Generally speaking, audience engagement has always been an aspect of event strategies. Yet there now exists, in this (nearly) post-pandemic, a real craze for all possible practices that might increase event engagement rates. Should we be discussing this merely as a trend, or as a reconfiguration of public expectations?

Propelled by the pandemic period, the part that is now being played by digital in our communications, and especially in breathing life into our events, has opened up a much broader range of options when it comes to exploring and stimulating public engagement.

NEOLANGAGE

Though engagement has always been at the heart of our industry’s concepts, today it has become unthinkable for event production to omit this (major) factor. The pandemic has left its mark by changing the event landscape and the expectations we can place upon it, more so than ever before. These transformations have paved the way to new avenues of inquiry. How can we better understand our audience? How else might such a thing be done?

Lulu’s advice: guests should not feel like they are at an endless holiday meal, with (overly) stuffed bellies. You know the feeling – the one that puts you to sleep thinking: “every year the same song and dance”? Well, that’s precisely what we wish to avoid! Several methods for stimulating engagement have been devised. Digital / virtual techniques developed during the pandemic have demonstrated how essential new technologies are for both their attractiveness and for the fact that they enable a measuring of engagement before / during / after an event.

Event participants no longer wish to be mere spectators of content served up on a platter. Today, they prefer to be challenged, and to be an active part of an unfolding story.

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

Immersive experiences are part of the engaging neolanguage that the effects of the pandemic have gifted us. They allow us to elicit a drive among attendees to act as protagonists, and what could possibly be better than to feel considered? Is that not the impactful value with which we seek to imbue our events? Immersion in the world of a brand or company also means replying to someone’s “What’s new?” with “I attended an event that I won’t soon forget! It was amazing”!

Whatever form they might take, immersive experiences are talked about and have educational virtues vis-à-vis not only a company, but also event guests themselves – because there is nothing better than letting participants leave with the feeling of having learned something.