The OpenWater Blog

What Attendees Really Want From Events

You’ve spent months planning, agonizing over, and otherwise pouring your heart and soul into your event. You’ve lost countless hours of sleep and have spent even more hours with your team trying to ensure attendees get exactly what they expect out of the event.

But, what do attendees want anyways?

This is an elusive question. After all, you can’t read minds and put together the “best event ever” without knowing what attendees need to consider this the best event ever. However, you can understand some of the most common problems at events to uncover what attendees want.

Ask yourself: What are some of the most common thoughts/feelings amongst attendees? They may include:

• Feeling alone – Many attendees feel lonely and awkward at events. Many come without a colleague or familiar face and don’t know anyone else there. So, while there are hundreds or even thousands of attendees, chances are your attendees aren’t quite sure what to do.

• Feeling frustrated – Your event space is likely to be quite large. And, if attendees are shuffling back and forth from end to end, they may make it to a presentation for it to be full by the time they got there.

• Feeling bored – Not every speaker is going to offer something new or revolutionary to attendees. But if each speaker reiterates information or knowledge many already know, chances are they’re going to be disappointed.

Put simply, attendees will feel and think a wide range of things while at your conference. And, if you want to delight them, it’s important that you recognize these feelings to give them what they really want.

So again, what do they really want?

Attendees Want the Best of What You Can Give Them

It falls on you as an event planner to not only anticipate what attendees want, but to deliver. As such, it’s important that you focus on yourself and a few key goals to deliver what your specific attendees want.

Some of the best ways to do so include:

• Alleviating Stress – It’s stressful for attendees to come to your conference, not know where to go, and have no one to talk to. The best way to ease some of these pains is to rely on your mobile event app for registration, check-ins, updates, floor plans, scheduling, and more. This way, attendees will be able to focus on learning and socializing rather than how awkward and out of place they feel.

• Making it Worth the Investment – It takes time and money to attend your conference. The best way to make it worth the investment is to offer quality presentation materials, knowledgeable, forward-thinking speakers, interactive presentations, and networking throughout the conference.

• Staying in Constant Communication – Attendees want to know what’s going on all the time. Email, social media, industry publications, newsletters, and other platforms are all great ways to stay in constant contact without bothering attendees. If there’s a deadline approaching, send a message. If there’s a change in the event, send a message. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your audience early and often – they’ll appreciate it.

What Attendees Want Depends on Your Event…

However, every attendee wants to feel less stressed, as if their time and money is worth the investment, and that you’re being transparent and straightforward in your communications. By building this as the foundation of your conference and as inspiration for other attendee-centered efforts, you’re guaranteed to make this year your most successful conference yet.

Even if you aren’t quite sure what that looks like as of yet.

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