Want to make your event experiences even more memorable and impressive?! Here’s an inside look inside our little black book At SQuare we’ve curated a list of things to keep in mind for your future events.
With everything you do keep in mind that a big budget is not the thing that will necessarily bring big success, big audience, and big data nor the experience. Keeping up with these tips and tricks just might do the trick …. If implemented right ;-)
- Beat expectations no matter what
- Offer something new each and every year
- Serve pleasant surprises on every level
- Source glocal or local
- Cuisine alternatives when it comes to everything food & beverages
- Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle for the ultimate ROI
With that said, here you’ll find some trends and insights we would like to address:
FOMO pricing structure
Instead of the traditional early-bird pricing discount, base the cost of your ticket on how many you’ve sold with FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) as a pricing structure. Get the first batch out with a basic price, the next batch slightly higher, and so forth according to the total capacity of the event. This means people can’t wait until the last day of early-bird registration and or line-up reveal and because they don’t know how many tickets have been sold they need to buy quickly if they want a lower price.
Create the unknown
Leading these days in events is expecting more bang for your buck, especially in B2B events. Likes, loves, thumbs up, shares and cares are key. That’s why its essential to make great photo ops, provide unique spaces and areas and people will wonder. It’s about creating a place where “everybody knows your name.”
By creating event design sweet spots where participants can be passive and active at the same time you use curiosity as a natural action driver whether in life or at events. What’s behind that curtain? Who’s on this year’s lineup? The unknown will increase engagement, and keep people talking about your event.
Remote venues
When scouting a location for your event go for a more rural location, away from bustling city life, you are potentially creating a more immersive experience and the opportunity to connect more deeply with more people. Events prosper, live and reproduce on social media so the weirder and more wonderful the venue, the more shareable it is on social media and that brings profile, awareness and… FOMO!
Sustainability becomes common
The growing movement for greater environmental accountability when it comes to events cannot be ignored. The hunger for a greener, fairer, less consumerist society is growing. Scouting venues that actively work toward sustainable practices is key so check whether it is LEED, ISO 20121, or EMAS certified.
If your planning on touring stuff; make structures scalable, source crew and technique glocal and ask yourself as an artist; Why fly if you can take a tour bus and combine it with the making of a road trip documentary that you can share on your social platforms….
Accessible festival locations by public transport account for up to 80% of an event’s CO₂ emissions add solar power generating systems or cultivate urban gardens to the sites event installations and you are already forward-thinking and moving into the greener side of things.
Food trends
Make your audience feel more at home with having their best interest in mind by providing a variety of food choices. Nowadays, Keto and Paleo diets or intermittent fasting are more common than the exception. Some people are vegan. Others have a gluten intolerance... you name it. Think outside the box and create an ethos of caring. Don’t be afraid, because there are plenty of alternative meat solutions which still take care of the afterparty cravings.
Proper WiFi is key to create experiences
For every event, the biggest implication of BYOD (bring your own device) is, of course, on WiFi consumption. Share, like and get your data out there so be sure to calculate your broadband requirement at least at a factor of 3 times the amount of festival or event-goers to get the picture-perfect. Sectioning off areas of your event layout into separate zones is essential to gain more experience. This is a design element that must not be overlooked when shaping your festival masterplan. Combine it with outdoor sustainability like solar power activated objects or structures that provide charging or Wi-Fi and it will help any influencer to create authentic content.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Repurposing has been our trending green buzzword already for the last decade, but it is becoming more and more the theme for the future of events. After all that work, it would be a shame not to make the fullest re-use of valuable materials that remain. Repurposing elements can be done by modifying it to fit a new use, or by using the item as is in new and creative ways, each and every year. It is a cost-effective strategy since the reused items can prevent an organizer from having to purchase new, possibly more expensive materials.
If that sounds like a hell of a job and too much hassle then relate it to free cycling; make a donation of your usable but unwanted items to those in your community that can use them rather than throwing them away. In other words, repurposing doesn't only save money; it can lead to new ways of doing things and boost experience engagement. Check our Foundation page for more information on these projects.
In the end, there’s a simple formula for what actually still blows you over when you go out, everything you don’t expect!
