the customer’s consideration set," he says.

"Early on customers were acquired for next to nothing; now acquisition costs can easily exceed more than $100 per customer."

The higher the acquisition costs, the lower the gross margin on the resulting incremental sales, a dynamic that eventually lands the business in hardship.

Whenever I plan an attendee acquisition campaign for an event producer, I budget the marketing efforts using, give or take a few bucks, the same amount of money Dennis mentions—$100 per attendee.

Want 500 attendees? Plan to spend at least $50,000.

Some event producers balk—How can it cost so much?

But after more than three decades in the event-promotion business, working on events large and small and in a variety of industries and professions, I've found it a real-world rule-of-thumb.

And most producers who spend that kind of money on marketing can, in fact, run a successful event and go home with a tidy profit.

The "diseconomies of scale" only enter the picture when registration fees are low ; or when producers discount and give away registrations; or—the worst case—when admission to the event is free.

Of course, attendees are a necessary evil: without any, exhibitors have been known to complain. But they need not have "negative value" when registration fees are low (or nonexistent).

Attendees can be little ambling profit centers.

How?

Sell attendees livestreaming.

Events are cornucopias of content. When you capture that content on video, you can sell it to attendees for post-event consumption. None of them can be in two places at once, so none can possibly imbibe all the content you offer. What's more, every attendee loves to share good content with colleagues "back at the ranch." Why deny them that pleasure?

And why make your event "profit proof," when it can be enormously the opposite?  "Back-of-the-room" sales of livestreaming come cheaply, because attendees are already in your "store." The gross margin on the incremental sales you make will come at an extremely low rate—almost for free, if you already videotape content for projection purposes, as most producers do.

Want more food for thought? Check out my posts "Conference Planners: There's No Sin in Syndication" and "Just be Willing to Believe."

NOTE: CEIR reports that average attendee-acquisition costs currently range from $14 to $20 per person. But I don't believe the figures are reliable. My own past research, done in the 2000s, showed acquisition costs to range from $68 to $80 per person. CEIR's report, nonetheless, can help any producer get a grip on event-industry spending trends, and is worth studying.

Event Producers: Bodies at Rest

A body in motion stays in motion; a body at rest stays at rest.

— Isaac Newton

Most B2B events are tired, creaky and ridiculous. And it's no accident.

Most event producers are lazy.

Decades of easy money have made them that way.

That's not to say they're the only lazy businesspeople you'll encounter.

Laziness surrounds us—and runs rampant in industries where easy money once was made. Banking. Stock trading. Real estate. IT. Retail. Advertising.

Ad exec Mitch Joel—who calls laziness not sloth, but self-approval—laments what he sees in his own industry. "There is no doubt that certain strategies and tactics work, but it's the lazy mentality that has got me down these days," he says.

Folks in advertising, Joel says, are allergic to "long, hard and disruptive work." They're unwilling to wake up in the morning and say, "Today is a great day! We're going to destroy what doesn't work, test more things, tweak others, build newer metrics, and keep at it."

You might say they need some woke.

A lot of businesspeople need some woke. Instead, they're imbibing hype.

Hype is particularly dazzling to event producers, says event planner Warwick Davies, who's down on the hype-of-the-month: event tech.

Event tech promises panaceas, but really offers little more than quick-fix "gimmicks," Davies observes.

Gimmicks won't resurrect a dead event.

"Sure, there are some tools and processes which will make your event more efficient and easier," Davies says, "but none will fix an event which is poorly conceived, researched, and not wanted by your prospective audience."

No silver bullet can substitute for long, hard. disruptive work.

"If your philosophy about how to create a valuable event is wrong, there’s no amount of technology that is going to save you," he says.

Why are Conferences Dying?

Millennials are killing dozens of industries, according to Business Insider.

"Psychologically scarred" by the Great Recession, their wayward generation is boycotting:

• Retail outlets like banks, department stores, and home-improvement outlets
• Chain-restaurants like Applebee's, Hooters and Ruby Tuesday
• Groceries like beer, cereal, and yogurt
• Household goods like bar soap, fabric softener, and napkins
• Sports like pro football, golf, gyms, and motorcycles
• Luxury items like diamonds and designer handbags

Will conferences be next?

Many industry watchers predict so; and some producers are clearly anxious, if this ad's any indicator:

But for the scrappy producer, as Mark Twain said, "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

That breed of producer is testing the participatory "unconference," embracing the design ideas of trailblazers like Adrian Segar.

Segar insists old-school conferences "unconsciously promote and sustain power imbalances"—imbalances anathema to new audiences, who crave equality opportunity with producers and presenters to influence outcomes.

The power imbalances stem from producers' "underlying belief that when you lose control everything turns to chaos," Segar says.

