Insights

We Lost ‘Shark Tank.’ Your Event Ideas Don’t Have To.

By Ben Kirst, account strategist

On Sept. 24, two of my colleagues — Ashley Ramirez, mdg account strategist, and Patrick Loftus, senior director of strategy & insights at Freeman — and I teamed up to take on two competing trios in the State of the Pitch Challenge at Freeman’s Inside Live D.C.

That was the official name, anyway. Pretty much everyone at Freeman and mdg called it “the ‘Shark Tank’ event,” because that’s basically what it was. Three teams pitched ideas to improve or disrupt the way events work, tackling attendee acquisition and retention, the event experience, or exhibitor and sponsor growth and activations. Three judges (and the audience of roughly 80 clients and coworkers) would decide the winner. 

The Winners

Not us! Team one — Megan Finnell, senior strategy & insights director, Freeman; Lauren Moore, senior director of strategy & sponsorship sales, Freeman; and Rachel Scharmann, group director & account strategist, mdg — did a great job winning over the voters with a vision of trade show floors designed around attendees rather than the biggest budgets, longest-tenured exhibitors or loudest voices.

More Bad News

We didn’t even finish second! That went to team two: Liz Sakellarides, account strategist, mdg; Katie Stanley, senior project manager, Freeman, and Ernesto Alcantar, senior director, strategy & insights, Freeman. Their pitch used a five-step event planning framework to compare two hypothetical concepts (leadership summit vs. next-gen expo) based on anticipated audience, willingness to pay, conversion and expected year-one attendance.

We finished what we’d call a strong third, proposing that exhibitors host 60-minute sponsored, expert-led sessions on the expo floor. Why? Because, in recent Freeman research, non-attendees said what would get them to a show is small-group, hands-on learning and networking with subject-matter experts, so they can bring tangible skills back to the office and accelerate their careers.

How Does This Help Event Organizers?

“Shark Tank” or not, this kind of competitive event — organizing research and strategic ideation — doesn’t happen without uncovering valuable information and intriguing new ideas. Each of the three pitches had audience members speculating how the concepts could apply to their own efforts.

Here are three big takeaways for event organizers:

1. There’s lots of room to improve the trade show floor.

The three teams each pointed out the room for trade show floor innovation in different ways:

  • Team one noted that the show floor doesn’t feel like it’s built for the way attendees want to do business.
  • Team two moved the innovation upstream, offering a framework for testing whether a new show should exist at all. Better floors start with knowing who a show is for and what they’ll pay for, before a single booth is placed.
  • Team three pointed out that dedicating a small section of the floor to the needs of those most skeptical about attending events could benefit attendees, organizers and exhibitors alike.

The real-world takeaway for event organizers? Be willing to pick apart assumptions with data and research. The marketing team thinks the new event should target executive decision-makers? The real dollars may be in a broader audience.

Feel beholden to priority points and longtime exhibitors? Let the strongest and most persistent attendee feedback guide the way to a better experience for everyone.

Writing off non-attendees? Freeman research shows bringing them in may be as simple as giving them what they have consistently asked for: an opportunity to go back to the office smarter and more competitive.

2. Keeping it real is part of the job.

You know what drives a decision-maker crazy? When you come to them with a game-changing idea that’s about as realistic to implement as a strategy for winning the lottery. The concepts brought to the judges for the State of the Pitch Challenge were notable in the sense that, while innovative, they were also doable.

“The teams took real insights and reflected them in how we work, and what we could produce for our clients,” said Shauna Peters, co-organizer of the event and senior vice president, operations and strategy, mdg. “We are putting stock in the data that’s coming out. You could see that in the pitches. They weren’t ‘in a perfect world’ things. All of what was discussed is within reach.”

That’s an important takeaway for event organizers. Stakeholders are more amenable to changes that build on existing programs or to new concepts backed by data, research and feedback.

3. “Shark Tank” yourself.

Radical candor, challenge culture, total transparency and other quasi-philosophical business concepts probably show up in your LinkedIn feed pretty regularly. They sound fine, except for the fact that building the kind of organizational trust where you can dismiss someone’s ideas (respectfully) without permanently damaging a working relationship is hard.

The “Shark Tank” approach helps. I thought our team had a great idea; having three judges punch holes in it made me realize there was more work to do. At the same time, because the judges were impartial, there was no sense that we were being disrespected, and we were able to respond to the tough questions with thoughtful answers drawn from weeks of preparation.

“It made it memorable,” Ramirez said. “I think it infused a kind of fun into the competition, keeping the pitches moving and the teams on their feet. And when you’re up there, it really makes you synthesize in real time all the things you want to say into quick, distilled hits.”

Event organizers always need to be willing to change along with the industry, but that doesn’t mean every new idea is spun gold. Bringing in colleagues or partners who aren’t necessarily distracted by existing relationships, power dynamics or assumptions can help determine if you’re onto something or need to take your concept back to the workshop.

What We’ve Learned About Innovative Event Solutions

  • Competition breeds innovation in environments where change is rewarded. The events business is a prime example of an industry where new is coveted, but the same-old-same-old can be a comfortable crutch.
  • It’s also an industry where evolution is critical, but the stakes can be high for any changes that threaten the status quo.
  • Getting into the “Shark Tank” reinforced that battle-tested concepts presenting real opportunity and feasible blueprints for implementation have a stronger chance of being accepted.
  • A major part of event organizing is persuasion — and our version of “Shark Tank” is an ideal place to find whether your pitch holds up.