Don t Be a Turkey: Four Tips for Throwing an Unforgettable Thanksgiving Party
TIPS & TRICKS
There s no better holiday for collecting a little feel-good karma than Thanksgiving. No matter what your background or beliefs about Starbucks new holiday cup, Thanksgiving offers something we can all get behind: stuffing our faces until we can t move. Capitalize on all that good will with a Thanksgiving event that is sure to rock people s worlds while reminding them that there are still new innovations that can be brought to Turkey Day.
Go Au Naturel with Your Decor
As a holiday designed to mark the bounty of harvest (in addition to probably apocryphal celebrations between the Pilgrims and the early Native Americans), Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to make the most of your natural surroundings. Bring the great outdoors in with DIY table settings and decorations based around warm colors and seasonal flourishes. From mini-pumpkin bowls to wheat stalk bouquets, from autumn-leaf candle holders to pinecone place card holders, natural adornments offer a classic and classy way to celebrate the changing seasons.
Present New Spins on Classic Bites
While everyone has their own quirky traditions on Thanksgiving roasted turducken, that weird sweet-potato-marshmallow thing, Jones Soda s monstrous Green Bean Casserole soda most people are satisfied to stick to the tried-and-true turkey/stuffing/sides formula. This means two things for your event: 1) You should stick loosely to the classics without 2) trying to compete with homespun favorites (catered stuffing will never taste like mom s). So what s the answer? Go for innovative canap s that present a new twist on old Thanksgiving favorites. For example, what about these spiced turkey tartlets, courtesy of The Tiffin Box, or butternut squash croquettes from Chicago caterers George Jewell? Small bites like this are sure to pique people s interest, without filling them up ahead of the big day.
Make Thankfulness Interactive
No one likes Forced Sharing Time, but what people do like is remembering their blessings. Give people the option to do just that with luminary bags. Simply place paper bags by every place setting and allow people to write down what they re thankful for. The bags are then incorporated into a luminaria display, for a simple but lovely expression of Thanksgiving s meaning.
Go Green with Doggy Bags
There was a time when it was considered gauche to bring home extra food in doggy bags but no more. Show that you value an eco-friendly lifestyle (not to mention people s desire for late-night munchies) by setting up a leftovers station for unfinished food at the end of the night. Turn this into part of the event s curation by having your staff pack up well-balanced leftovers into specially labeled containers, giving people a beautiful package to take home.
Cooooool: Panasonic Unveils World s First High-Speed Projection Mapping System at CES 2016
FACADE MAPPING
CES, king of consumer electronics trade shows, wrapped up this weekend in Vegas, naturally breaking all kinds of attendance records. Running for nearly half a century, the CES 2016 edition drew 170,000 attendees, with 3,800 exhibitors covering almost 2.5 million square feet of floor space. Hot diggety.
Obviously, there was was some sweet gadgetry on display: your basic self-driving cars, a machine that re-grows hair, and an alarm clock that wakes you up by stimulating your sense of smell. But what really caught our eye was the world s first high-speed projection mapping system, a prototype unveiled by Panasonic and demonstrated via pop n lock:
Projection what-ting?
Right. Break it down, Wikipedia:
Projection mapping, also known as video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a projection technology used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into a display surface for video projection. These objects may be complex industrial landscapes, such as buildings, small indoor objects or theatrical stages. By using specialized software, a two- or three-dimensional object is spatially mapped on the virtual program which mimics the real environment it is to be projected on. The software can interact with a projector to fit any desired image onto the surface of that object.[1] This technique is used by artists and advertisers alike who can add extra dimensions, optical illusions, and notions of movement onto previously static objects.
The thing with current projection mapping systems is that they have to be programmed in advance. A human being has to tell them where objects , which is naturally time consuming and restrictive. If any of your background components move out of alignment with the project mapping, the effect can be lost:
After the object which will be projected on is chosen or created, software is used to map the corners of the video to the surfaces. First, one must choose the images or video to project. Then, place each video on to its designated surface . In 3d Mapping, coordinates need to be defined for where the object is placed in relation to the projector, the xyz orientation, position and lens specification of the projector must be determined virtual scene.
