5 Things Still Broken in Events, According to 50 Industry Leaders

Alyssa Peltier (00:00):

We become stuck at measuring our events with attendee satisfaction. The only way we can justify or understand or make meaning of the events that we produce is through their lens but it would be an incredible opportunity for meetings and events leaders to be able to tie to more business outcomes in conjunction with the attendee experience as well.

Alyssa Peltier (00:22):

Great events create great brands. But pulling off an event that engages, excites and connects audiences, well, that takes a village and we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

Rachel Andrews (00:34):

I'm Rachel.

Felicia Asiedu (00:35):

And I'm Felicia.

Alyssa Peltier (00:36):

And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

Alyssa Peltier (00:47):

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. I will be your sole host for this week's episode, we like to call these mini-sodes, where I just give you a hot take on what's going on in the meetings and events industry and what better time because we're coming right off of the heels of our Cvent Connect conference which just happened last week. So, I just wanted to talk about some of the things that we're noticing, some of the trends, some of the insights that we gleaned because what better place to understand the pulse of the industry than at a place that has over 4,000 meetings and events professionals all talking and speaking the same language, dissecting their pains and trying to figure out plans to move forward.

Alyssa Peltier (01:35):

One program that I helped facilitate is something that we call an open forum, it features maybe around 50 of our global leaders from some of the largest brands, most recognizable companies across the enterprise landscape. The insights that I'll share with you today are representative of that audience. Like I said, leaders, they're some of these largest brands grappling with some of the biggest problems and some of the grandest meetings and events programs under their belts. We're talking upwards of a thousand events annually within their programs.

Alyssa Peltier (02:11):

So, in our dialogue in the open forum, we facilitated some roundtable networking and so what came to light as a part of those conversations was five key common themes around areas of struggle and challenge that are happening within these spaces. So, I would just like to outline some of those. And then, fortunately, also as part of that roundtable exercise, we talked a little bit about solutioning for progress and moving forward. The individuals were able to share their problems with one another and then they were creatively thinking about how to go about moving the needle and breaking through some of the obstacles that they're facing.

Alyssa Peltier (02:49):

So, the first challenge that was agreed upon across all of this group was that there seems to be continued data chaos and inconsistency and some of those stem from disconnected systems, there was an acute focus on multiple CRM systems which leads to poor data hygiene, a lack of standardized fields or even definitions and really no centralized place to collect or view that event data. Even while these organizations are still using Cvent in many ways, that standardized, that centralized dream has yet to be realized and the impact on that is pretty vast. And most importantly, because of the climate that we're in and continue to be in year over year, is that executives are asking for these leaders to report on ROI.

Alyssa Peltier (03:36):

And without that data, it can lead to poor decision making, duplicative efforts and also difficulty connecting those events to the revenue objectives or the pipeline for those event programs. So, again, very difficult to drive those business objectives forward. Some of the things that we heard direct quotes under that challenge was we have no clear way to overlay data to demonstrate that value. We have poor hygiene and users don't necessarily enter that information on time or accurately. Theme number one, challenge number one that we still need to solve for in our space is fixing the data integrity and consistency problem.

Alyssa Peltier (04:15):

Our second thing that we talked about in this conversation was lack of alignment. And this is not just a strategic problem, it's a functional alignment and it's also regional alignment. So, there's three areas of the business where alignment is lacking. There's different departments, there's different regions, there's different stakeholders that operate with, oftentimes, competing goals, they have competing priorities and also complete operational inefficiencies, workflows can be completely different. So, you can see, within that matrix or lack thereof, there is no shared vision or accountability for what good looks like, what success looks like and how alignment could even be achieved. And so, the impact there oftentimes comes on misalignment of spend on budget, back to point number one, inconsistent of the measurement of success, what is it that we're actually even driving towards, how would we measure it and what data is important to capture and a consequence of all of this is a lack of buy-in for change. It's hard to mobilize and jockey for more resources or for more budgeting with higher ups when you don't have the benefit of numbers and people all working in the same stream in order to shift that narrative.

Alyssa Peltier (05:26):

The third theme that we saw was that there is technology sprawl and oftentimes an under investment. Despite there being technology all over the place, maybe it's inconsistent or there's purchasing happening in different pockets within those decentralized regions and functions like I mentioned prior, technology goes along with that. So, we heard from these leaders multiple tools oftentimes are doing the same job so we're overspending on the same function. Teams aren't always clear on what use or how to use it and there has oftentimes been an investment without enablement or without the path towards adoption of that investment and, a lot of times, this is stemming from that lack of centralized ownership of the technology implementation itself. And so, again, just to beat this drum, the impact here is on inefficiencies, data silos, the inability to scale, stuck at status quo and ballooning costs. And while you could be spending more strategically and investing in better tools, we're stuck with stagnant just to maintain what is.

Alyssa Peltier (06:34):

Let's talk about trend number four or challenge number four, we saw the measurement and proving value. So, again, pointing to point number one, the inability to measure and prove value often comes with a data strategy or lack thereof. Within this theme, there haven't been outlined clear or consistent KPIs for leaders of meetings and events, it has been difficult to tie event outcomes to pipeline or to business goals and there are fuzzy definitions of what is ROI for an event. Oftentimes we hear the term ROE, return on event or return on engagement, what are the true metrics that we need to organize around as an industry in order to provide the impact that the higher ups, the leaders above our meetings and events programs are seeking.

