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Concept to Captivating: Hargrove’s Approach to Rental and Custom Exhibit Design 4 Apr 2023, 3:08 pm

Hargrove’s work as an exhibit design firm goes as far back as our company’s inception in 1946. From our start in window displays for boutiques and creating iconic parade floats, to our current portfolio of custom tradeshow exhibits and bespoke experiential activations, we’ve partnered with brands, organizations, and museums to create visually inspiring and memorable experiences. With in-house strategy, creative, graphics, and fabrication, we provide total exhibit design services. Our rental booths, fully custom exhibits, and permanent exhibitions are supported by a team of experts ready to take you from idea to reality.

Flexible, Sustainable Rental Booths

Our rental exhibits are designed to offer clients a wide variety of options that are sustainable, flexible, and customizable. Our portable modular hardwall and fabric booths feature high-impact custom graphics and can quickly scale as your exhibit needs evolve. We specialize in providing turnkey rental options that help take some of the guesswork out of a hectic expo season or ease the stress of exhibiting at international tradeshows.

“Rental exhibits are a great, affordable option for exhibitors looking to elevate their tradeshow presence from pipe and drape to a space that’s professional and on brand. Most importantly, these turnkey solutions allow your onsite team to focus on their event goals and not worry about their booth setup.” – Kathleen O’Brien, Rental Exhibit Services Representative

10′ x 20′ rental exhibit for a non-profit destination organization at an association conference.

Eye-Catching Custom Exhibits

Hargrove designs and produces custom tradeshow exhibits that are keenly focused on addressing your organization’s needs and objectives. We aim to develop partnerships and exhibits that grow alongside of you, evolving to support your goals, expand your community, and build on your successes. Because of our focus on collaborating during every step of the project, our design and fabrication teams work alongside your team as your project goes from conceptual idea to crowd captivating exhibit.

“Our team members have a deep understanding and knowledge base of the exhibit industry, recognizing it is not a one-size-fits-all solution for our clients. Our unrivaled customer service and attention to detail for our clients’ exhibit programs sets us apart from our competitors. It is integral in the way we work with, design for, and develop solutions for our clients.” – Patty O’Daniel, Exhibit Sales & Customer Engagement Manager

30′ x 50′ custom exhibit including a fabricated display model for a client in the transportation industry.

Engaging Permanent Displays & Experiential Activations

Creative exhibit experiences like permanent displays, museum exhibitions, and experiential brand activations, create connections and drive impressive results. Bringing together innovative yet functional design, meticulous engineering, and expert fabrication skills, our team works with you to deliver experiences. We’ll work together to turn your marketing, branding, and sales objectives into memorable, engaging, and inspiring success stories.

“Our approach to design trends drives the creation of custom exhibits that are rooted in a brand’s authentic story. Permanent exhibitions and brand activations are more than just structures, they’re experiential opportunities. They are user experiences with a unique story, and we make that story come to life.” – Constantine Karistinos, Director of Exhibits

Permanent exhibit for a visitors’ center with interactive content including traditional, video, and virtual reality.

We work with our clients in partnership and provide end-to-end exhibit services that are customized for every brand. At Hargrove, we believe that each company and each event are unique and deserving of innovative solutions, not a cookie cutter approach. Our team can help you find the perfect exhibit option to achieve your vision and goals.

The post Concept to Captivating: Hargrove’s Approach to Rental and Custom Exhibit Design appeared first on Hargrove.

From Relationships to Resourcefulness: Navigating the Current State of the Event Industry 28 Jul 2022, 3:35 pm

With the resurgence of live events, the excitement of meeting in-person again has met many in the events industry with newfound challenges. The current landscape of supply chain constraints, labor shortages, and rising fuel costs have added a new level of complexity to the event planning process. Additionally, event planners are facing tighter planning timelines while managing variable support across their own workforce.

The causes are multi-layered, from disruptions in production and transportation, to limited resources. Navigating these new challenges requires strong partnerships, inventive planning strategies, and an innovative team to help you navigate while continuing to create events that deliver on your core objectives.

Learn how Hargrove has been partnering with clients to tackle these concerns.

Build Strong Relationships

Hargrove’s legacy includes longstanding relationships with a wide variety of vendors. While facing competition from other industries, strong relationships and building trust go a long way. Fostering these business relationships over time provides us with connections across the globe for everything from materials to services.