This is where Panasonic s new prototype comes in: it responds to objects in motion that are not marked, like people, rather than depending on rigid, pre-set programming. For event producers, that opens up a whole new realm of possibility for dynamic experiences. Cool? We think so.
Six Ways to Make Your Event Hashtag a #Success
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Hey man, you can t just get all willy-nilly with the hashtags, a right? If you want your event hashtag to take off, you gotta follow the rules.
1. Don t Procrastinate
With all the major stuff that comes with organizing an event, you might be tempted to prioritize stuff like venue and speakers over your lowly little hashtag. But don t leave it as an afterthought your event s hashtag should be one of the first things you choose, not only for the sake of advance buzz, but because it s going to be a central part of your event s design. Merchandise, decor, visuals, staff uniforms it s all a potential billboard for your event.
2. KISS
You know what they say: Keep It Simple Stupid. When brainstorming a hashtag, strive to keep it short and sweet. There are two reasons to avoid long, complicated hashtags: first, they re more likely to be forgotten or misspelled; and second, on a platform like Twitter, where you have a 140-character limit, you don t want to waste space with a hashtag!
3. Do Your Homework
This is where things get tricky if you ve followed the rule above, you ve come up with a catchy, compact hashtag that folks are sure to remember. Unfortunately, a lot of great minds think alike, which means the shorter and more memorable your hashtag is, the more likely it s already in use by someone else. After coming up with a few ideas, take to Twitter and do a bit of research about which hashtags are already taken and conversely, which ones have an established community that you can plug into. Ideally, your hashtag should be unique enough that users won t confuse it with another event.
4. Go All Out
This is no time to be modest. Crowds are used to glazing over advertising, which means if you want your hashtag to be noticed, you ll have to put it everywhere. The usual suspects are a good place to start incorporated into the decor, plastered on the walls, printed on banners and signs but you can also get more creative with it. Put it on your brochure, on table cars, heck you can even put it on your staff s tee shirts. Anything to make sure that if and when a guest is ready to post, the hashtag is right under their noses.
5. Offer Hashtag-Related Rewards
You can lead a horse to water, but you can t make it drink. Even if your hashtag is plastered all you re your event, that doesn t mean that attendees will be tweeting it en masse. Add an extra incentive by coming up with rewards for people who send out tweets incorporating the hashtag. That can mean anything from a lucky draw for participants to a Twitter wall, where people can view their own tweets, to hashtag-operated consoles, where in exchange for a post incorporating the hashtag attendees are rewarded with mementos.
6. Turn It Into a Photo Opp
One of the best ways to ensure that guests post your hashtag is to turn it into a photo opp. Have an idea for a larger-than-life display? Do you plan to incorporate an interactive wall or technical display with a lot of wow factor? Are you providing a photo booth or pictures with a mascot that people will want to post? Then build them around your hashtag. Even if you fail to engage attendees with the hashtag itself through one of the above strategies, no one can resist posting a quality selfie and if you do it right, you hashtag will be along for the ride.
15 Must-Follow Pinterest Boards for Event Producers
EVENT PRODUCTION INSPIRATION
It s time for your Social Media winter refresh, and that means checking out some new feed this year. So which Pinterest accounts are on the event professionals must-see list (besides ours, that is)?
Experiential Inspiration
Branded Environments by @tapelgren
A board that explores installations walking the line between marketing and art.
LUMIN by @munkowitz
Super-futuristic spacial creation with lighting design.
Market Place by @lulualma
A collection of clever brand activations and guerrilla marketing campaigns from Chicago s Lulu Almazan.
Exhibition Design by @supremelan
Meticulously curated board of great exhibit photography, both branded and artistic.
Pop-Up Stores by @agencyofplace
Pop-up stores!
Food & Drink
Catering Food Stations by @Makemischief
The ultimate board of tiny, stylin edibles: sushi arrays, trendy things on sticks, miniaturized donuts, and other good things.
Food Styling by @pausegourmande
Not sure how to style your spread? This inspiring board s got oodles of pretty plates oozing with atmosphere.
Eat Appetizers by @foodiecrush
Recipe after calorie-dense comfort food recipe? Don t mind if we do.
