Category Archives: Contributing Authors

GovEvents Blog Contributors

Are You Doing Enough to Keep Attendee Information Safe?

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:

Ticket holders for the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival who are looking forward to spending two weekends in the California desert with some of the biggest names in music may have had their anticipation dampened by a bit of bad news from festival organizers last week. "We recently discovered that unauthorized third parties illegally gained access to the usernames, first and last names, shipping addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth individuals provided to Coachella," read an email from the festival. "We have taken measures to block further unauthorized access, and reported the matter to the appropriate authorities for further investigation." Continue reading →

5 Ways to Disaster-Proof Your Meetings

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:

Disasters can take many forms--from earthquakes and floods that damage infrastructure and halt business, to war, terrorism, cyber attacks, and pandemics, to technological failures such as power outages. The one thing they all have in common is the potential to cause trouble for, and perhaps even shut down, your meetings.

And yet planning for a disaster is something many meeting managers tend to give short shrift to. When meetings go off year after year without a hitch, it's easy to relax your guard. After all, what are the chances a tornado will hit during your meeting in Salt Lake City? While unlikely, it has been known to happen. And earthquakes aren't just an issue for California-based meetings--Oklahoma actually is the most seismically active region in the U.S. If your meeting is being held in the Pacific Northwest, are you prepared for cyber attacks? Continue reading →

I Am a Good Event Planner But Nobody Shows Up

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:


Are you a good event planner with dwindling event numbers? You may be making some of these common newbie mistakes.

Planning an event and driving traffic to it are two different skill sets. The first requires meticulous attention to detail, while the latter involves marketing and people skills. The first falls in the introvert's wheelhouse, while the second speaks to extroverts.

So how do you cultivate both sets of skills to become a great event planner? By avoiding these common mistakes.

12 Mistakes Top Event Planners Never Make

While "never" is an absolute that may not be fitting for most of us, seasoned professional event planners avoid these things as best they can because they understand how deeply it can affect their events and attendance. Continue reading →

Trump’s Impact on the Travel Industry

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From time to time GovEvents will come across information we feel our members and audience would benefit from. Here's something we wanted to share:

It would be an understatement to say that change is in the air. Last week Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. While the Trump administration begins to take action, businesses are hopeful that he will keep their industries in mind.

The travel industry is a major player in the U.S. economy, contributing more than $148 billion in tax revenue and more than 15 million jobs. Without it, every U.S. household would pay an extra $1,192 in taxes per year. Tax revenue, job creation and related services are all partially contingent on the travel industry. Therefore, the future of U.S. travel is a pressing concern right now. Continue reading →

Make Your Case – 5 Reasons to Implement a Virtual Conference

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By Lance A. Simon, CGMP, CVEP

So -- you want to implement your first virtual conference! Any good conference starts with a good proposal. Let's take a closer look at the key elements that can help sell your virtual conference project. Think it's just about cost savings? Think again. Here are 5 top benefits you want to highlight.

1) Implement significant cost savings.

A virtual conference eliminates many physical conference costs - travel (of course!) but also conference rooms, advanced materials, on-site support, meeting materials & printing costs, and on-site A/V services. I recently worked with a CDC meeting planner to compare the costs of a basic 3-day physical conference with a comparable virtual conference. We compared 2 sizes - 350 and 1,000 attendees. Costs excepting travel were approximately the same for a 350 person meeting. But the virtual conference scales up with much less cost per incremental attendee --virtual conference costs were 20% lower than a physical meeting, or a whopping 75% lower if travel is included!

Continue reading →