Tag Archives: event attendance

Federal Events Rebound in 2015

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Market Connections released their seventh annual Federal Media and Marketing Study earlier this month and it has great news for the federal event community. The survey of over 3,400 federal employees showed a significant jump in event attendance. In 2015, 55% of respondents reported attending 1-3 events. That is up from 42% in 2014. Federal event attendance numbers had been declining for the past four years, making this year's jump even more notable.

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The numbers back up what we have been hearing from our GovEvents members. Budgets and rules around travel and training have been easing up. Panelists at the event agreed that the tightening down of budgets and approval for events and training was an overcorrection in response to the GSA scandal and now we're finally seeing the pendulum shift back to a more rational place. But it was not just the GSA scandal that led to the decline in event participation. Panelists report there was a perfect storm of scandal, sequestration, and OMB guidance that left people confused as to what was "right" in terms of event attendance. Continue reading →

Speaking From Experience: Event Attendance Tips

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In a new series here on GovEvents, we'd like to share some of the best tips and tricks we've found in navigating the world of events. From attending to exhibiting, we hope our tips (some discovered through missteps) will help you get the most out of events. In today's post, we'll focus on tips for attending events.

  • Go in with a plan - look at the agenda and exhibitor list the week before the event and take some time to plan out your time there. Block sessions you want to attend into your calendar and make notes on the booths you want to see. Make sure you build in time to check emails or grab coffee with people you meet. Doing this a week out also gives you time to confer with colleagues. If others are attending how do you best divide and conquer? If you are going alone, are there sessions or companies they'd like you to see while you are there. Jot down questions you want to make sure you get answered while there.

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Getting the Inside Scoop on Events

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You've viewed the event website and received an email or two about the event, but how do you know if the event you are thinking about signing up for is really worth your time? In a recent post, we talked about how to set goals to help zone in on the events that you should be attending. Once you've mapped events to your goals, you may still need to narrow down the list. How can you get past the marketing and find out what the event is really like? Here are five tips that will help you get the inside scoop on recurring events. Continue reading →

To Attend or Not to Attend….

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With tight budgets, a lot of thought needs to go into deciding what events to attend, exhibit, or sponsor to make the most of time and funds. But where do you start? There are events that bill themselves as "must attend," those where you know all your competitors will be, ones you truly enjoy, and there are untested events that have dynamic speakers. How do you decide where to spend your time and money?

As this article states, first consider your goal for attending. What do you want to get out of event attendance? What can these events provide you that you cannot get anywhere else? This could be one or a combination of the following: Continue reading →

Making the Social Network Real

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With the recent news of the cancellation of FOSE, we wanted to reflect on why an institution like that event is suddenly gone from the landscape. While the reasons are numerous, one key factor is that big tradeshows and conventions tend to be one-way conversations. While the speakers may be high profile and interesting there is no way to interact with them. In the social media age of instant gratification with retweets, likes, and replies, attendees want more than a bullhorn approach to communication, they want a dialogue. We've done some thinking on this and came up with a couple ideas on how to bring the interactivity of online social networks to real-life social networks.   Continue reading →