Drink by @buzzfeed
Believe it or not, the go-to digital stop for pictures of 90s hairstyles and adorable piglet GIFs serves up a pretty excellent collection of novel party drink ideas on Pinterest.
Foods n Kitchen by @virvelflicka
More excellent food shots, many of which are event-adaptable.
Interior & Design
Event Design by @epievents
Banquet design: flowers, drapery and chandeliers.
Event by @AllenLeong
Stages, backdrops and catwalks.
Signage by @mishkadobek
In-store displays, clever signs, beautiful exhibitions and all things wayfinding.
Entertain by @eyeswoon
Nordic-inspired table design and party place-settings.
Event Design by @rosesarsenal
And finally, this popular board by Rose Arsenal, all things eventful and pretty.
Four Apps to Help Event Producers Get Organized
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Among the most challenging parts of being an event planner is keeping yourself organized. From arranging the venue to proofing contracts, there are a million things to do in the run-up to a big event, and if you re not careful you ll quickly find yourself drowning in a sea of to-do lists.
Luckily, these days it s easier than ever to electronically compile and share information with your team the question is, how should you do it? Though technology offers a lot of options for constant communication, it can also make for complications when you find your to-do list spread across a half-dozen different devices and platforms. Read on for several options that will streamline your process, putting all of your information in one place and making for easier sharing and delegation. You re just a few apps away from
Evernote
This little gem is perfect for compiling all of your research into one place, no matter what the original format. You can take photos, record voice memos, capture handwritten notes, clip web articles and more, and then arrange it all according to tags. Another great feature is Evernote s ability to transform your notes into a to-do list complete with reminders. Evernote can be synced across multiple devices. The basic version is free, the plus version offers more monthly uploads and options for $24.99 a year, and the premium version features more detailed search and recording functions for $49.99.
Boomset
Having trouble keeping tabs on your guest registration? Get a handle on it with Boomset, an app designed to streamline registration and check-in. The app helps organizers print badges or create wristbands, and also allows guests can check in using their QR scanner. You can also import and sync multiple guest lists.
Zapier
The world of app use has gone meta which is to say, we now need apps to connect our apps. Enter Zapier, a webapp-automation service that helps create connections between more than 300 applications, including Evernote, Mailchimp, Twitter, Gmail, Google Calendar, Asana, Trello, Todoist, and more. Here s how it works you create a Zap, or an action that occurs in response to a defined trigger, allowing your apps to communicate automatically. For example every time you star an email in Gmail, it creates a task in another one of your apps easy peasy! Zapier is also great for keeping members of your team who are using different apps on the same page.
Slack
Forget email the new way to keep up with your team is Slack, a group chat app that can be used across different devices and boasts automatic archiving as well as a good search engine. Like so many other valuable apps, the key to Slack is integration, communication and simplification. Slack allows you to create chat rooms for different topics and teams, allowing for easier sharing of information and communication across teams. It also integrates with other tools to provide handy reminders, offers private channels, and a star function to designate tasks.
Tips for Forming Event Production Partnerships in 2016
EVENT INDUSTRY
In their annual end-of-the-year survey, Special Events Magazine identified the key business improvements measures event professionals are planning to adopt in 2016. Top of the list? 51{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of respondants said they d primarily be looking to form partnerships with copacetic service providers.
And it makes sense: there are so many bits and bobs that go into event production catering, A/V, printing and graphic design, PR, engineering, design, digital that even the largest firms can t reasonably bring every service in-house. Decibel has been fortunate to find and develop some excellent, long-standing partnerships with like-minded vendors over the last several years, so if you re one of the many looking to find new opportunities for cooperation in the new year, here are a few pointers for drumming up solid vendor relationships.
Identify your weaknesses
If you ve been in business any length of time, you can probably fire off a few thoughts about where you can stand to improve, or where your service listing is lacking. Identify two or three of your most pressing needs requests your clients most often make that you re forced to refuse or that leave you scrambling for a solution. Start there.