"Meeting stakeholders and planners typically subscribe to this viewpoint because they can’t conceive of (usually because they’ve never experienced) a form of meeting that successfully uses a different kind of power relationship."

It's high time conference producers abandoned that viewpoint.

Or it's Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday.

Online's Goal is Offline

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

― Woody Allen

B2B marketers―smart ones―know online must lead to offline.

Because unless prospects experience your brand, there's little likelihood of large sales.

Digital alone doesn't cut it.

Digital's too delible.

As GE's CMO, Linda Boff, told Chief Content Officer this month, "Experiencing a brand versus just seeing something in the media is more and more important. It's more indelible. We think a lot about that. How do we bring the brand to life? And how are we going to show up?"

How will you show up?

You've got an online plan.

What's your offline plan?

Fierce Competition

Are you mad enough to launch an event?

RAI Amsterdam wants to encourage your madness.

Entrepreneurs and would-be event producers can enter its juried competition, Start up Your Event, through early September.

Think Shark Tank for trade shows.

A jury of event professionals will judge the ideas for first-time events submitted in terms of opportunity, feasibility, audience reach, value proposition, brand positioning, innovation, and other success factors.

RAI Amsterdam will award the winner not only six days' free space—2,000m² net for an event in October or November 2018— but, more importantly, free consulting in experience design, community management, and attendee and exhibitor marketing.

The winner will be announced at the mammoth broadcasters' show, IBC, at RAI Amsterdam in mid-September.

"There is definitely room for new shows, maybe not necessarily in the traditional exhibition format that we are used to," says Denise Capello, RAI Amsterdam's head of business development. "The world is changing and innovation rules, so there are plenty topics to be found. You need to figure out the trends and needs. Your destination is just the final piece in the puzzle.

Capello says most would-be producers who fail do so because they lack insight into their audience.

"Over the years, we've seen a number of startups, and find lack of in-depth knowledge to be a key indicator of failure. Would-be producers need to produce better feasibility studies to support their ideas, better event concepts, and better audience insights, which come from canvassing."

To date, three event concepts have been entered into the competition, which was announced in June.

"We've also had a number of inquiries from consumer event producers, whose concepts unfortunately do not meet the entry requirements of the competition," Capello says.

"But they have inspired us to come up with a new partnership model for consumer events, the first hopefully launching in the summer of 2018."

Windfall for Event Organizers

Event organizers can expect a windfall as companies boost their spending on face-to-face, according to Reuters.

The windfall comes at the expense of publishers reliant for revenues on companies' ad dollars.

"Organizers of conferences and trade shows are benefiting from a shift in the way marketing budgets are allocated, with companies spending less on advertising and more on events," write reporters Esha Vaish and Noor Zainab Hussain.

Research firm Outsell pegs the spend for B2B events by US companies this year at $28 billion, a 4% increase over 2016. US companies will spend $35 billion on ads this year, a 6% decrease.

"While the battle between traditional and online media outlets has grabbed headlines, companies are often skeptical that advertising with either translates into sales," write Vaish and Hussain. "Hence the shift towards events."

While conferences' and trade shows' prospects are closely linked to the economic health of the industries they serve, the shift of marketers' dollars to events offsets revenue losses due to other factors, such as government-imposed travel bans.

Gamification Supercharges Tradeshow Exhibits

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.

— E.M. Forster

Seven of 10 Americans believe attending events connects them to others, according to a recent survey by Eventbrite.

Among Millennials, that proportion's even higher—8 of 10.

Seven of 10 Millennials also believe events expand knowledge better than online content does, the survey reveals. And 1 of 2 attend events to have experiences they can share on social media.

For Millennials, attending events "is all about projecting to your social media network, and painting a picture of a phenomenal lifestyle," event planner Aubri Nowowiejski told Skift. "They chase experiences over things to get those likes and comments and interactions, and that dopamine fix."

If you accept Eventbrite's findings, exhibit marketers who help Millennials polish their personal brands will come out winners at tomorrow's B2B events.

Gamification is the secret sauce.

By offering them high-yield opportunities to enrich their personal brands, gamification counteracts Millennials’ unfortunate reluctance to engage in the "real world" of sales conversation.

Gamification makes networking fun and unintimidating—and delivers the all-important dopamine fix that comes when a Millennial wallflower can update his social media feeds.

One ready solution for exhibitors is PLAYBOOK, a lead-gen system that marries pre-show marketing with gamification.

With PLAYBOOK, exhibitors can not only attract large crowds of fun-seeking prospects to their booths, but get them to look up from their phones long enough to engage in conversation.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a bit biased in favor of PLAYBOOK, because it's the creation of Bob & David James. Learn more here.