Event Design

Designing Events with Compassion: Key to Event Personalization

Eventually Learning Team

06 October 2022

Read time 6 minutes

Introduction

Though still very far from perfect, society is in many respects considerably more humane and just than it was once. But why should anyone think this journey of moral progress is close to complete? – William MacAskill, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University.

The COVID pandemic has awaken the world to the highest degrees of human pain and suffering but more so, to the fact that no matter what happens, at the end of the day, people will need people. This bears reputation for the businesses; businesses need people. Instead of catering to an audience or consumers, their native feature is that of a sentient human being.

Event industry thrives on the certitude that people must come together and people, above all, must feel appreciated and heard. In the recent developments in the industry, there has been an increasingly crucial behavior directed towards feeding the needs of the attendees and analyzing attendee data.

This brings us to personalize our events for attendees and tailor better events that revolve around their needs and the organizer’s goals. Going forward, as the experiments of experiential marketing show, event orchestration should be intimately entwined with the key aspects of event personalization. Here are some ways that can help us make our events more personalized and cater better to our audiences.

Use of Personalization Tools

It is crucial to accurately map attendee profiles and surveys and quizzes are the best way to do that. Storycraft Lab has created an Experience Profiles tool that can help event planners gain better insights about the personalities and preferences of their participants about how particular people will learn, collaborate, perceive and contribute to their event as well.

As it is discussed extensively in the industry how innovation can drive us towards better and sustainable events, event personalization hints at the event planner’s genuine concern towards the fulfilment of attendee motives. This helps in your event to ROAR (Return of Attendee Responses) louder.

Google’s Experience Institute (Xi) is a new initiative exploring opportunities for events in the Metaverse and what that means for the business events industry. “(It) is supposed to, in part, accelerate the recovery of the industry and new solutions for the future”, says Meghan Henshall, Global Events Account Manager at Google, who is also a part of this experimental ‘group project.’

Embracing Novelty as the New Normal

It is the ever-changing space that event industry falls right in the middle of, and event planners should be willing to experiment with newer approaches, especially now that the world is returning to in-person and hybrid events. “Creativity and innovation is to events, what the heart and soul is to the living”, says Rehan Waris, the Chief of Voiceworx Events.

Innovation and novelty, when coupled together, could possibly be the best of all the choices for event planners because at the end of the day, it fuels the creativity of the event planners as well as builds a repo with the attendees.

This group was "formed out of a desire — and ultimately a responsibility — to reimagine how we create experiences for our audiences at Google," Henshall said in an interview. It is made up of several Google employees that are involved in internal user and event experience design as well as a number of outsiders from the strategic agency relationships.

Trustful Data Collection Methods and Techniques

Data privacy is as much obligatory for the event planners as data collection is. That data is important to build better events but also, people are very mindful of their data these days and many attendees are hesitant to provide their personal information. Some of the ways that this can be worked around with are:

Be transparent about what you are collecting and why
Explain the use of data in the betterment of event experiences
Make it fun

“As long as you are open and authentic with your intention, attendees are interested to share.” - Naomi Clare-Crellin, Founder and CEO, Storycraft Lab.

Start Early, Build Better

The more data you collect about your participants in advance, the deeper your understanding of them and the more effectively you can shape their experiences. Immersive and interactive events are what attracts the audience more, especially when it resonates with their deep feelings and wants.

The fulfilment of the needs of attendees and analysing attendee data and gaining insights form a solid foundation of any brilliant event. We may not always see the results quickly, but it is what stays with the audience for a long time. Event personalization makes them feel seen and heard and understood.

Conclusion

The emerging technologies have provided us with a never-before ease of gathering, analysing data and putting it to good use. Little things are not so little anymore and every individual in the audience connects with a brand where he or she is treasured. The paradigmatic shift that Metaverse brought to our threshold, must be put to good use and must be derivative of the brilliance of personalized immersive and interactive events.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is meant by event personalization?

Building events around the needs of the audiences is event personalization. Event personalization aims to drive higher return on attendee responses and builds a long term association.

How unique or different should it be?

As long as the event planners keep in mind the human values and behaviour characteristics, they will always be a step ahead of their peers. Every experience is different for every attendee. The aim of event personalization should be to allow people/attendees to co-create.

What are the best ways to build empathetic events?

Catering to the basic human needs and propagating human connections are key to building compassionate events. It is about letting people be themselves and learning from them to make their experience better and the event, a big hit.