This webinar is graciously sponsored by Mohegan Sun 

1 Clock Hour | Domain G: Meeting and Event Design

In November 2020, MPI delivered an industry-leading hybrid event in-person at the Gaylord Texan in the heart of Grapevine, Texas, and live online to a global audience representing 17 countries. With more than 600 onsite and 1,200 digital participants, MPI’s lofty mission—to execute a safe, engaging experience for all attendees that delivered on its theme—Reunite for Recovery. Join MPI for this deep-dive conversation about the strategy and execution of the World Education Congress Grapevine from early critical choices to duty of care to the realities of hybrid. These hard lessons well learned to provide a pathway for meetings and events moving forward and a blueprint for our industry’s recovery.

Learner Objectives

• Discover best practices for duty of care and participant health and safety during a pandemic.
• Discuss critical considerations for creating hybrid experiences that connect people across borders.
• Learn key lessons learned by MPI for designing experiences that bring people together—at six feet

The planning for WEC 2020 was in the home stretch until COVID-19 derailed everything. When MPI’s leadership made the decision to postpone WEC to November, the WEC planning group had to throw out years of traditional event planning best practices and not only start from scratch but transition a highly interactive live event into a hybrid conference. Kevin Iwamoto, GLP, GTP and Melinda L. Burdette, CMP, CMM, HMCC, Director, Events for MPI discuss what happened and how MPI pivoted to re-create WEC 2020 in a pandemic world.

For over a decade, the industry has been content to be "in-person first", despite having bullet-proof solutions for live streaming and remote audience engagement. Then COVID-19 happened, and we were forced to take our events completely online, all at once. And what did we see? Increased attendee counts more diverse and worldwide engagement, hundreds of new streaming providers, and for some even a bump in membership and revenue. There is no question in-person events will always have a future, but now that both planners and attendees have had a taste of the power of online events, how can we move forward? The future is hybrid. Learn how modern events will incorporate two distinct audiences, online and in-person, and how to build unique, engaging experiences for both.

Have you ever attended a large-scale event that fell flat? Sometimes the large macro experience gets lots of love, but we forget about all the important micro-moments. Every experience contains a myriad of micro-moments. Sometimes, though, within the hustle and bustle of designing the event, some of these micro-moments lack the intention and time they deserve. What if we were able to create, moment by moment, identify, and then design specific micro-moments we knew would yield specific outcomes? Zooming out, think of what the entire experience might look like with that level of intention! This session will define and describe distinct “micro-experience” types grounded in experience design research and show participants how to intentionally craft events by carefully curating micro-experiences that climax in a magnificently personalized experience and gives your participants exactly what they want and need.

Customer experience is recently considered as a more competitive advantage than price, product, or quality. However, virtual event experience is different from traditional meetings due to the lack of face-to-face social interactions with people and the physical environment, as well as a lower level of engagement. This session aims to present the results of the MPI research project on virtual event experience and attendees' risk perceptions during the post-COVID-19 era, introduce different components and temporal dimensions of virtual event experience, and propose new innovative measures to capture the affective and moment-by-moment nature of event experience, including survey scales, experience sampling method, electrodermal activity, electrocardiography, pupillometry, and other emerging techniques.

The master in the art of creating great events (live, hybrid, virtual) makes little distinction between learning and connecting, classroom and hallway, teaching, and playing. Their events leave it up to the guest to decide if they are working or playing. To the designer, they are always doing both." This paraphrase of a James Michener quote is at the heart of relevant, dynamic, never-miss meetings. Play with a Purpose has been blending the two key results attendees want from a meeting – education and networking – using experiential and engaging learning strategies for decades. Come play, participate, and get hands-on as you learn to deliver bold results in virtual meetings.

1 Clock Hour | Domain G: Meeting or Event Design

Hybrid events have been around for almost 2 decades, but they have recently vanished due to Covid-19's decimation of the live event industry. The general consensus is that when live events come back (and they will!), Hybrid events will be the norm. But what will the next generation of hybrid events look like, what will be the best approach for producing them, and what steps should event organizers take in simultaneously engaging both physical and virtual audiences in the ever-changing event landscape?

Learner Outcomes:

1. In order to engage both audiences - virtual and physical - event organizers will learn techniques for designing programs with global appeal.

2. Learners will gain knowledge about cost ramifications for catering to 2 audiences, and they will receive tips for selling access to hybrid events while maximizing efficiencies.

3. Learners will gain insight as to what exhibitors and sponsors seek in the form of ROI from contributing to a hybrid event, and what options are available to the exhibitor in a hybrid world.

Event Cost

• Non-Members: $9.99
• Members: Free

Want access to great educational content year-round for a free or reduced rate? Learn more about MPI membership here today!

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning 

As virtual and hybrid events become the “new abnormal” for the association community, the role and functions of meeting professionals is changing at a rapid pace. Changing more slowly is the perception of the role that planners and professionals can – and should – play as meetings and events go from in-person to virtual. Some associations have placed virtual events squarely in the marketing department, others have determined they remain with the meeting planners, and many are still navigating how best to address this important transition. This session will highlight the reasons it is important for association planners to have a “seat at the table” in developing virtual event strategy and offer tips for how to claim your seat in your organization.

Learner Outcomes: 

• Recognize the key players and decision makers in their organization’s approach to virtual events.
• Identify they key strengths that planners bring to virtual event planning.
• Discuss opportunities to advocate for an ongoing role in the association’s virtual event strategy.

As virtual and hybrid events become the new normal, examine the best practices from Mike Dietrich, Vice President of Marketing at Cvent and Drew Holmgreen, Vice President of Brand Engagement at MPI regarding marketing and engagement strategies for your events. You will also have the ability to ask your questions regarding strategies, best practices, and tactics across the full event marketing funnel (from leads to revenue) and expand your role beyond execution to designing experiences that deliver on business objectives by understanding how event marketing works.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the eight essential planning steps of event marketing
• Learn engagement strategies for virtual and hybrid events
• Leverage technology, data and design methods to deliver ROI and with measurement and revenue attribution

This webinar is graciously sponsored by:

1 Clock Hour | Domain G: Meeting or Event Design

Are you still waiting for the Data Fairy to deliver actionable insights to improve your virtual events? In this session, learn how to get strategic about collecting and analyzing the *right data* to understand what efforts are working and what needs to be tweaked. You don’t need to be an analyst to make better decisions moving forward—we’ll show you simple ticks and tricks to get the insights you need.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Identify the most important KPIs for virtual events 
• Strategies for analyzing your data to discover useful insights
• Data visualization tactics to communicate your findings