The World Is A Stage

As the pharmaceutical industry look to hit the ground running at the start of the year, the trick is to design an experience that marries the human nature of selling to the science of the sales process.

There’s an old parable that says you should learn to walk before you run, and indeed, that much is true. With so many technologies emerging and seemingly a 101 other things to cross off the event planning checklist before the day, it’s understandable why sometimes the most common sense tasks slip down the priority list.

Satellite Symposia provide pharmaceutical organizations with a unique opportunity to host educational programs around therapies and treatments on a specific disease or illness.  But Symposia owners and the MedComm agencies charged with delivering success can face an uphill battle as these sessions typically take place before or after a congress' scientific sessions. Here we share some of those challenges and offer ways to overcome them:

The influence of millennials is constantly being referenced in the media. According to Time Magazine, by 2025, three out of every four workers will be a millennial and so it bodes well to pay attention to what captivates them. They are known for favouring stories over salaries, experiences instead of steady jobs and remote working over the rigidity of a nine-to-five. They love technology. What does this all mean for event organisers?    

There is no secret ingredient to holding the perfect event, after all, every audience and occasion is different. But whatever the intentions or motivations, there are a whole host of neat tricks, tips and technological tools that organisers can utilise to ensure that they deliver an event to remember.

Here are six of our favourites:

Technology has revolutionised every aspect of our lives, so it makes sense that it would impact the way we experience events too. For attendees, the latest tech can enhance their overall experience; it can drive engagement and change what could be a humdrum conference into a memorable and worthwhile event. For organisers, technology improves every stage of the event, be it in planning, execution or in post-event analysis.

So, regardless of venue or whether you’re holding a conference, forum, training exercise or exhibition, technology can transform the event. Here’s how:

Consider this familiar scene: you’re at an event, when the speaker comes on stage and delivers the customary, “How’s everyone doing today?”. The speaker is met with less than enthusiastic murmuring from the audience and you’re left wondering, surely there is a better – and more professional – way to engage the audience?

Humans are fickle, complicated and multifaceted beings, which can cause trouble for those trying to engage a great number of them at once. However, what they lack in consistency they more than make up for in curiosity and as such, science holds a wealth of information, tactics and insights into human nature. But just what can it teach us about capturing – and keeping – an audience’s attention?

From the communities created and relationships forged, to the connections made and information shared, the benefits reaped from hosting live events and conferences seem undeniable – although, admittedly, we might be a little biased. Once you’ve settled on holding an event, it’s important to have a plan in place to accurately determine its efficacy and outcomes......

Many marketers and PR managers will know the struggle of trying to organise and track an event. Away from logistics, it can be difficult to determine what to track, what metrics to use and what to do with the data – and that’s before we get to calculating return on investment (ROI). Luckily, we’ve searched the internet for advice and have condensed accurately recording ROI into four simple steps.

Berlin, 2017

Concise provided our Chime interactive event solution for a week-long event attended by over 1000 investors. This was the third year Concise had been asked to work with the organisers of this high-profile event attended by analysts and other financial markets professionals. Among the audience were over 250 institutional investors representing more than $500 billion of investment allocations globally. Read on to find out more....

Medcomms professionals from the pharmaceutical industry across the USA and UK shared their views on event technology at a series of Learn and Lunch meetings run in association with MedComms Networking this Spring. Read about the lessons they learned and their experiences in our report.  

After learning all about the history of the industry in Event Technology of The Past, we were even more keen to find out what the future has in store for event managers. 
Will audience engagement continue to be a big trend? Which state-of-the-art technology will become a reality over the next decade at events and exhibitions? Kevin McFarlane – Product Development Director at the Concise London office – shares his predictions for the years to come.

At Concise, we’ve been mulling over how conferences used to be and what we’ve learned by sharing our stories of the journey of event technology and the events industry.

When does venue broadband matter? What about the wi-fi? Find out why it’s all about the wi-fi…. 

With us now in the throes of summer and Wimbledon is in full swing – the season for queuing is here.

Late nights and slide reviews
Content changes – Pack a change of shoes.
Tired speakers flying-in the night before
On to team building exercises and keeping score.
Noisy evening dinners and networking till late
Increasing your knowledge with speakers to rate.
Another bright morning starts – coffee in hand
Then getting things organised near the presentation stand.

Companies that offer Graduate or Apprentice Induction Programmes understand that it’s important to get off to the right start with new employees.  

Done effectively, these programmes can entice potential recruits to join, help new hires settle in quickly, ensure they have the knowledge and support they need to perform their role, increase their productivity, improve job satisfaction and reduce turnover.

Done poorly, these programmes have the opposite effect, wasting the time and resources of both participants and presenters.

Is 'glocalisation' the key to successful international conferences? Creating a high-quality event is a complicated task at the best of times. Throw in a venue on the other side of the world and you’ve got a whole new challenge on your hands. 

Event horizon Private equity events are going digital – and never looking back, Concise managing director James Shepheard-Walwyn tells pfm