Kimberly Hardcastle to Harness Power of the Event Brand at AAR

mdg president and chief strategist Kimberly Hardcastle will share “How to Unleash the Power of an Event Brand to Increase Attendance” at the next Attendee Acquisition Roundtable. Details are below and more information can be found here.

Thursday, March 27, 2025, 1:10pm
VA Tech Executive Briefing Center
Arlington, VA

How to Unleash the Power of an Event Brand to Increase Attendance
Hardcastle will tell the story of how SUPERZOO unleashed the power of its event brand to increase attendance, exhibitor participation and market share. More importantly, she’ll provide insights that will help you appropriate the lessons learned with an emphasis on accentuating competitive differentiators, finding your authentic voice, translating an event brand to the onsite experience and convincing bosses, boards and stakeholders of the changes that must be made to ensure an event stays relevant to a new generation of attendees.

 

kimberly

Kimberly Hardcastle-Geddes
Kimberly Hardcastle-Geddes is president of mdg, A Freeman Company. Focused on audience acquisition, mdg brings together strategists, data and digital specialists, communications professionals, international marketers and a robust creative team to provide complete solutions that help clients grow bigger, better events. Kimberly is a CEM faculty member, a Krakoff Leadership Institute alumna and has been named by IAEE as an Educator of the Year and a Woman of Achievement. She has a monthly column in PCMA’s Convene magazine, was named as one of the Top 50 Voices in the event space by Gather Voices and is a frequent presenter at SISO, PCMA Convening Leaders, Expo! Expo! and Lippman Connects events. She’s also the wife of a retired Navy pilot, mom of a TCU Horned Frog, a voracious reader, Peloton addict and steadfast believer in civil rights.


mdg Rings In the New Year with Random Acts of Kindness

For the twelfth year in a row, mdgers performed Random Acts of Kindness to start the new year off on a charitable note. The initiative originally began in response to the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. To honor the 26 innocent lives lost, the agency performed 26 Random Acts of Kindness. Each year since, the mdg team has collectively performed good deeds throughout January — sharing baked goods with kind strangers; donating blood, clothes, and gifts; and generally acting in ways that exhibit compassion for our communities and put a little more love into the world.

Green With Envy: 5 Lessons Event Marketers Can Learn From Wicked

The only thing bigger than Cynthia Erivo’s riff at the end of “Defying Gravity” is the marketing blitz that catapulted Wicked: Part One into the stratosphere as the highest grossing Broadway musical adaptation of all time. Don’t have that kind of budget to work with? Kimberly Hardcastle shared five ways to create the same marketing wizardry for your events with PCMA Convene.

Multiple mdg Clients Win 2024 TSNN Awards

Seven mdg clients were named as finalists for the 2024 Trade Show News Network (TSNN) awards, which recognize trade show excellence and innovation. Congratulations to our clients for the much-deserved nominations for GSX, the National Restaurant Association Show, World of Concrete, VMX, SUPERZOO, INTERPHEX and RISKWORLD. The finalists are listed below alongside their respective categories, and more information can be found here. 

 

Congratulations to VMX for winning Best Marketing, GSX for Best Exhibitor Program and RISKWORLD for DEI! 

 

  • B2B Show of the Year — GSX 
  • B2B Show of the Year — National Restaurant Show 
  • Best Community — World of Concrete 
  • Best Community — VMX 
  • Best Design — SUPERZOO 
  • Best Engagement — INTERPHEX 
  • Best Exhibitor Program — GSX 
  • Best Marketing — VMX 
  • DEI — RISKWORLD 
  • DEI — VMX 

2025 Vision: Event Predictions for the New Year 

2024 has certainly been an eventful year. Marketers have embraced data-driven personalization, automation and the growing power of influencers, among other key trends. And soon, a new year will bring even more new tools, tactics and technologies that will enable us to better reach and communicate with the audiences that participate in our trade shows and conferences. For the year ahead, turn to PCMA Convene to see what we predict …