Inner Circle

Event Marketing  

Guess what happened at Expo! Expo!

Each year, mdg asks its employees, clients and friends what they learned, discovered and/or enjoyed about Expo! Expo!, the International Association of Exhibitions and Events’ annual meeting. This year was no exception …

“Expo! Expo! continues to evolve and adapt to the changing landscape of the event industry. Vikram Mansharamani’s recommendation resonated with me – to consider new talent from outside the industry as a way to further develop the breadth of experience on your team and enhance decision-making at all levels of the organization. Also, Jochen Witt’s assessment of Millennials held a lot of truth – they really aren’t that different than older generations, they are simply younger and less experienced. In 20 years, Millennials will probably be saying the same thing about the generation entering the workplace.”

Brad Williams
Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association

“A primary objective of attending Expo! Expo! was finding new technologies that would facilitate promotional efforts by our exhibitors. I want to fully maximize the potential of our exhibitors’ databases for building traffic to our Expo (and their booths!). Thankfully, I found what I was looking for – including new tools from Turnout Now, Who@, Event Technologies, Feathr, InLoop and others. From the data presentation and discussion at the PCMA/IAEE/TEI session, Maximizing Attendance: Behaviors Comprising the Decision to Attend, I gleaned that the event location has snuck back into being a top influence on attendance.”

Margaret Core
Vice President, Industry Events
Food Marketing Institute

“No matter how long you’ve been in the industry, you can learn something new at Expo! Expo! One takeaway for me this year was a renewed focus on thinking about every event as a launch, no matter how long it’s been in existence, in order to keep it fresh and constantly evolving to meet the changing wants and needs of the attendees.”

Gina Amatruda
Owner
GMA Group, LLC

“If I had to pick one thing that significantly impacted our industry this past year, it would be the blend of social media/sharing innovation tied to technology. I saw a demonstration of a content management system that not only manages meeting room inventory and set-up requirements but can push out speaker-generated social media posts and vertical marketing messages via one platform. This allows event organizers to better utilize speakers to reach new conference prospects and, in turn, could potentially lower attendee acquisition costs.”

Diane Tiberio
Director of Conference and Marketing
Reed Exhibitions

“In a session that featured data from a recent CEIR (Center for Exhibition Industry Research) study, I was struck by the frequent disconnect between what organizers think are valuable features for attendees and what attendees actually find to be valuable. I’d like to see the data sliced even further between conference attendees and exhibits-only attendees, but it was a reminder to not be complacent when designing programs that actually fit the needs of the attendees vs. what an organizer perceives those needs to be.”

Vincent Polito
Owner and Live Events Specialist
mdg 

What did YOU learn at Expo! Expo!? Let us know on Facebook.

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