10 Alternative Business Models for Events

A lot of discussion took place over the past week about free vs paid, reality is that there is much more out there than just charging a fee to attend.

It’s no new topic, we know. But lately Chris Anderson re-introduced it, Malcom Gladwell made a big deal out of it and Seth Godin gave the final word. On our end, Jeff Hurt asked us all a question and we are here to do our small bit.

Reality is event professionals are challenged by the current market conditions. The ‘I charge you 800$/€/£ entry ticket’ superb marketing technique apparently does not work anymore. Possibly because attendees are increasingly empowered to blog, tweet and share how crap an event was. That was not the case before social networks and media.

I was asked by Cece Lee about an alternative model for (virtual) events rather than charging a fee. Although I felt an urgency to keep it for myself, I subsequently thought that sharing results of a 3 hours brainstorming session could benefit our industry, even if 2 event planners will change their rotten practice and take action. Hopefully starting tomorrow.

One condition. And it is not about safeguarding my butt. What follows is the result of a small brainstorming session with few friends and event experts as well as weeks of reading. It’s not meant to be a guide. It’s not necessarily applicable to all sorts of events. It may not refer to what you do.

The idea is to think out of the box for once and stimulate your business practice to be innovative and disruptive. If you can think of more please do comment and add your perspective.

Borrowing the term from Trendwatching, have a look at how Bacardi goes to the source, pushes the boundaries of a close one-to-one relationship. In a user generated web 2.0, going personal is mandatory and could result in healthy business.

This is possibly the most used technique to reduce the cost impact on attendees yet not fully taken advantage of. Linkedin, Xing, twitter and tools like Make Your Mark Connect are just few of the available hundreds.

If you really need to sell and cannot make a revenue in any other way, consider layaway. The Coachella Festival implemented it successfully.
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3 Things that Make Your Event Fail

Are you sure you are getting the basics right? This post investigates what are the new basics for a suffering and evolving event industry.


Photo by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

How it used to be

Ten years ago the basics use to be a great mix of performers, a great mix of sponsors and a great location.

It didn’t get further than that.

The job of running events was all about putting the three above together. Most of the times it wasn’t about quality, it was about budget.

Our point

Let us save you some time and get straight to the point, basics have changed.

Why?

- Because current economic environment sucks. Sponsors are not willing to give away generous portions of their budgets as they used to.
- Because networking, which is a great motivator for attending events, is happening for free both online and offline.
- Because technology is changing the way we consume events.
- Because the world we live in is not as it used to be. Or at least, we are now more aware of it.

What are the new basics?

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Be more Pecha Kucha!

Pecha Kucha Montreal 2007 Photo by JamesEverett via Flickr

Pecha Kucha nights were started in 2003 by Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein in Tokyo. The nights are aimed at young designers, the format teaches a lot to all of us engaged with boring presentations.

Pecha Kucha means chit-chat. Back in 2003 two architects started what is now a very popular movement, with nights all over the globe.

Why?

The format answers to a compelling question, how to give space to young designers without throwing the audience in 2 hours long, endless presentations.

How?

Mark and Astrid created the 20 presenters/20 slides/20 seconds format.

20 designer are given the chance to present a total of 20 slides, 20 seconds each, for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

As simple as that.

Results

An immediate result is that attention levels are kept very high and everyone involved gets value out of the experience.
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25 signs your event SUCKS – Slides

I recently produced a checklist to make your event compliant with new technologies and trends. I also made a slideshow to make it more interactive.

So who’s doing it right?

Photo by kev.flanagan

I’ve highlighted in the past how conferences, meetings and networking events are boring to death, outdated, do not take care of technology and exploit attendees for crazy ROI. Here’s who you should follow.

I don’t like to be destructive, in fact I got several projects going on. You can check them on the sidebar. I’ve been asked for case studies of best practices in current event management. So if you already got rid of your EM books, have a look and tell me what you think in the comment section.

1. One Media

If you  really want to pay for an unconference, and I know you feel safer when you do,  these guys nailed it. They didn’t priced £3000 which is a start. They got great things going on on the website. They used ning to quickly create a community and I liked it. I liked the discounts for NGO’s.  The conference is targeting SME and I enjoyed the “it’s up to you” approach. If you are a small business owner, you don’t want to listen to boring bullet points. Good deal.

2. JISC

Let me quote Grace:

“We will be amplifying the conference again this year with livestreamed keynotes, blogging of the sessions, micro-blogging via twitter, photo-sharing and videos. [...] Finally, I have introduced a set of environmental standards which relate specifically to the JISC Conference 2009″

This sounds all good to me. This is what you need to do, this is how you do it! Well done Grace!

Thanks @jukesie for pointing that out before my Google Reader delivered the feed.

3. Bettr

It is work in progress, but hey great idea. Again unconference style sessions, putting together education start-ups. This how you make a difference.

Thanks @lauradee for letting me know