That established, personal connection is something we aim for not only with our vendors but with our clients. It’s the tenets of doing good business with others: reliability and communication. Frequent communication to discuss potential issues and working together with our vendors to problem solve helps to reinforce our partnerships. Choosing vendors with a long and stable history, provides you with the benefits and security of their strong relationships in all areas of logistics and operations. Having these established vendor relationships on national and international levels, provides us and our clients with the resources to create incredible event experiences anywhere.

Resourcefulness is Key

Supply chain issues are impacting both the availability and price of materials. Costs are wildly variable, fluctuating on a daily basis, and creating competition amongst industries that were previously never at odds. Navigating resource shortages has required us to evolve and adapt our plans and approach. The skill and experience of our talented fabricators and craftsmen, allows us to make informed decisions with materials and design choices.

Sometimes this means getting creative with our resources, selecting unconventional materials, or reimagining a design, so that we continue to deliver an exceptional experience without compromising on function or aesthetics. It’s critical to work with vendors that are knowledgeable about and skilled at working with a wide variety of materials. Limiting your options can limit your potential, being resourceful and inventive is imperative for event success.

Empower Your Team

Being a full-service event production partner, means that there’s a strong connection between each division of our business. We work as a team and rely on our experts to make recommendations based on their experience. If the traditional solution or material is in short supply, our experts can educate our event managers on alternatives.

This communication and knowledge-exchange enables us to bring unique and innovative ideas to each project we work on. Empowering people that are passionate about their work encourages them to share their valuable insights. Working with your event team is more than just signing a contract. Together, our team will make expert recommendations, collaborate, and work as partners invested in your success and your attendees’ experience.

As the obstacles our industry faces continue to evolve, so will we. We’re ready to help you reconnect with your teams, grow your communities, and create memorable experiences in live, virtual, and hybrid event settings. With over 75 years of experience, Hargrove is accustomed to having back-up plans for our back-up plans, forever expecting the unexpected. Our team is committed to navigating the current industry challenges and coaching our partners through these realities, while making expert suggestions with the success and integrity of your events as our ultimate goal.

The post From Relationships to Resourcefulness: Navigating the Current State of the Event Industry appeared first on Hargrove.

ENCORE® SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH ALTUS POWER TO INSTALL SOLAR FARM 11 Nov 2021, 4:27 pm

Installation will Reduce Power Usage to Zero

By Tara Higgins and Scott Finlayson

With the importance of sustainability as a collective responsibility, we can create a better future and do our part to create positive change and long-term opportunities for progress. With that in mind, we are thrilled to announce that Encore has entered into an agreement with Altus Power to build a solar farm on top of the buildings across the Hargrove campus. Once completed, this solar farm will cover all the power needs for Hargrove and ultimately return power credits to our supplying gas and utility company.

This agreement enables us to reduce Hargrove’s electric usage to zero. It’s the start of something bigger for Encore and Hargrove as well an approach we should be thinking about on behalf of our entire industry. And it’s one very significant way that we can come back better and stronger. Key highlights of the agreement include:

Output generated from the solar farm is expected to produce 5.8 megawatts annually
The facility currently uses approximately 3.2 megawatts annually. All of Hargrove’s power needs will be covered with the balance of power credits will be sold to Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE)
Our D.C. operation and carbon footprint for electricity drops to zero
Once installed solar power will be fed directly into the BGE grid

The installation will begin early spring 2022 to be completed late summer, subject to regulatory and utility approvals, at the Encore and Hargrove D.C. region facility, our largest facility, which is home to over 250 team members and serves all areas of our business. It includes a full fabrication and graphic production facility, regional warehouse operation, full event production teams, in addition to one of our largest digital control centers and presentation studios in the U.S.

Due to the scale and nature of our operation, we identified it as a key location to press into the challenge we all face of reducing our carbon footprint.

“The event industry struggles with sustainability as a topic in general. Our partnership with Altus has provided us with a way to make an initial meaningful impact based on the size of our operations. In addition, we can lead our customers in their efforts to develop carbon minimizing strategies across their events,” said Tara Higgins President, Hargrove and Senior Vice President, Commercial for Encore. “We have been creating events and experiences for 75 years and regularly share insights and best practices with event professionals everywhere. As we embark on this new venture, we look forward to sharing what we are learning as we create sustainable operations and to working side-by-side to futurescape the events industry.”