Do the research
Fire up the search engine and the networking skills and get busy. You might consider browsing Bizbash for suppliers in your area. Your ideal partner will:
- Specialize in filling one or more of your immediate needs
- Lack one or more of your specializations
- Service a similar client base
- Have a portfolio of work you admire
- Be local. Yes, we know. It s 2016, and everyone s working remote. But if your partner will need to be on site for events, locality kinda matters.
Put Together a Partnership Package
The information that a potential partner needs is not necessarily the same information you offer on your client-facing website. Create a PDF (or other document) introducing yourself and your company to prospective allies. Your partnership package should include:
- A very short background on your company, including key team members, primary service area, and how long you ve been around
- Your primary strengths and areas of expertise
- Short portfolio of recent projects and past clients
- Typical service volume (how many events you do per year on average)
- A brief blurb about your ideal client and the type of project that gets you excited
- Your contact info, naturally
No need to dig into numbers and pricing yet, that ll come later.
Contact individuals, not companies
Sadly, email spam has become increasingly sophisticated, and partnership spam is on the rise. If you don t want your introductory email to get lost in the mix of unsolicited SEO service form letters, you d better hop on LinkedIn and find out exactly who you should be talking to. Send them a personal email, and attach your partnership package for quick reference.
Start courting before a project appears
Most event management businesses begin to develop partner and vendor relationships when an immediate need for that service arises and a project is already in the pipes. While that situation can t be avoided in every instance (sometimes you didn t know you needed until a client asks), it s best to court vendors before you re pressed for time. This gives you enough wiggle room to establish a more organic relationship and get insight into your prospective ally s business ideology to see if you re a match. Speaking of which
Ideology matters
The best business relationships are mutually invigorating. Take the time to find out what your partner loves about the industry, what clients excite them, what type of projects they prefer to undertake, what their working speed and turn-around times are, and how they measure their own success once the event is complete.
Now, go forth and multiply.
The Winningest Swag for Your 2016 Conference
TRADE SHOW
Somewhere, in some God-forsaken corner of the earth lies every conference planner s nightmare: a graveyard of last year s discarded swag. Remember that keychain you tossed moments after finding it at the bottom of your swag bag? The branded mug that you conveniently forgot in your hotel room? The gaudy phone case that never even had a chance of making it anywhere near your phone? They re all there, in a towering pile of neon plastic and polyester, where they ll languish forever because someone didn t have the damn sense to realize that conference attendees don t need a thousandth branded USB drive.
Don t let this happen to you! Something that seems to be lost on so many trade show and conference organizers is that the purpose of swag is not purely as a vehicle for promotion, but rather to provide gifts that attendees will value and hopefully keep around for years to come. So how do you avoid swag bags that end up in hotel trashcans at the end of the day? Check out our guide for recommendations that are sure to please.
Umbrellas
The first rule of good swag is functionality and it doesn t get any more functional than an umbrella. Pedestrian as it may seem, umbrellas are a great choice for two reasons: first, unless you live in a dry climate, they re sure to get a lot of use; and second, they re used exclusively outside, which makes them a great vehicle for advertising. If you don t skimp on the quality, this is a piece of swag people will both appreciate and keep in their regular rotation for years to come.
Portable phone chargers
Speaking of functionality, it doesn t get much more useful than a portable phone charger especially at an event where folks will likely be on their phones all day long. It s an item that most people won t go out of their way to buy, but will get a lot of use out of, and appreciate your brand whenever they do. Best of all, they re not as expensive as you d think you can buy a Jolt charger, for example, for as little as $13 each.
Quality totes
The key word here is quality. Chances are, anyone who regularly attends trade shows, conferences, or media events has their very own mausoleum of crappy totes stuffed in a cabinet somewhere. You know the kind we re talking about the gross, polyester/ polypropylene bags that feel kind of like fabric but not quite, and that you keep around on the off chance that you ll need them for grocery shopping. Ditch those in favor of real cotton or canvas totes, ideally with a unique image screened on the front. They may cost a little more, but it s worth it to provide a quality product that people will be proud to use, rather than one gathering mold under the sink.
Moleskine notebooks
Forget funny-shaped USBs in little metal boxes these days, it s better to go old-school with your office-related swag. Among the classiest choices is a good Moleskine notebook. Not only do people go gaga for them as planners, organizers or journals, Moleskines are perfect for branding because you can easily have your logo imprinted in the cover. Show us someone willing to throw out a perfectly good Moleskine, and we ll show you a man with no soul.
