Tag Archives: event planning

Events that Lunch: Space for Lunchtime Events in DC

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In the competitive market for people's time and attention, lunch events are a great option for organizations looking to make a connection with attendees. After-hours events are difficult for some to manage as they need to balance family care after work, however, everyone needs to eat lunch. Why not help your audience use that time effectively?

While lunches can be large hotel ballroom gatherings, there is a great opportunity to use the lunch hour(s) for smaller, more intimate events. Smaller lunches offer a great opportunity for real speaker and audience interaction (more so than a quick Q&A shouted across a large ballroom). Lunchtime events are appropriate for single speakers or panels and even just as a networking venue. There is a huge array of private room options in DC and the surrounding metro area. Here are a couple that we think are interesting spaces to consider.

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No Strings on Me! Tablet Use at Events

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Tablets have become a lifesaver, or at least an arm saver, for event managers used to carrying around large binders that contained all needed documentation for an event. As tablet use continues to increase among event planners and attendees alike, what are some ways events and our interactions at events have to change?

For event planners, the tablet may be lighter, but if data is not organized and accessible, it may become just as cumbersome as flipping through those heavy binders. This article from Corbin Ball Associates provides some great guidance on how best to optimize your tablet for on-site use complete with suggestions on apps to download and begin using today.

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(Not) Strictly Ballroom: Unique Meeting Spaces in DC Metro Area

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To get people to your event of course you need a great speaker and great content, but a new and different environment can help as well. Everyone tires of the same old hotel ballrooms (not that there is anything wrong with them). While hotel facilities are great for many types of events, if you are not hosting a major exhibition or tradeshow-type event, your options for venues in the DC-area can really open up to some unique and (dare we say) fun spaces. Below is a quick list of locations we've discovered.

Washington, DC

Powerhouse - Located in Georgetown, the location was once home to the DC Paper Manufacturing Company. The open, soaring space is best suited to networking and cocktail functions. We could see it being a great venue for a product launch event.

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On the Right Track? Tracking your Event Campaigns

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Of course all smart event organizers track key metrics like registrants, attendance, budget, and profit but many times those metrics are never tied back to the individual marketing campaigns. While it may be easy to smile and say the overall goals were met - we were a success, it is important to take another look at how they were met. As much as possible each piece of public outreach should be able to be measured.

Emails -- Which emails got the most opens? Was there something different in those subject lines? What was the offer within the email? Was there a certain time of day or week that performed better? Find the common ties between the high opens as well as the commonalities among the low opens. For future events, do more of what worked and less of what did not.

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Lemonade from Lemons: Learning from Managing Reduced Budgets

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IBM conducted a study interviewing California state officials to see what that group had learned managing their state's complicated budget shortfall. The resulting report examined what happened to local California government revenues during this period, which services have been adjusted, how employee benefits have been treated, and what innovations have been introduced.

The authors were able to pull out three key recommendations based on the subjects' real-world experiences.

  • Identify and address structural deficits in a finely grained manner, leaving no major budget category unexamined.
  • Foster citizen engagement to encourage widespread dissemination of fiscal information in order to enhance the legitimacy of public policy choices.
  • Improve the state/local relationship to reduce episodic, convulsive impacts on local public finance.

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