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We are biased against truly creative event design

Conferences that Work

A “creative” event design is one with a novel venue and/or decor and lighting and/or food and beverage. Consequently, planners restrict the entire focus of creative event design to novel visual and sensory elements. Truly creative event design We are biased against truly creative event design.

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Event design is not just visuals and logistics

Conferences that Work

The following year, David was kind enough to honor me in his flagship publication BizBash as one of the most innovative event professionals. However, one recurring theme in David’s magazine irritates me, because it perpetuates a common misconception in the events industry. 3 — Conferences That Work.

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A calendar of peer conferences

Conferences that Work

Since 2009 I’ve maintained an informal calendar of peer conferences (aka unconferences) on this site. It’s informal because I only list events I hear about, a minuscule fraction of the unconferences people hold every day. Even so, the calendar lists hundreds of events. Currently, I add a few peer conferences a month.

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Case Study: Adrian Segar – “Conferences that work”

Conferences that Work

Here’s an independent review of my conference design work, published as a case study in Chapter 25—Designing and Developing Content for Collaborative Business Events—of the book The Routledge Handbook of Business Events. Tip: The hardback version is expensive, the ebook is a quarter of the hardback cost.)

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Top Event Technology Trends for 2024

Smart Meetings

How emerging AI and other technology will boost event humanity by putting attendee needs at the center of conference design Attendees expect more from events today and emerging technology is helping to deliver on those demands. We need to build that technology into our events to give them flexibility.

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Events operate by stories

Conferences that Work

Events operate by stories. Events operate by stories Like science fiction, events also create futures, and events operate by stories. Just as good stories have a story arc , coherent events have a conference arc. The promise of events springs from the reality that we are the stories we tell about ourselves.

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Six reasons why unconferences aren’t more popular

Conferences that Work

Events and media consultant Julius Solaris shared at the Unforgettable Experience Design Summit that he was initially very enthusiastic about unconference format events. He thought conferences would eventually adopt unconference models. The solution to this is to design your unconference before choosing the venue.