In the age of AI, event planners need to be able to build agendas, websites and marketing on the fly using emerging tools. Many were already using the tools to analyze contracts, build spreadsheets and visualize room layouts.
Others hadn’t even downloaded ChatGPT yet. At Smart Meetings Innovation Experience in Boise this week, top experts from around the world turned attendees into participants in an innovative future of possibilities.
Creators Unite
A hands-on education session led by London-based “reluctant futurist” and author of “The Future Normal” Henry Coutinho-Mason included a 15-minute exercise in napkin scribble imagining that transformed random thoughts into a microsite of ideas filtered by theme with professional images, implementation maps and a crowd-powered manifesto.
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As Coutinho-Mason explained, people come to events to learn, connect and create, but they usually end up doing so badly, luckily and barely. Savvy meeting professionals can use emerging tools to quickly adjust programs on the fly based on real audience needs and deliver what people want most—connection to relevant ideas and peers.
A Growth Mind Hack
Breaking out of the expected releases noradrenaline in the brain, heightening attention and aiding learning. When attendees arrived on Monday morning to a Sunrise Rave with DJ Amani Roberts and Olympian Meeting co-founder David T. Stevens, the hippocampus was activated to imprint fresh memories of the square and salsa dancing lessons that followed. Everyone was soon up, out of their seats and getting in rhythm with others in the room. Participants sang together, learned about the context-enhancing power of music and ended with a conga line around the room.
Even the location of the meeting in a city many had not visited in the past, enhanced the sense of discovery participants felt. The event was based in the completely renovated The Grove Hotel with the Innovation Lounge and main stage in Boise Centre, part of a campus of more than 500 hotel rooms with indoor/outdoor meeting space in the walkable downtown.
Deuling Event Tech Geniuses
What to do when you need to find a solution to your attendee journey problem, but can’t sit through another tech demo? Dahlia El Gazzar of Dahlia+ Agency came to the rescue with one-on-one event-tech therapy and a session of Dueling Event Tech Geniuses with Sync Event Technologies Co-Founder Jessica Blunt and EventMobi Director of Industry Relations and Partnerships Brandt Krueger. A cliche-free discussion answered audience challenges about how to have a productive conversation using Eventshop + Mem-re and Cue technology.
An Analysis of Joy
With so many technologies on display, including novobeing VR relaxation goggles, Centerstage photo sharing from Animatic Media, BoothEasy AI commemorative photos and TLC Creative Technology robots, who can tell what is working and what is getting in the way?
Zenus Director of Marketing Nick Borelli and Bishop-McCann Vice President of Technology Todd Moritz analyzed audience reactions on the general session stage and pinpointed the moments that resonated using facial analysis technology and AI interpretation. Then they put it into context.
Getting the audience involved, vulnerability and emotional storytelling forged connections that demos and technical explanations did not. “Events aren’t good or bad,” Borelli said. There are parts that work and parts that have opportunities for improvement. Having data—ideally from many sources, including feedback forms, wearables that measure changes in heartrate and sentiment—can help meeting professionals make better decisions, iterate and explain their strategy.
Moritz defined a meeting that delivers joy as one that multiplies trust by purpose as measured by emotional responses. If the hugs at the end of the Innovation Experience were an indicator, the gathering at Boise Centre delivered.
