The Event House of Horrors

In the spirit of Halloween we thought it might be fun to create our own haunted house of sorts. We started thinking about how the traditional elements of a haunted house could be applied to the event world. What would happen if we combined common mistakes and missteps into a single show? [Tweet "Hold on tight as we walk through the GovEvents House of Horrors! #GovEventsBlog"]

  • Hall of Mirrors - Tradeshows can be overwhelming. Even attendees with the best laid plans can get sidetracked on the show floor. They can be confused by layout and/or distracted by competing audio and visual assets of exhibitors. Try to set a clear path through the show floor and plan booth layout so that two super loud or super visual companies are not set up right next to each other.
  • Cobwebs - Tradition can be heartwarming but when year after year you are "treating" attendees to the same thing it gets stale. Make sure you brush off the cobwebs. Look at attendee feedback and keep the elements of your show that are consistently praised and change up the elements that not only get negative feedback, but also those that never get mentioned at all.
  • Zombies - In the event world Zombies are people manning a booth that clearly have no knowledge of the product they are selling. They work off a script and take no interest in engaging in two-way conversation. Instead of mumbling, "brains....brains....I want brains" you can hear them asking, "leads.....leads...I need to meet my lead quota."
  • Trap Doors - Make sure session descriptions are accurate. You don't want attendees leaving a session or the event in general feeling like it was not what they expected. In a similar vein, make sure to clearly indicate which events are product-focused. Imagine an attendee looking forward to a session on "How to accelerate your move to cloud." They think there will be some best practices shared, actionable tips, etc., but instead it ends up being a sales pitch for a specific cloud service. At that point they may wish an actual trap door would appear to take them away.

[Tweet "What are some of the scariest situations you've found yourself in at events? #GovEventsBlog"]We'd love to hear from you. What are some of the scariest situations you've found yourself in at events? Let us know in the comments.

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