When operational at the end of summer 2022, subject to regulatory and utility approvals, the 360,000 square foot solar panel installation will generate enough energy for Hargrove’s entire business operation, while also adding 40% of the power generated to the power grid.

Scott Finlayson SVP, General Manager Hargrove added, “This office is our largest, and for the past year we have been looking at ways to build a path to full carbon neutrality. When reviewing ongoing projects and priorities, the solar farm quickly became a key initiative and our partnership with Altus has been critical in realizing this earlier than our initial planned timeframe.”

We look forward to sharing more news on this project and others.

Tara Higgins Scott Finlayson

President, Hargrove SVP, General Manager, Hargrove

SVP, Commercial, Encore

The post ENCORE® SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH ALTUS POWER TO INSTALL SOLAR FARM appeared first on Hargrove.

Events that Transform: B2Me℠ and Hybrid Event Experiences 2 Sep 2021, 3:25 pm

By: Tara Higgins, President, Hargrove & SVP Commercial, Encore

Our final installment in our series on B2Me℠ event planning culminates into the dynamic, highly scalable framework of hybrid event design. Hybrid not only offers vast design potential, but also revolutionizes our ability to deliver the three audience essentials: human connection, immediacy, and authenticity.

By integrating a remote and physical audience, hybrid events empower attendees with the ultimate personalization of their experiences. Successful event strategy leans into the attendees’ desire for customization. High-impact and high-energy events are achievable in the hybrid realm with B2Me℠-focused event planning. The key is in the design and utilizing data driven insights. A well thought out experience, paired with the right solutions, will create an event that is both transformational and valuable for all attendees. Through increased accessibility, innovative event technologies, and the longevity of thoughtfully crafted content, immersive hybrid experiences will connect and captivate all audiences.

Community Growth with Increased Accessibility

The power of technology allows us to break down barriers and share content like never before. In fusing the live and the virtual, we create an “experience channel” that eliminates the limitations of fixed event schedules and physical capacity constraints. A fully integrated experience is achieved, giving access to an even greater audience. Hybrid events expand a brand’s reach, growing communities and connecting audiences globally. Through reducing these locational and financial blockers, events become increasingly more accessible. When these limitations are reduced, brands evolve through community engagement and an expanding global influence.

Event Technologies and Hyper-Personalized Experiences

Hybrid event technologies open new opportunities for enhanced, fully customizable experiences. Participants are empowered with the ability to choose how they show up, consume content, and interact with each other. The freedom to connect in-person or from remote locations, personalized attendee journeys, and multiple engagement and networking opportunities, all allow attendees the opportunity to derive the greatest value for them through this new breed of media. Technology can also be utilized to further improve event accessibility. Options for captioning, language translation, and multilingual content all create a more inclusive experience.

Strengthen Brand Identity through Content Longevity

A thoughtfully crafted content strategy can maximize your event dollars and further solidify brand identity. Creating authentic and intentional content allows it to serve the present audience, while also having significance beyond the principal event. With longevity in mind, the event messaging can expand into subsequent forms of content and delivery. Pre-recorded, live, and on-demand sessions evolve the event experience into one that is flexible and directly in service of the attendee. Regardless of location, time zone, or device, they are able to connect.

For those who aspire to plan and deliver events that transform, regardless of their size, location, or platform, we aim to support and inspire you with all that hybrid has to offer you and your audience. We firmly believe that when we work with our customers, Hargrove is in the business of communication and connection, not just the event business.

Whatever industry or sector we are supporting, understanding your objectives and ambition for the event is our mission; finding solutions to pursue those efficiently and effectively through experience-based solutions is what we do every day. With over a decade of hybrid event experience, our passion is rooted in using the best tools and techniques to design experiences that are uniquely captivating, amplify brand culture, and bring shared interest communities together to drive an event’s business and attendee value.

Hargrove from Encore. In Transformed Times, Events That Transform.

Hargrove has delivered thousands of live events for 75 years. Today we also plan and deliver thousands of virtual and hybrid events. In making this statement, we humbly recognize the ongoing trust placed in us by our global client base. We gratefully acknowledge the passion and professionalism of our dedicated worldwide teams. And we proudly continue to grow our skills and knowledge base – and to offer our insights and best practices to events professionals everywhere – as we work side-by-side to futurescape the events industry.

