Is Your Event Stressing Your Attendees Out?

 An event can be stressful for attendees. You’re taking them out of their natural work environment, they’re missing the cadence of their regular communication, you’re pummeling them with information back-to-back over hours (often delivered in a deadly-dry way), and they’re told that this information is mission-critical for their jobs and livelihoods over the next year. Sometimes there are unpleasant truths on their minds that never are addressed, and they’re expected to carry on and learn new information.

No wonder we hear from attendees, “I felt like I HAD to have a drink at the end of the day.”

This is, understandably, a toxic environment for learning. You can’t absorb new information when you’re stressed out about your environment, or when you’re fixating on issues. This is why we emphasize making events less stressful through multiple techniques. 

1. Address issues up front. When we use AniMates, addressing the elephant-in-the-room issues allows presenters to acknowledge that something is on an audience’s mind so they’re receptive to subsequent information.

2. Incorporate play. Gamification and team competition allow attendees to practice with information in new ways—but that are fun and engaging. Giving them an opportunity to move around, cheer, show off their skills and knowledge relieves the stress of information overload and ALSO helps reinforce content. 

3. Give attendees time to absorb information. Events are an investment, so it makes sense that a lot of clients want to squeeze as much information as humanly possible into the agenda—you have attendees there, why not use every second? However, without giving attendees the ability to reflect on the material in some way—reviews, creating personal take-aways, gamification, etc., they reach information overload and everything washes over them. 

We normally think of events as a time to reconnect, to motivate, to get on-board with a consistent company message. We don’t generally think of them as stressful, but those stress points in design are exactly what can inhibit the learning objectives of the event. With a little modification, events can become environments that are conducive to learning and lightning rods for shared ideas—instead of places attendees feel glad to escape at the end of the day.

Prime-time: How to Prepare Your Audience at the Beginning of an Event

Most events try to open with a splash: A sit-down video designed to convey energy, a powerful greeting from an emcee or host, etc. Lights, camera...action!

...And then they go into the standard format of "our first speaker..."

This might be fine if you want another event-as-usual, with information washing over your audience. 

But if you've taken the time to design a really effective, interactive event, spending some time priming the audience for their experience will pay off tremendously. What should you do to get your audience ready for an event that is going to benefit them more--but also requires more from them than passive listening?

1. Set expectations: Spend the first part of the event talking to your audience. Convey that this won't be an event as usual, and they'll be seeing different ways of doing things. Set up the event by setting their expectations: The event will be valuable for them. It will be worth their time. Here is what they will be able to take back day ONE to achieve the objectives you've set for the event. 

2. Get their buy-in: They know what to expect from the event--they won't be having an "event as usual" so they can't be an audience as usual. There is an element of reciprocity involved--you've made a commitment to them by preparing an event of value, so they have to be a different kind of audience. Not passive, but active. Part of getting their buy-in can also involve having them set their own goals and expectations for the event--what do THEY want to get out of it? What are they committed to seeking out by the end of the event?

3. Give them permission to play full out: Audiences are so used to being at least partially passive that if you want them to interact you need to give them permission to do so. If you're expecting questions, cheering, role-play participation, etc., after you've set the expectations of that behavior, you have to give them permission to do it in the way you want to see it. Which leads to...

4. Practice & reward the interaction you want to see: Start out right away by getting the audience to participate in the way you want them to, and then reward it. This looks different based on your outcomes and how you structure your event, but one thing we do is--when we have competition laced throughout the meeting--get the teams cheering right away. They then get points for their early efforts (or fewer points if one team wasn't so great). This sets the tone for the audience interaction you want and expect. 

A great event opening to a different kind of event can, of course, include the standard splashy video. But then it should go beyond that to priming the audience to participate and play full-out--making the event incredibly valuable for them and the company. 

Superior Sponsor Games

Last week we talked a little bit about a particular type of game we created to highlight event sponsors. That's not the only way to bring attention to your sponsors through a game show--generating excitement and curiosity around their products/services. 

Here are some game show formats we love that highlight sponsors in a way that is ALSO fun for the audience. 

1. Sponsor Jeopardy: Each sponsor can be featured as a category with varying point values per question. The sponsors themselves can also make appearances to be part of a video clue or question.

2. Trivia AllPlay: Sprinkle in sponsor segments between presentations to refresh the audience and revive the energy of the event. These questions are straightforward in sponsor information, but by threading them throughout the event the audience isn't overwhelmed by sponsor information, and they look forward to the consistent boost from competition.

3. Tangential Questions: The method described last week; your audience might not have a good knowledge base about the sponsor content and cannot be expected to know random sponsor trivia or data about their offerings. This piggyback question format gives the audience a blurb about the sponsors--then jumps to a related pop-culture or general trivia question based on the genre or keyword from the sponsor information.

4. Sponsor Idol: Challenge your sponsors to be creative. In Sponsor Idol, sponsors are tasked with presenting a short pitch--2 minutes max--in the format they want. The audience's task (and what keeps them at-attention and involved) is to judge these presentations and rank them, coming up with a winning sponsor presentation. Creativity and memorability is rewarded. 

These are just a few ways to incorporate and highlight sponsors in general sessions. When having attached trade shows/showcases, there are many other options as well, including at-booth trivia games/challenges, scavenger hunts and passports, etc. Gathering information at the booth that the audience has to use in future challenges also incentivizes meaningful sponsor interaction. 

Sponsors are important to events--and they often don't get the highlighting they deserve aside from passive logo branding, etc. Time to make their time more valuable and give the audience positive emotional sponsor associations--with gamification!