Mobile phone speakers
The beautiful thing about phone speakers is they re sure to get people to associate your brand or event with something they love music. Whenever they re out and about at the beach, at a party, on a weekend trip they ll pull this little guy out and be reminded of your brand as they groove along to some of their favorite tunes.
Essential TED Talks to Inspire New Event Producers in 2016
EVENT INDUSTRY
New year, new career? Welcome to event management, young Padawan. Whether you re working for a larger firm or starting your own, may this be the first of many happy, fulfilling years spent hunting for something healthy in the 7-11 snack aisle at 4:30am. Protip: give up and grab the peanuts. And while that may be the only industry advice you ever need, we ve collected a few inspiring TED talks to round out your education.
Ruth Chang: How to Make Hard Choices
As an event producer and new entrepreneur, hard choices are an unavoidable fact of life. What do you do when faced with a hard choice? How do you make a selection when neither option seems better than the other? Maybe the problem is with the way we think about the structure of choice itself?
Daniel Levitin: How to Stay Calm when you Know You ll be Stressed
Hate to break it to you, kid, but the event planner s brain runs on cortisol and coffee. You may not be able to avoid stress altogether, but if you know it s coming, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin shares a few tricks for keeping your synapses from going haywire when it hits.
Chip Kidd: The Art of First Impressions in Design & Life
In event production, communication is everything, and you never get a second chance for a first impression. Take these insights from graphic designer Chip Kidd to heart when designing and planning your next event.
Navi Radjou: Creative Problem Solving in the Face of Extreme Limits
Navi Radjou introduces the Hindi concept of jugaad , a clever, improvised solution to a problem in the face of extreme circumstances, or frugal innovation . It s not, as Mr. Radjou reminds us, about making due , it s about making things better . With event production budgets getting lower year after year, this talk is an inspiring look into creative problem solving on a shoestring.
David Grady: How to Save the World (or at least yourself) from Bad Meetings
Are bad meetings ruining business? David Grady thinks so. In fact, he thinks they amount to theft. He also tells us how to avoid bad meetings and help create a culture of real productivity in the workplace.
Five Ways to Tailor Your Social Media Event Marketing to Millenials
TIPS & TRICKS
You can just see the Baby Boomers and, to a lesser extent, Gen-Xers having a collective panic attack as the headlines roll in: MILLENIALS POISED TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD. While the media initially pegged millenials (defined as the generation born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s), as a bunch of narcissists with Peter Pan syndrome, studies show that with the rebounding economy, this group of 20- and early 30-something are just as industrious as their predecessors, if not quite as well-off. What that means for the world of event promotion is that your marketing needs to be on point, because let s get real: millenials have a lot competing not only for their attention, but their time and money as well. We all know it comes down to social media, but other than creating a hashtag and assigning someone to spam Twitter all day, what does that mean? Here are five tips for successfully marketing your event in the brave new world of Generation Y consumers.
Create Bite-Sized Content
It s sad but true millenials have the attention spans of goldfish. What that means for social media promotion is that it has to be brief and sharp; think of your posts like fighter pilots: they need to get in, hit the target, and get out. This not only means that your audience will take the time to click, but it makes the content easier to view on smartphones and more likely to be shared. So what qualifies as bite-sized? Try anything with images: infographs, exclusive pictures, memes, videos, etc. Remember, not every post has to be specifically about your event. Users above all appreciate good content, and will connect the good sentiment that generates back to you.
Enlist Savvy Social Media Managers
For the love of cupcakes, make sure whoever s implementing your social media campaign is familiar with the ways of that particular platform. Every post should be tailored to that specific network. After all, there s nothing that spells narc like a fuddy-duddy company that won t stop spamming your feed with stuff you couldn t care less about.
Not only will users turn away from your content, they ll take a diminished view of you as a company and of your event.