The post Events that Transform: B2Me℠ and Hybrid Event Experiences appeared first on Hargrove.

The Power of B2Me℠ and Influential Event Design 3 Aug 2021, 1:27 pm

By: Tara Higgins, President, Hargrove & SVP Commercial, Encore

In part one of our look into the world of B2Me℠ marketing in event planning, we discussed the process of audience evaluation and the commonalities shared across all audience demographics. B2Me℠ recognizes that understanding the audience goes beyond demographic and industry sectorizations and seeks to design events for the individual. Our approach asserts that there are three key collective audience essentials as part of every event experience: human connection, immediacy, and authenticity.

Elevating the event planning process to center around these three guiding insights allows us to design bespoke experiences that excite live, virtual, and hybrid participants.

By specializing in the intricacies of engagement, experience, and content strategy, we deliver the three audience essentials – regardless of medium.

Human Connection with Engagement

Do your events just assemble people, or do they truly connect them? A strong engagement strategy generates feelings of power and purpose through attendance. Participants are enriched, energized, and empowered by being part of a shared human experience.

Engagement is twofold; it cultivates a sense of community and connects people directly, whether in a shared physical environment, virtual setting, or a mix of both. Selecting engagement tools that connect all participants is key, regardless of venue or location. Break out sessions, chats, and live polling can all be utilized to foster connection while providing valuable insights about the audience experience.

Immediacy through Experience

In a world that is dominated by curated digital platforms and targeted direct-to-consumer marketing, you can no longer rely on your audience to simply attend. The root of B2Me℠ event design is in hyper-personalization.

Your event needs to be an immersive and visceral experience. There must be sensory appeal that draws people in, inviting them to show up, tune in, engage, and leave feeling changed. In-person and virtual events need to be designed with the individual experiences at the forefront, while also creating pinnacle moments that transcend beyond time and space, leaving lasting impressions for all audiences.

Authenticity in Content Strategy

An effective content strategy goes beyond sharing information; it reinforces the bond between companies, brands, and consumers. It leaves a legacy influenced by culture that is quintessentially unique and speaks directly to your audience. You must communicate with the audience through messages and in ways that speaks to them directly and powerfully.

Shared challenges have given audiences new perspectives and re-prioritized values. Communication of all kinds – brand, business, internal, external, association, government – has evolved to accommodate new contexts and new outlooks. Your content strategy needs to cut through the excessive noise of the present and digital worlds to reach your audiences with messaging that is authentic and captivating.

Understanding your audience will always remain a key piece of the discovery phase as you design the engagement, experience, and content strategy that drives each event. But ultimately, you’ll be challenged to design an experience that speaks to the individual needs of each attendee. As planners, marketeers, makers, creators, producers, and hospitality professionals, it remains our purpose to look to the unexpected and conceptualize the “wow” of unforgettable, shared human experiences. Whether an in-person, virtual, or a hybrid event, this desire for a unique experience and connection remains.

The B2Me℠ shift may change how we create the flame, but the spark still ignites, creating the power to transform events into engaging experiences.

Hargrove from Encore. In Transformed Times, Events That Transform.

The post The Power of B2Me℠ and Influential Event Design appeared first on Hargrove.

The Value of Partnerships in Our (Re)Start 8 Jul 2021, 1:48 am

The meeting and events industry clearly experienced a great deal of change over the course of the last 16 months. An industry filled with incredibly talented people who were singularly forced to be nimble and adaptable can now learn from each other to accelerate our industry’s exciting (re)start with the right event solutions.

For Encore, we see the need to act fast to best support our customers and industry partners.

Events that were fully virtual last year are now shifting to hybrid, sharply accelerating a movement that had been developing over the last decade. The strong return of in-person events presents the opportunity to capture the irreplaceable benefits of face-to-face while not losing the advantages offered by virtual platforms.

To best fulfill our company purpose to ‘Connect & Inspire People,’ we often share insights and education about the changing industry paradigm and the production models and solutions available for any kind of event experience.

Our recent strategic partnership announcements with Cvent and Intrado are based on the fundamental belief that we are all better together and collectively can better serve customers’ needs.