Alyssa Peltier (07:25):

And the impact here is there's doubt, consistent doubt on event effectiveness and budget justification year over year becomes harder. And so, we hear that time and time again from the leaders that we work with on a daily basis that we just can't justify the spend for a new program, a new event, even when ideas and creativity is still flowing, that budget justification is always there. And so, the inability to prove what's working, what isn't and to shift those resources elsewhere can be quite complicated in a climate that has all of these challenges in it.

Alyssa Peltier (07:58):

And then, lastly, execution gaps. Oftentimes there is a gap between the strategy and the delivery to the onsite experience due to more limited resources. No one has been spared from the budget cuts or you are very, very lucky if you have been spared from budget cuts over the last 24 months or so. Certainly, in this current macroeconomic climate, we see that quite often and, because of that, there are also unclear roles, throwing bodies at problems or new bodies at the same problems who aren't aware or capable or understanding of how to solve those and that results in last minute execution and an inconsistent delivery of the attendee experience overall. And really, I've said this in many different ways, the missed opportunity to align to those commercial opportunities. We come stuck at measuring our events with attendee satisfaction. It's the only way we can justify or understand or make meaning of the events that we produce is through their lens but it would be an incredible opportunity for meetings and events leaders to be able to tie to more business outcomes in conjunction with the attendee experience as well and it's still an area where there's opportunity for growth within our environment.

Alyssa Peltier (09:12):

Now, I know I just talked about a lot of pain and a lot of challenges and a lot of the things that seem like, ugh, doom and gloom because we're still here and we're still grappling with these things and I hope many of you that are listening right now are saying, "Yeah, I sympathize. I feel these pains deeply. This is exactly what I'm going through." Here's the good side. At Cvent Connect, we have this catalytic moment where minds come together and they can talk through a lot of these challenges but they can also ideate for plans for the future. And so, some of those recommendations and solution ideas that came from those discussions include the following. A plan for standardization and centralization, critical step number one. Things that came up as a part of this solution area number one. Starting to think about creating templates, new naming conventions, perhaps peeking behind the hood at your governance model or perhaps lack thereof, what does that look like and is it working with your modern business climate.

Alyssa Peltier (10:12):

There have been suggestions for mandating pre and post data collection that can be tied to your event briefs, your meet and request forms and to establish those KPIs under the same framework. Lastly, more mature but certainly something of opportunity here is to implement a data lake with ownership for integration within your meetings and events program or your meetings and events tech stack. Really establishing that as an extension of your meetings and events governance and your data strategy as a part of that is really critical towards overcoming that which we were talking about just earlier here.

Alyssa Peltier (10:48):

Second thing is building a shared accountability matrix. This sounds easier said than done but communicating cross-functionally and often from the top-down and bottom-up is really critical. So, communication here, whether it's clearly outlined or it's still murky, hard coding that and trying to figure out who you need to talk to, when you need to talk to them and be reoccurring in that communication plan. That paves the way for creating a shared vision, creating those shared success metrics and establishing feedback loops for what's working, what's not working, whether that's within stakeholder groups, different regions, different functional teams that support the meetings and events program. And within all of those different, what we would call decentralized pockets, identifying and empowering a strong leader that's going to champion the change. Because, really, we have to find the motivators within each of these areas in order to figure out and to navigate the actual change management plan.

Alyssa Peltier (11:47):

And a lot of times, that comes to number three recommended solution or ideas here, is a shift in the culture or the mindset of teams. Oftentimes, planners and event professionals get a bad rap for being tactical or to-do or list makers. So, I think the shift and the culture mindset really comes starting to demonstrate wins and the cost of inaction. The cost of not doing things differently, to not collect data in a more standardized way and the tool that is most powerful in that is one of storytelling and storytelling through data to secure that buy-in and to change the course of inaction. Really educating organizationally and also within your team the purpose behind the events, why it is that you do what you do, it's not just to produce a successful event. Yes, we all love a successful experience but it's not just the component, there is a business side of events that matters too. And so, fleshing out both sides of that equation, both the execution and the tactical and also the nuts and bolts or the monetization of events, if you will, the economics is equally as important and that's a shift in the culture and the mindset of those that have been producing and creating events career long.

Alyssa Peltier (13:08):

Now, I'll leave you with some insights that we left with and this is in listening to the conversations all of last week. Teams really do know what's broken, they just really need the support to fix it and a lot of those solutions do hinge on executive backing, those shared frameworks and a lot of that cultural alignment. So, that's the good news, that's the upside that we're not trying to figure out what it is that needs change. However, change itself is the struggle. Second, without those clear goals, success is subjective. Getting those stakeholders to define that success before planning can even begin is really, really critical to the success and proving that value which is what we're all really marching towards. The third thing is measurement isn't just about tools, it's also about trust. So, building that trust in your data strategy, in your data plan, how it's collected, who's inputting that data. Even your best dashboard. If it's faulty with data, it's not going to drive your decision-making behaviors.

Alyssa Peltier (14:15):

And lastly, growing your events and your event programs and leveraging these as a business solution is not going to scale without integration. So, we heard from many of these leaders we're not integrated, we need to integrate, we're struggling with the integrations, participants are so eager to make events more strategic, but that's only going to come if the systems and the people can support that shift. So, I really thank you all for joining me today. I hope this mini-sode gave you some ideas, maybe somewhat of a catharsis to bring back to your teams and start figuring out your plans for the second half of the year to move your programs forward. See you next week.

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Rachel Andrews (15:10):

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Felicia Asiedu (15:19):

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Rachel Andrews (15:27):

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Felicia Asiedu (15:37):

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Alyssa Peltier (15:47):

And that's a wrap. Keep creating, keep innovating and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.