By Jim Lundy
The Return to Conferences & Events and Why you need a Plan for 2023
Last week Aragon Research attended Salesforce Dreamforce conference (#DF22) and the turn out was very strong.
In fact, the turn out seemed to be larger than what Salesforce anticipated. This blog talks about the return to conferences and why your enterprise needs a plan for 2023.
The Fear of COVID is Over – Massive Turnout In San Francisco
We estimate that there were about 45 to 50,000 people in San Francisco last week.
Except for Uber and Lyft cars no one was wearing masks. There were no reports of a mass spreader event post conference. People felt comfortable even in large crowds.
Salesforce Was Not Ready for the Large Crowd
The first day of the conference was pandemonium at registration. We think it’s because Salesforce panicked and thought people were going to show up and so they didn’t have the staffing that they needed and nor the organization.
They did recover quickly but security never really worked well and there were long lines to get through the scanners, which appeared to not be calibrated.
Events Are Back – What Is Your Plan?
Since we get so many questions about what people are doing for events, that’s part of the reason I wrote this blog. Aragon suggests that you should plan out the conferences you’re going to have such as customer advisory boards and customer conferences and you should book venues now.
However, where you hold your vents is still an important consideration to date the states that seem to have been the most immune and the most prepared for conferences Post Covid are Las Vegas, Orlando and London in EMEA.
Check Event Contracts Carefully
It is very important as you plan your 2023 events that you should check out the clauses for delaying the event and the amount of deposits that are required.
You should avoid contracts that give the hotel the right to cancel the event and charge you no matter what. One large hotel chain is famous for doing that.
Convention centers often have been more flexible because they want the business. Food contracts also have to be negotiated carefully.
Don’t Wait – Plan Now
The biggest and best advice is to plan your events now and we suggest that you get bids from at least two different venues before signing a contract.
Bottom Line
The lesson learned from Dreamforce 2022 is that people are not afraid and they want to go to conferences. Marketing organizations need to recognize this and plan out 2023 conferences and events.
This blog is a part of the Digital Workplace blog series by Aragon Research’s CEO, Jim Lundy.
Missed the previous installments? Catch up here:
Blog 1: Introducing The Digital Workplace Weekly Blog Series
Blog 2: Application Proliferation – Building out Departmental Tech Stacks
Blog 3: Invest in Sales Coaching and Learning Now
Blog 4: The Slow Return to the Office vs the Fast Return to Events
Blog 5: The Shift to Industry Clouds is Here
Blog 6: The Race to Intelligence and Why Future Revenue Streams Depend On It
Blog 7: The Common Design Component Contributing to Apple and BMWs Success
Blog 8: The Art of Sales and Why It Is the Secret to Fast Growth
Blog 9: The CRM Market Is Now Intelligent