Identifying Problems to Create Solutions

We have heard loud and clear from our planner partners that “hybrid” events most often feel like planning two events. And it is clear in order to realize the benefits associated with virtual audience extension, this must change. We also understand that they have been challenged to find the right platform and production partner for any event.

The simple goal of the three industry leaders is to make it easier for event planners to transition from all virtual to hybrid through a single end-to-end solution, connecting in-person with remote attendees through an integrated experience.

As we streamline services and solutions, we are continually learning from one another. This same work is helping Encore accelerate the development of new solutions and best practices that will remind our communities of the power of business events.

By streamlining event planning and execution and simplifying the number of partners a planner needs to engage, they can remain focused on their event while fulfilling the need for a multi-faceted event format more easily and cost effectively. Encore now offers a full range of world-class platform solutions across the event spectrum, for any meeting type, scale or complexity to integrate with the proven event production capability and expertise that has earned us a trusted event industry leadership position for decades.

A Solution that Fits the Bill

Cvent’s Attendee Hub self-service event solution for smaller events, Intrado’s studio-quality production event solutions for larger meetings and tradeshows, and Encore’s proprietary Chime Live platform in the center of those hybrid event needs, allows us to deliver exactly what you need to meet your event objectives. It also gives Encore the opportunity to recommend the right solution every time, whenever, wherever, and however you choose to meet.

When we rebranded to Encore earlier this year, we did so with the motivation to simplify our story so customers could more easily get the best of our many solutions. Our partnerships with Cvent and Intrado reinforces this aim. It is not lost on us that both companies felt Encore was the only production partner that matched their respective platform leadership positions with our production capabilities and onsite scale and experience. It keeps us motivated to press forward with solutions that best fit our customers’ needs.

We are passionate about leading this exciting, evolving, and ever-changing industry to thrive again. On behalf of our thousands of team members around the globe, welcome to our Encore.

The post The Value of Partnerships in Our (Re)Start appeared first on Hargrove.

The Future of Event Audiences and the Shift to B2Me℠ 17 Jun 2021, 4:32 pm

By: Tara Higgins, President, Hargrove & SVP Commercial, Encore

At Hargrove, we remain passionately committed to the growth of the live, virtual and hybrid events industry. We believe in its proven power, as the ultimate channel to build relationships, create experiences, and drive results. Our industry is at a pivotal point, with the expansion of hybrid events and the resurgence of live events, calling for us to examine how we evaluate audiences and how we design for their diverse experiences.

This is an opportunity to reevaluate planning strategies and examine how we view the attendee journey. Post-pandemic, let’s not think in terms of ‘business as usual,’ but plan for – and celebrate – ‘business done better than ever before.’ Events are the most powerful route for connecting people, transforming perspectives, and inspiring action. We create experiences that are focused on our clients’ objectives and their communities, and the most definitive way to tap into these channels is to recognize the value of the individual perspective. An evolution of the accustomed business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C), B2Me℠ recognizes the target audience’s unique needs as an integral part of the event planning strategy.

Understanding Your Audience: Demographics are Important, But People Matter More

Demographics are important; they present useful data, but they are only part of the audience insights equation. Events are about connections, and making connections has to be about more than statistics and arbitrary classifications.

As part of the event planning discovery phase, audience exploration is crucial. As the audience expectations shift, we can no longer depend exclusively on demographic or industry sectorization. It’s tempting to work on the assumption that a B2C event will be fundamentally different from a B2B one, but this assumption ignores the outcry for personalization. B2Me℠ is less about the B or the C, but about the individual, a way to connect on an interpersonal level that speaks directly to the unique experiences of each participant.

B2Me℠: A Collective Understanding of Unique Audience Perspectives

There is a set of profound realizations about what it is that all event audiences have in common. In our view, and running across all audiences, there are key shared needs that drive our ideas and design approach.

Human Connection – Nobody today, in any audience sector or from any demographic, will accept low standards and poor communication. Each event must create, and then fully leverage, opportunities for human connection. Audience engagement is not a solid block to be addressed. It is a dynamic and fundamental aspect of each event, with powerful potential to strengthen and leverage connections at individual levels, as well as on larger community levels.

