Your members and sponsors have an array of options for how they invest their time and money when it comes to events. They want to be part of an event that attracts high quality attendees and delivers can’t-miss experiences. Long before your event, you meet with your team, tour the venue, and evaluate how it will function to suit your needs. To take your event from good to great, you need your next site visit to maximize the potential of your event.
To draw the richest insights from a site visit, you need the perspective of a creative team on-hand. By viewing the venue through their perspective, they can unlock new opportunities, beyond what you could imagine, for your event.
Successful Events Demand a Balance of Perspectives
A site visit is a crucial early step in planning your event experience. Once planning begins, you meet with your event planner, facility manager, and the AV specialists at the venue site. You’ll likely also have many of your stakeholders in attendance, such as executives, volunteer leaders, and vendors. All of these individuals offer a different perspective that contributes to a successful event.
These tactical conversations are vital to managing the details that make up any event. However, your site visit also presents a key opportunity to incorporate the viewpoint of a creative team. One who will consider all aspects of your event branding and in-person activations through two critical perspectives:
- What do your members need?
- How can the venue better serve your organization’s goals for the event?
Your organization depends on its events to deeply engage members, and form relational bonds, and underscore the value of your membership. A creative agency like ours will view your event’s venue as a blank canvas rich with opportunities and ensure your event delivers an elevated, branded experience. It’s time to incorporate a creative perspective to reimagine your event experience.
Consider the User Experience (UX) Design for Your Event
User experience (UX) design, similar to event design, revolves around tailoring an experience to meet the requirements of its users and ensuring its seamless functionality. It is essentially a problem-solving approach that places the needs of your attendees—the members—at the forefront. Moreover, just like an external design partner would approach your event, UX design principles can be applied effectively to enhance your event experience.
In both virtual and physical spaces, UX designers define the audience and empathize with what they need to do. Then they identify problems and eliminate any barriers standing in your audience’s way. The UX process challenges pre-existing assumptions about your event to open the door for new ideas to solve those problems.
You need to apply the same well-honed approach of UX design to your event location. Considering every moment from your attendees arrival through the entire event experience, your external design partner should stand in your members’ shoes and recognize potential challenges. The right creative partner will see details about your event during a site visit that would go unnoticed by merely viewing a venue’s website or photo gallery.
3 Key Considerations for Every Site Visit
A positive user experience at your event allows your members to stay focused on your organization’s message without distractions or negative impressions. These three important details are just the start of what your design partner will consider when touring your event site.
1. You need to understand your space from every angle.
To make the most of your site visit, your team should tour the space at the same general time that your event will take place. Does the venue stand on its own from a visual standpoint, or does it need additional elements so your members immediately recognize they’ve come to the right place? Is the décor highly ornate in a way that will clash with your on-site branding? Adding branded graphics or redirecting attention from elements that don’t align with your brand will create an environment that’s cohesive and consistent with the goals of your event.
2. Remember no one wants to feel lost or confused.
In the same way website users shouldn’t question what they need to do when they arrive on a page, your attendees should always understand where they should go next. Whether your event begins once they arrive at the hotel or convention center, the addition of impactful branding gives your members the confidence they’re on the right path.
Your event planner will resolve any issues of wayfinding. But your design partner builds upon those guiding details in a branded, elevated way that’s impactful and creates a sense of place.
3. Welcoming your guests — in a big way — is crucial.
Your event needs a meaningful moment to underscore that your members have arrived. This is your chance to surprise and energize your most valuable audience with an experience that’s unmistakably representative of your organization — and your brand.
Whether you’re trying to create a sense of place or generate excitement upon your guest’s arrival, first impressions are everything.
How a Well-Branded Event Creates FOMO for Your Next Event
Bringing a creative team to your site visit does more than ensure your organization seizes every opportunity to create an innovative experience. It also results in events that generate the kind of buzz that improves attendance and boosts sponsorship rates for the following year.
Your members should view your organization’s event with a sense of FOMO — the fear of missing out. Creative details will establish that your organization has placed its distinct stamp on the event venue. Branded giveaways that connect your brand to the event experience offer another means of creating a positive buzz.
FOMO isn’t easy to generate, but when every aspect of your event experience combines to deliver that special feeling, your event becomes much more attractive for members. Plus, your sponsors take notice when attendance and the surrounding experience becomes more elevated, which leads to greater financial opportunities.
Bringing your creative team on a site visit constitutes an additional investment. But in the context of engaged, excited members and a more profitable event for subsequent years, it’s an investment in a brighter future for your organization.
