With constantly changing presentation technologies and customer expectations, the world of event planning is always evolving. Even for seasoned planning professional it can be hard to keep up. Here are a couple of trends we have noticed are going to be hot topics in the audiovisual and events industry in 2016:
Penalty Fees
The pricing power will remain with hotels in 2016 and 2017 due to limited new supply and continued demand growth (ALHI 2015 Industry Advisory Council).
One way meeting planners can help reduce and eliminate popular fees from hotels is to include language in RFP’s and require signatures from the hotels that demonstrates their agreement. For example, a continuing trend with hotels is to penalize meeting planners for hiring a known and trusted audio visual company rather than using the hotel’s on-site provider. By inserting language in your RFP to the hotel, this ensures hotels cannot impose these fees for simply exercising your rights as a buyer to use who you choose. And remember, NEVER sign a hotel contract that allows them to impose fees because you don’t select their preferred vendors. Just because the hotel receives a commission from their on-site AV services, this doesn’t mean they’re qualified enough or knowledgeable about your specific needs to produce your event to your standards.
Ensure the AV choice is yours by using this language in your contract.
You know what’s best for your event and you deserve the choice to select your own vendors without incurring these additional costs. Cross out those clauses regarding outside provider fees and insert your own language on hotel contracts.
Post-Presentation On-Demand Webcasting
With 71% of the population owning smart phones (Nielsen) the trend for scalable mobile access to meeting and event content will continue into 2016 and beyond.
Meeting and conference attendees already have an expectation of being able to access presentation slides after the event. It can be a very time consuming and arduous task to compile the various presentation files for uploading or, even worse, emailing them to the various individuals. Emailing a PowerPoint file to attendees without the dynamic presence of the presenters voice synced to the slides is the difference between delivering a file and a delivering a presentation.
Consider capturing the the on-screen content and the presenters audio live for every breakout and general session and make these presentations available through a web-based, on-demand app. Our system incorporates proprietary hardware and database-driven software that allows us to reliably capture meeting content – up to 40 concurrent sessions – for on-demand webcasting that delivers the same impact as being there! Users are able to see full motion video, slide builds and transitions all in sync with the audio from the presentations. (link to demo?)
If you aren’t currently webcasting your event sessions, this is something you should consider moving toward in the near future. Attendees are beginning to expect this technology, and it creates revenue-generating sponsorship possibilities for you as your meetings will be available on-line for a year or more. A sustainable product attracts more sponsor dollars than one that’s over in a few days!
Image Audiovisuals believes that successfully delivering your message with an event requires the latest technologies operated by people that care about what’s important to you. We have a group of seasoned specialists that focus on every aspect of meeting and event technologies, and our creativity and passion delivers you tangible value. Give us a shot – you’ll be happy you did!
A good look at a few things we can expect in this industry in the future. I am excited to see what changes happen over this year!