Immediacy – There is nothing like first-hand experience, the feeling of really being there. The virtual and in-person experiences are not 1:1 comparisons and the perspectives of each audience need to be evaluated and considered as part of the design approach. Designing with both audiences in mind is imperative so all participants feel invested in the experience. Events need to engage viscerally. There must be sensory appeal to cut through the noise and create a unique space and moment in time.

Authenticity – The backbone of every event is the theme. Informed by the client’s core messaging, brand, and objectives, the event’s central design needs to serve the community in attendance. This is crucial. Every brand, in every context – from micro-brewery to global corporation – has an invested community. Authenticity is imperative to overall audience satisfaction and community loyalty. If you don’t believe it, the audience won’t either.

We can no longer solely delineate audiences by segmented B2B and B2C demographics, to reach them we need to recognize and design for their unique perspectives. The B2Me℠ approach ignites a level of extreme personalization that recognizes their value as engaged individuals. Whether connecting virtually or in-person, the overwhelming need for sensory and emotional engagement apply. Fall below the bar of meaningful connection, creative messaging, or delivery standards, and the result will be an instant fall off in engagement. Designing with the audiences’ differentiated perspectives in mind will drive community growth, elevate the event experience, and deliver the event objectives as inspiring takeaways with longevity.

Hargrove from Encore. In Transformed Times, Events That Transform.
Hargrove has delivered thousands of live events for 80 years. Today we also plan and deliver thousands of virtual and hybrid events. In making this statement, we humbly recognize the ongoing trust placed in us by our global client base. We gratefully acknowledge the passion and professionalism of our dedicated worldwide teams. And we proudly continue to grow our skills and knowledge base – and to offer our insights and best practices to events professionals everywhere – as we work side-by-side to futurescape the events industry.

The post The Future of Event Audiences and the Shift to B2Me℠ appeared first on Hargrove.

We Make Events – Tim Kurzynski: Marine Veteran and Director of Internet Services 27 Apr 2021, 4:03 pm

The events industry attracts people from a wide variety of backgrounds. The projects aren’t always straight forward quarterly meetings or annual conferences, sometimes they present challenging questions with unique scopes of work that require a team that can think outside of the box. The teams at Hargrove and Encore possess diverse backgrounds including military veterans like Encore’s Director of Network Engineering, Internet Services, Tim Kurzynski.

On the verge of graduating from high school, Kurzynski was drawn to the military and the idea of making his own way through his future. He saw joining the armed forces as an opportunity to travel, build a career, and pursue job skills training in the technology fields that had garnered his interest. After connecting with recruiters, Tim enlisted with the United States Marine Corps. With the Marines, he developed his network engineering skills and learned to build networks in remote locations across the globe. During his 4 years of active-duty service, he traveled across Asia and the Middle East, and spent 6 months on a ship throughout the Pacific Ocean learning about the US military’s impact abroad.

After his time in the military, Kurzynski continued to pursue a career in network engineering, consulting with small businesses, and connecting with a recruiter for Encore. Drawn to the people and company culture, Tim joined our team in 2006 and helped to pioneer the evolution of wireless internet services throughout hotels and conference centers. Something that now seems so commonplace with ubiquitous WIFI networks anywhere within a venue location, the service was just taking off along with Tim’s career. He helped to launch our Internet Services line of business, incorporating his military experience to help shape this new division of the organization, defining the policies and processes to make these projects and teams work.

Tim welcomes a challenge and values the connections he’s able to foster with his team. He’s a bit of an expert at setting up networks in remote locations. If you’re hosting a secret music festival in the middle of the desert or launching a pop-up brand event in Central Park, Kurzynski is the one to call to help you bring the whole experience online. His problem-solving skills and technical expertise help to elevate the unique projects he works on. As a member of leadership, Tim focuses on developing his team and encouraging their passions. His mission is to create a culture that focuses on employee retention. He works to connect with employees, plug them into career paths they’re eager to explore, and invest in their skill sets.

In a recent client meeting, not your typical event planner, he collaborated with PhD’s, engineers and other scientific and technical experts in their respective fields. The challenge was to formulate a highly complex, technical solution for their extremely specific requirements. The discussion went into thorough details, his military experience once again coming to the front of how the approach might work, and the customer team listened with great interest and engagement as the recommendation came together. The outcome: we won the project and Tim is now a key part of the team producing this unique experience.

