Tag Archives: event planning

Back to Basics – The Handwritten Note

Posted on by

The mass reach of technology has incredible advantages for the event planning industry and should be used to increase brand awareness. Social media also has the ability to build a connection with your audience through more personal interactions and real-time response. Even with this said, in our age of insta-everything, hashtags, texting slang, and emoticons nothing may make you stand out more than a handwritten note.

In the spirit of the lazy days of summer, we poured ourselves a glass of lemonade, set up the hammock, and took a moment to think about how even in today's fast paced world, event planners could use handwritten notes to their advantage.

Continue reading →

Event Spending By the Numbers

Posted on by

At GovEvents, we've been tracking the government's spending on events and travel and wanted to share some key stats with you.

17% -- The amount travel spending is down in 2014 (so far). Travel spending in fiscal 2014 through March is about $2.8 billion, compared to almost $3.4 billion through March of fiscal 2013.

30% -- The amount agencies are mandated to reduce their travel spending (as compared to 2010 numbers). That level is to be maintained through 2016.

$20,000 - Price of an event at which the agency has to loop in their inspector general to explain and justify cost.

$90,000 - Total amount GSA offered up to anyone who can develop a digital interactive tool to harness travel data to help agencies understand and reduce costs.

These numbers show that the reduction in travel and event spending is not just media buzz, it's happening and its here to stay (at least through 2016).  With this in mind, what do event managers (both in the private sector and government) need to do to continue our missions in this "new normal"?

As we've highlighted previously, there are a number of ways to maintain the collaboration of in-person events while keeping spending in check.

  1. Webinars - last year we saw a 30% rise in webinars posted on our site and there continues to be steady posting of webinars. People are embracing the medium for training and learning in light of travel restrictions.
  2. Smaller Events - lunches and more intimate events in more locations may allow for even greater networking than large events while saving time and money for both planners and attendees.
  3. Social Media - look at how can you use your social media properties to foster ongoing online collaboration between attendees.

How about you? How has the travel spending impacted the way you plan and attend events?

 

Image from: http://mykindofcountry.wordpress.com/

Beyond the Beltway: Great Spots for Government Meetings

Posted on by

While DC is the hub for federal government, there are many areas across the U.S. that have large concentrations of government employees. This post is the first in a series that will go on to highlight other cities and venues in those cities to consider for events.

As we've detailed, government travel budgets are tight as are people's schedules. By breaking up large, national events into smaller regional events you may end up attracting more participants. To maintain the great networking that happens at national events, consider webcasting certain sessions or creating an online spot where attendees across the country can post their take aways from each event and share questions with one another.

Some locations we plan to highlight are San Diego, Colorado Springs, San Antonio, and Atlanta. We're open to any other suggestions of places you'd like to see highlighted. What success have you had with government events outside of metro DC?

Image courtesy Melissa and Doug

Meet the “Meet-up”

Posted on by

 

At a recent gathering of FOSE speakers and Federal IT bloggers, there was a lot of discussion around the tightening of budgets and the impact that has on event attendance. A suggestion was made to stop calling your events "events" or "conferences" or "seminars" and call it a "meet-up." More than just changing the name, the idea of a meet-up is a smaller, more intimate, more tightly scheduled  gathering. Govies reported they are better able to get approval to attend these smaller events because of the lighter time and financial commitment.

For marketers and event planners this means really looking at your event schedule. Can you break up your big once a year event into smaller, more focused, and more frequent events? You can still get the economies of scale in bulk ordering and material creation (likely each event will need the same "stuff") and potentially you can save on venue and catering costs by moving to smaller locations (check out some of our suggestions for DC area lunch venues).

Continue reading →

Greening Your Event

Posted on by

In honor of Earth Day, we wanted to use a post to share some ideas on how to make your events a bit more environmentally friendly. A four-day national tradeshow can cause 1,874 pounds of emissions per in-person participant. That's equivalent to burning two barrels of oil. The average conference participant produces 1.41.lbs of landfill at event venues each day.

There is a wide range of things you can do to make your event more "green." Below are a couple of tips that range from incredibly involved (likely needing a dedicated staff to manage) to more basic. In looking at these options you need to decide what is feasible given your event, attendees, and budget as well as which would make the biggest impression on attendees.

Continue reading →