Must read event blog posts

I’ve seen several blog posts entitled “best event blogs”, “event blogs to follow”, “must read event industry blogs” and other similar titles, but since there are not many event blogs out there, I found these posts very repetitive. And anyway, I follow most of them already!

Instead, I would like to share with you my favourite blog post written by event bloggers, posts which are timeless so even if they were written over a year ago you can still get important insights from them.

So without further ado, here we go:

Event Sponsorship is Broken. Can We Fix it?

Companies don’t spend as much as they used to on sponsorships anymore, and in a very crowded marketplace, companies don’t buy the promise of exposure as they used to. Julius Solaris shows that little has changed in event sponsorship in over 100 years, and it’s time to change. Julius presents the shift in corporate spend, from exhibitions to hosting own events with the aim to educate and build communities around a topic rather than “get exposure”.

Read blog post.

Questioning facts

Caitlin Kobrak makes a brilliant point in this post and urges us to question facts. In creative industries, such as ours, facts are usually opinions, based on experience and expertise but not backed by any statistics.

When I was a student I looked for such ‘stats’ without questioning from two reasons. Firstly, I was looking for references to use for my essays, and secondly, and as Caitlin mentions, I accepted others opinions as facts because the people who made them had more industry experience and were more senior. Now, on the other hand, I question everything and having my own experience in many areas in the events industry, I know to distinguish between facts and opinions. I also became more PR savvy and can distinguish between PR and facts 😉

Read blog post.

Web Summit final thoughts

Based in Dublin, Padraic Gilligan often shares news about events in Ireland and by following his blog I first learnt that the Web Summit, one of the biggest events for the tech community, is moving to Lisbon after being held for five years in Dublin. Within this short period it grew from 500 attendees to 30,000 and there are lessons to learn from this event for event planners and destinations. These include collaboration between the public and private sectors, Dublin as host city for large scale events, price fluctuation during the event and lastly legacy for Dublin as a meetings and events destination.

Dublin definitely played a big role in what the Web Summit has become today, so it’s a big question mark whether another destination can replicate its success, as it expects to welcome almost the double number of attendees in Lisbon. As Padriac writes “Could the city handle an event with 50,000 or 70,000 attendees (the numbers projected for Lisbon)? It probably could – and does each year in September – but personally I think the tipping point for Dublin – and, indeed, for Web Summit –  is 15,000 – 20,000 because after that the event fragments and loses the intimacy that defined it in the first instance”.

Read blog post.

Why sharing isn’t always caring

The sharing economy is one of the major trends in the events industry in 2016, with Uber & Airbnb most prominent examples. Airbnb is taking more and more event business during major conferences when delegates prefer the peer-to-peer platform over overpriced hotel rates. But with that in mind, the author of this blog shares a very honest and real scenario of the challenges that come with the sharing economy. As the author states in this blog post “when it comes to the sharing economy, the message still has to be: approach with caution”.

Read blog post.

Seven creative ideas for interactive conference sessions

This blog by Juraj Holub from Sli.do showcases engagement success stories from conference from around the world including Google Demo Day, Eventex, Exlusvely Corporate @IMEX, Dell’s #Social360 UnConference @SXSW, Interactive Theatre, MIMS Clinical Update and Adobe Summit. In all cases there is inspiration and takeaways for #eventprofs how to make their sessions more interactive by integrating live polling before, during and after the presentation. By using polls organisers can also get live feedback, better tailor the presentation to audience’s needs, make everyone in the room feel comfortable by keeping the Q&A anonymous and making it more fun!

Read blog post.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this write-up, I have more posts to share with you but will keep it for next time!

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Comments (3)

  • Julius Solaris 8 years ago Reply

    Thanks for sharing Irina, it means a lot coming from this great blog.

    The MICE Blog 8 years ago Reply

    Thanks Julius, and I’m looking forward to reading more of your excellent and thought provoking posts in the future!

  • Harshi 3 months ago Reply

    It was just Amazing, You provide almost everything in details about event blogging. Thank you so much for sharing this information.

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