As a member of the Encore team for 15 years, Kurzynski continuously employs the leadership, adaptability, teamwork, and collaboration skills he developed in the Marines. His innovation and tenacity are what inspire and lead the events industry forward. Hargrove and Encore are driven by our people, the talented professionals with diverse perspectives and abilities that create events that transform. Tim and all other veteran members of our team, we thank you for your service and appreciate you every day!

The post We Make Events – Tim Kurzynski: Marine Veteran and Director of Internet Services appeared first on Hargrove.

Design a Hybrid Event for Every Participant 22 Jan 2021, 3:21 pm

In November of 2020, we surveyed 2,000 of our customers and asked various questions about hybrid events. When we asked them to give a general forecast of their 2021 events, our survey respondents shared that they plan to allocate nearly 80% of their total spend on virtual and hybrid solutions. To maximize your total spend, create a plan that prioritizes the experience of each participant type. In the design phase, you can measure each experience against your event objectives and make adjustments as you go. To help, here’s a framework for designing a hybrid event based on traditional planning strategies and methods, with updated considerations for hybrid.

Why Hybrid?

Hybrid events allow people to choose their experience based on how they want to take in information and engage with one another. As a result, planning is more experience-driven and customer-led than ever before. This consumer-led strategy will set the future for events, innovating how we deliver and how we engage in these experiences.

The transitions within the events industry have designated hybrid events not just as of-the-moment alternatives to in-person events but instead as key pieces within an integrated portfolio of event offerings. While the shift to a virtual and hybrid focus feels abrupt, the planning of these experiences is still deeply rooted within the familiar elements of event design.

Hybrid events offer highly-scalable experiences with dynamic design possibilities, removing the barriers to allow for community growth and connection. With options for live, recorded, and on-demand content, global attendees, can join experiences that may have previously been limited. This geographic flexibility minimizes financial, time zone, and physical location blockers. The increased reach and personalization of these events lead to improved ROI and MTV (Money and Time Value.) The success of hybrid experiences directly correlates to the strategic framework behind designing an experience that speaks to all audiences, whether physically present or virtually engaged.

Strategic Framework of Hybrid Event Design

To create a strategy for your hybrid event, start by establishing experience goals based on each participant type and their unique journey. As with in-person events, it is critical to set benchmarks, objectives and define KPIs. Setting these KPIs and objectives positions you to create a content and engagement strategy that’s built to meet them.

Human-centered design principles provide the insights necessary to develop creative that inspires and engages, no matter where your audience is. The creative content is directly informed by these insights, equally personalizing experiences for virtual and in-person audiences. The personalization of engagement methods drives the collaboration between virtual, in-person, or dual attendees. How will the experiences intersect, and how can participants engage with one another? Selecting a platform that supports these levels of customization has proven to be a key driver in customer decision making. While Encore utilizes the Chime Live platform, we remain solution agnostic. Our ultimate goal is to provide creative, production, and technology solutions best suited to each event.

Platforms and Content for Hybrid

Event platforms should scale for audience size, the number of hosted events, and the live component’s eventual expansion into other forms of content and delivery. With the time and resources you spend to create your live event, your technology and produced content should serve current and future experience needs.

Creating content with intention allows it to serve its present purpose and audience while also having the longevity to be relevant beyond the principal event. Core content should be concise, engaging, and accessible, with a tiered strategy that clearly distinguishes and connects to all attendees. Delivering a quality hybrid event involves all the care and planning of live events, with some specific nuances to ensure a seamless and high impact experience for all. Rehearsal time should be utilized to acknowledge the particulars of live and virtual audience interactions, while branded content and custom graphics can help to achieve a professional and polished look. This high level of personalization will make for a transformative and impactful event experience for audiences near and far.

Everything and Nothing has Changed

With live, virtual, and hybrid events, the central tenets of event design still stand. It will always be critical to know the audience, set benchmarks, and determine which experience will best resonate with those objectives. While there are two experiences with hybrid, the core elements remain the same. Leverage the commonality but be mindful of the unique audience perspectives. Whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid, the event design’s strategic framework keeps attendee engagement front and center, actualizing the intended objectives through inspired creative and intentional content. Hybrid experiences are not a 1:1 comparison to in-person, but the design process and considerations are analogous.

