By: Loren Maisels, CMP

It can be tricky as an Event Producer to find the time to attend a conference, which is why I was so excited that schedules aligned and I was able to attend my first Experiential Marketing Summit by EMS last month in Las Vegas. 

Event Marketer (the producers of EMS) was founded in 2002 to focus on providing insights and information to brand-side event marketers and agency executives across a range of face-to-face marketing initiatives including corporate events, proprietary events and meetings.

This year’s conference gathered over 1,000 marketers and event professionals at the MGM in Las Vegas. Topics ranged from lessons from the world of B2B, unlocking creativity, focussing on strategy, the attendee experience, and, of course, the hot topic on everyone’s minds: AI.

Below are a few of my key takeaways from an incredible three days:

B2B Lessons

I attended two great sessions with event and marketing leaders from GitHub and LinkedIn. 

Adam Walden. VP Brand & Corporate Marketing at GitHub, spoke about the power of storytelling when it comes to your event. He used the Hero’s Journey Framework to showcase how to keep attendees at the centre of the event experience. The Hero’s Journey, also known as the monomyth, is a narrative archetype popularized by Joseph Campbell. It describes a common structure of stories that involves a hero who embarks on an adventure, faces challenges, and returns changed. Adam and his team used this approach for their proprietary two-day developer event, Github Universe (https://githubuniverse.com/).

The second session was hosted by Danielle Damiano Medeiros, Head of Events & Experiences at LinkedIn, and their agency partner Evan Starkman from The Bait Shoppe. Both spoke to thinking outside of the B2B formula of Stage, Experiences and Swag. Here are just a few of the standout takeaways:

Stage:

• Know your audience and give them content they can’t find online
• Promote people, not just a product/service
• Don’t fill time or space just because you have it

Experiences:

• People will remember and find value in the connections they make
• Interactive and engaging keynotes are key

Swag:

• Make sure your giveaway adds value and ties back to your activations/product
• Swag should be something people will wear, use, or need again 
• Be subtle with branding (for example: on the tag on the inside of the item)

AI Lessons

One can feel very overwhelmed at the amount of content and education there is out there when it comes to AI, and with the pace at which it is constantly evolving and changing (seemingly on a daily basis!). The key is: you just have to start. Start somewhere and learn and practice regularly to get familiar with how the technology is evolving. 

Two excellent sessions I attended were The Creative Edge: AI-Powered Brainstorming for Brand Innovation (hosted by Katiland Hunter, Executive Creative Director for Impact XM), and Reclaim Your Mojo: Smart AI Strategies for Stressed Out Event Profs (hosted by Keri Ibbitson, Director of Scientific Engagements & Events, Danaher and Liz Nacron, Partner, President-Creative & Production at Live Marketing). 

Here are some of my key takeaways from those sessions:

• AI is all about the HUMAN SANDWICH 
  • You, a human, input prompts (one slice of the bread)
  • AI spits out content/options (the middle of the sandwich)
  • You, the human, refine, customize and personalize what you’ve received (the other slide of the bread)

• Successful AI output is all about the prompt formulas:
  • Use personas
  • Be assertive
  • Be detailed and specific with what you’d like to see in the output
  • Tell the AI what the goal is
  • A value acronym shared to help with this was CRAFT:
    • Context: Set the scene and background
    • Role: Define who/what the AI should be
    • Action: Specify exactly what you want
    • Format: Explain how the output should look
    • Tone: Describe the style and feel

• Focus on responsible AI:
  • Protect proprietary information 
  • Make friends with compliance and understand your company’s AI policies – create guidelines and citations
  • Fact-check everything – Human Sandwich 
  • Avoid AI bias

• AI tools to consider:
  • Event content/marcom
    • Jasper
    • Copy.ai
    • Writesonic
  • Ditching deck hell
    • Dall E 3
    • Midjourney
    • Canva
    • Leonardo.Ai
    • Copilot
    • Beautiful.ai
    • Lumen5

“The most valuable currency AI creates isn’t saved time – it’s supporting your evolution from logistics coordinator to strategic advisor.” 

In Summary 

As an agency owner and event producer, I felt these three days were absolutely time well spent. The team at Event Marketer did a great job of crafting an agenda full of thoughtful content, opportunities to explore the Hall of Ideas (where there were tons of partners doing very cool things), and ample time to network with fellow attendees. Special shout out to my new friend Jackie Paquette from Merchant North in Montreal!