LDI2012: Creating Engaging Events They’ll Want to Attend Notes

Creating Engaging Events They’ll Want to Attend 

There is more than one way to do this, but you don’t have to start from scratch!  Start small.

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Keep doing it to build your base.  If you stop you will lose attendees...

1.    Facilities

a.    Location – vary location of events - north south east west county

b.    Small and deep – make sure have room in the program for groups that have a deep interest but not large numbers

c.    Exhibitor space dedicated time for them, passport, insurance,

d.    Food arrangements - policies and space

e.    Insurance writers

f.      Equipment for presenters, chairs and tables

g.    Wi-fi for all users

h.    Custodial support (trash, restrooms, etc.)

i.      IT support

j.      Have a back up plan for rain

2.    Materials/Resources:

a.    Freebees – doorprizes - snacks

b.    Speakers post resources so available before and after - can use CUE Community/Ning

c.    Attendee bags with vendor goodies

d.    Sponsors

3.    Speakers

a.    Keynotes – as is don’t have one - messes up schedule - might not be on target for your group - hard to find room for 1000 people - cost

b.    Spotlight speakers – ID people who have following put in bigger rooms ask to do same presentation twice (provide video of the session on the website) 

c.    Let them know who the audience will be and the room and event set up

4.    Political - Scheduling

a.    Don’t schedule same time as other event - don’t step on toes

b.    Time of sessions and passing time – provide time for them to chat too

c.    Matrixing – once you have speaker applications, id the strands and put in rooms near each other don’t have them at the same time

5.    Communicate – let people know what’s going on!  The more people who come the more engaging the event will be to everyone!

a.    Post program before preregistration close

b.    Social Media for communicating - Twitter

c.    Email - Vertical Response - free for non-profits good for sending out emails
Mailman - good for a group of people to be able to send and receive emails

d.    Be clear on deadlines

e.    Timeline for speaker chair - sequence of events to report to the larger group

f.      Organizing the event

g.    Online forms (Google) for registration/evaluation/vendor forms/speaker forms/volunteer forms.  For voting Surveymonkey is good - can have blind ballots only for members - and can send email reminders to only the people who have not voted.  For setting up meetings Doodle.com lets people share when they are available - or vote on something - everyone sees everyone elses contributions.  

h.    Accept paypal payments (Wild Apricot keeps pretty good records, can invoice within PayPal for non-individual payments) Added summer 2013 JD: eventbrite is easy to use, but charges per paid registration. Wild Apricot charges per month - the fee is way less.

i.      Evaluate - make changes as needed (keep track of things so you can remember where rough spots were or started)

Presented by Kim Harrison and June Dodge