Year in review: Insights from the industry’s buzzworthy events

At Encore, we’re lucky. We get to work at and attend some of the industry’s most buzzworthy events, so we can be your eyes and ears for all the juicy insights your peers took away from each experience. Here’s our roundup of three you might have missed along with key takeaways to help power your planning.

Convening Leaders attracts business event professionals from around the world and is known for its marquee-name keynote speakers. This year’s show in San Diego was no exception, where a fireside chat with President Clinton and Secretary of State Clinton was a highlight.

• In partnership with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Strategic Alliance of National Convention Bureaux in Europe (SANCBE), PCMA announced it will co-locate the industry’s first sustainability and climate summit in Barcelona with Convening EMEA Oct. 2-3, 2024.
• The PCMA Foundation and BESydney released research addressing gender disparity in leadership: Advancing Women in Business Events. Their key finding? Despite women comprising 70 percent of the global business event workforce, they fill only 20 percent of the senior-level roles. Considering this overwhelming disproportion, the report says it’s necessary for the business events industry to make efforts to advance women into board roles and C-suite positions.
• A fireside-style keynote with President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton explored how loneliness has been weaponized for political gain. Additionally, they encouraged the audience to engage in empowerment politics rather than “victim politics.”

Industry experts came together during the event for a candid discussion on budget trends and smart ways to make an impact with your dollars.

Host Courtney Stanley, Global Keynote Speaker, led the roundtable talk. The discussion featured Harold Batiste, Senior Vice President, Sales Operations at HPN Global; Heather Nash, CMP, CAE, Chicago Dental Society; and Taylor Nicole Abbate, Director of National Sales, CSI DMC.

Here’s what they shared on The Breakdown LIVE at PCMA CL: Thinking Bigger with Your Event Budget.

• According to the recent Encore Planner Pulse Report, nearly half of meeting professionals are increasing budgets in 2024 and more than a third say their budgets are flat.
• When thinking bigger about your event budget, invest in areas that will have the biggest positive impact on the meeting experience. These include anything experiential, like food, networking, education and technology, says Harold Batiste of HPN Global and Heather Nash of the American Dental Society.
• A final takeaway from the roundtable? Leverage AI to help you ideate creative ways to stretch your planning dollars, suggests Taylor Abbate of CSI DMC. Don’t forget to ask venues what they’re providing in the cost and ask how you can work together to create unique experiences.