FedBizBeat’s Q&A with GovEvents President Kerry Rea

Originally posted on FedBizBeat by Joyce Bosc

Kerry Rea, president of GovEvents, has many years of experience working in the government marketplace. She took the time to talk with FedBizBeat about government events and the trends for 2014, as well as, how to promote your event using social media.

1. Can you tell us a little about GovEvents? GovEvents is the online resource for all government- and military-related events worldwide. Government and military personnel can find events to attend, government contractors and primes can find events that they'd like to exhibit at/sponsor, and the government event organizer community has a place to post all of their government-related events for free! We have over 34,000 GovEvents members (adding over a 1,000 new members a month!), and the GovEvents community adds about 400 new events to the site each month.

2. What kind of trends have you seen in the government event industry so far in 2014? The trends so far seem to be a carry-over from 2013. Many events that used to have a cost to attend are now free for government. There's also been a definite uptick in webinars. On GovEvents we saw a 30% increase over the previous year.  We are also hearing a lot about virtual events and video conferencing as a cost-savings alternative, but we haven't seen a significant uptick yet.

3. What do you think are the best ways to promote exhibiting at an event?  Social media is a great medium for getting the word out. Everyone in the organization should be empowered and encouraged to post about events and event participation to their networks. The interactive nature of social platforms is allowing people to do some really cool things.

4. How have you seen the industry respond to federal travel restrictions?  As we all are aware, many of the more well-known and well-attended events were cancelled last year. This resulted in a considerable loss to the event organizers and the cities that were hosting the events. While I understand the need for regulating government spending, I don't think canceling events is the solution. We've also seen a change in marketing strategies in the promotion of events.  We've helped a lot of organizers target their marketing efforts surrounding the location of the event to circumvent the travel restrictions, focusing on an attendee pool within driving distance.

5. Lastly, Kerry what do you like to do in your free time?  I don't have a lot of it--I think that is just the nature of running a small business. However, I do like to golf and cook. I also like to travel. One of the great benefits of running an online company is I can work from anywhere in the world!

We would like to thank Kerry Rea for taking the time to speak with FedBizBeat. To learn more about GovEvents click here.