Strive for Authenticity over Gloss
Perhaps more than any other generation, millenials a group that s grown up on adblock and Tivo are inured to the effects of advertising. Blame technology (or Mad Men) all you want, but the point is that big-budget ad campaigns aren t going to get you very far when pushing your event. Instead, save your budget to engage key influencers who are likely to have both access to and sway over your target audience. Whatever you do, don t try and pull a fast one influencers will instantly lose their cred the moment you force them to ring a false note on your behalf. Let it happen organically, whether that means engaging influencers with a legitimate interest in the event, or allowing them to promote in a winking, ironic way that acknowledges the transactional nature of your sponsorship.
Make Partners of Your Audience
This is another one you ve probably heard a bunch: millenials like to be involved. On the organization side, that could mean anything from brainstorming advertising campaigns to crowdsourcing ideas for products and events. Get your target audience engaged from the get-go by allowing them to be part of the planning process, whether that means getting them to vote on the playlist, launching an instagram contest or incentivizing a branded hashtag campaign. The bottom line is when you integrate user generated content into your social media promotion and even the details of your event, your audience is more likely to 1) have a stake in the event and 2) to share social media posts about it.
Make Use of Peer Pressure
Not like in the bad way that DARE told us to avoid use it in a good way! Millenials are a highly social group who value opportunities to collaborate and network not to mention the good opinions of their peers. Capitalize on this desire to be part of a group by connecting your event with a positive message or value that will be meaningful to your target audience. Not only will this cause your event to be seen in a more positive light, it will give your audience another reason to get involved: their own desire for a better a world (or at the worst, their desire to make their peers think they care about a better world).
5 New Years Resolutions all Event Producers Should Make
EVENT INDUSTRY
We tend to find that in the calorie-crash silence of post-Christmas comedown, we re inspired to indulge in a bit of high-minded optimism. Care to join us in making some pledges as we move into 2016?
I will practice healthy stress management
When Forbes released their 2015 list of most stressful careers, fire fighter understandably took the number one spot. You know what came in at number 8? Yup. Event Coordinator .
As with all high-energy fields requiring consistent perfection and snappy responses to a constant parade of minor crises, burnout is common in the event management industry (Not sure if you re at risk for burnout? This little quiz from Mindtools.com will give you a hint.
). Let your stress levels get too high for too long, and you might start thinking about a nice, relaxing career running in and out of flaming buildings. And burnout isn t the only ramification of poor stress management: where anxiety goes, illness and aging follow.
This year, make a pledge to take time out to take care of yourself. Meditate. Cook lasagna. Do headstands in your underwear. Whatever it is that keeps you grounded; make the time to do it.
I will try some cutting-edge event tech
We ve been watching the slow emergence of high-tech in the special event industry for the last 10 years, but in 2015, many of those theoretical, clunky or costly technologies have finally become affordable reality. Arial video via drone, facial recognition checkin, virtual reality engagement via Occulus Rift, facade mapping, and many other once speculative magics have become startlingly common.
As an event producer, it s easy to get stuck in a technological rut. As budgets get smaller and deadlines get shorter with each passing year, it seems easier to stick with an older, more familiar approach than to slog through all the process re-structuring, testing and potential for failure that a first-time implementation requires. On the other hand, you know in the quiet recesses of your heart that if you don t get on board with the revolution, you ll look up in ten years to find that the industry has passed you by.
This year, bite the bullet and get out there in front of emerging technologies.
I will make my events more sustainable
Green events have been a talking point for the last couple of years, but sustainable event planning practices are still a long way from being commonplace. If you haven t done all you can to keep your events environmentally-friendly, or you re not sure where to start, check out this getting started guide to sustainable events from Johns Hopkins.
This year, turn your eye towards lowering the environmental impact of your events.
I will form more partnerships
The 2016 Event Planner Forecast from Special Events Blog notes that in 2016, 51{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of event professionals will be looking to form partnerships with like-minded businesses in order to improve their service offerings. That means more opportunities for you to team up with talented folks who can help strengthen any weaknesses in your team and provide your clients with the best possible outcomes.
This year, reach out to your community and form lasting, mutually-beneficial relationships.
In 2016, I will get out there and kick some keister
Above all else, this year, continue to succeed! We wish you a 2016 full of exciting opportunities and realized dreams.
Happy New Year!
