Ch..Ch…Ch…Changes: Changing Up Your Annual Event

We're all comfortable with familiarity and routine, but when it comes to annual events, a measured amount of change is a good thing. In an age of decreased travel, training budgets, and time strapped attendees, freshening up your event is not just a good idea, it's necessary to build audience growth and profit.

This article from BizBash provided insight from leading event planners as to when and why to look at changing up annual events. Some comments that jumped out were:

• "If you do the same thing every year, you're stealing money. They already paid for that experience once."
• "It's great to keep the things that worked really well in the past, but without creating a sort of newness each year, it leaves the event feeling stagnant and stale."
• "It's important to maintain enough consistency that your brand is evident and your attendees know what to expect at your event, but if you aren't stretching to make things better, then you will lose people's interest."
• Observe your event and trust your gut as to the things that are working and those that are not.
• Pay attention to post event surveys and make changes based on feedback (or lack of feedback).
• Try to make changes before attendee numbers drop, once they start to decline make the change but know it may take an extra year or so to regain the attendance numbers you expect.

While this is all very logical advice we can easily wrap our heads around, we still have the heart to think about. Change is scary for both planners and attendees. This article details how to overcome the four main objections to change in conference planning:

• Fear of failure - not doing anything could also result in failure, try something new!
• Our attendees don't like change - balance new experiences with some expected routines.
• Attendee experience is not part of my job - everyone working on an event, no matter the role must put attendee experience first. Doing so, will nearly guarantee success.
• Colleagues are telling me not to change - they likely do not have access to the full range of feedback, results and ROI that you do. Take their input and add it to all of the other metrics you have and then evaluate the decision for change.

What about you? How have you made changes to annual events that have made it more exciting for attendees without sacrificing the brand of the event?