Event framework, creative, engagement methods, content, and delivery quality remain the key elements when designing a successful hybrid experience that connects and captivates all audiences.

The post Design a Hybrid Event for Every Participant appeared first on Hargrove.

Planner Tips: Event Strategy and Design for Hybrid Meetings 5 Jan 2021, 5:36 pm

Whether you’ve never planned a hybrid event or feel pretty confident in your abilities to deliver a seamless experience, there are strategy and design techniques for hybrid meetings that you can use now to elevate your next event.

Just as you measure your in-person events’ success by stakeholder experience and event metrics, the same can be said for hybrid. The delivery may look different, but the opportunities to reach a larger audience and provide new engagement levels are greater with hybrid.

Let’s uncover the opportunities found with each challenge and go over strategy and design tips that appeal to your audience and other stakeholders.

Designing For Two Modes Of Delivery

One of the challenges and opportunities in designing hybrid experiences is activating in two different modes of delivery. Event planners are well versed in creating live event experiences, and most are very excited to get back to familiar territory. Many have experimented in the digital world over the past few months and are gaining confidence in crafting virtual experiences.

As we transition to designing more hybrid events, planners will draw on their successes in both delivery modes, creating hybridized experiences. Developing and executing high impact content, networking, and community building strategies form their newfound understanding and the benefits inherent in both methods.

Let’s Do The (Virtual) Time Warp Again

Many planners are already making their content accessible post-event, but the value it brings to your attendees bears repeating. Allowing event attendees to access content after the ballroom doors have shut has enormous benefits!

Benefits include revisiting topics to reinforce their learning or access sessions they could not attend during the live experience because of time conflicts. By extending the life of your content, planners can provide additional value to their attendees, speakers, sponsors, and other important stakeholders.

Virtual Data Will Cross Over Into Live, In-Person Events

We have all learned the benefits of tracking how attendees navigate our virtual platforms. Data and analytics help planners refine their delivery and articulate measurable value to event owners, exhibitors, and sponsors.

As we move back into in-person experiences, savvy planners will use strategy to explore how to activate data collection for their in-person attendees. For instance, activating technologies that enable devices to act as second screens for real-time feedback and deploying attendee tracking technology to understand how their attendees navigate the trade show floor and meeting spaces.

New data, combined with their virtual data, will apply agile development strategies to improve the outcomes from their live and virtual experiences.

Rethinking How We Manage Content And Time

We have all recognized, and most have experienced ‘Zoom fatigue.’ One positive from the forced digital transformation we have gone through is understanding and managing attendee psychological capacity and engagement.

Many planners and event designers are re-thinking their content programming and scheduling. We now understand that most attendees cannot effectively absorb 10 hours of content, day after day, without leaving a large amount of information on the meeting room floor.

Savvy live event planners will start to schedule “white space” time, allowing attendees to reflect on the content and relax, providing space and time for them to slow down and leave “mental room” for the next round of knowledge. By allocating this time, they will allow the remote attendees to manage their fatigue and open up networking opportunities between remote and in-person attendees.

Get Ready For The Rise Of Hybrid Networking Pods

Hybrid networking pods are technology solutions that bridge the gap between the in-person and remote attendees, allowing them to network face-to-face. As a strategy and design tool for hybrid meetings, hybrid networking pods combine onsite TV stations with cameras and apps within virtual platforms. By enabling in-person attendees to chat in real-time face-to-face with remote attendees, you break time and space barriers, making more unified community-building experiences.

Presentation Stages And The Television Aesthetic

Our Presentation Stages kicked off the merging of broadcast TV and events. As we move more into hybrid, this will continue to grow and evolve, requiring us to set the stage for both the in-room and virtual audiences. Savvy planners will take inspiration from broadcast television and award show aesthetics, with stage sets and lighting plots tailored for multiple camera angles with even reliable lighting. Immersing the in-room audience in vivid color and movement ensures the camera looks good for the remote viewers and video on demand post-event.

Branding Across Modes Of Delivery

For a long time, we have known that your event branding and color scheme are essential for setting tone and mood at the event. As we transition to hybrid, creative teams will invest time and energy to align the visuals and color schemes across both live and virtual settings. This consistency helps all attendees feel the same connection and mood, however they choose to participate.

Sending Out The Swag

Many have experimented with mailing event collateral and swag to virtual attendees. Some have used home delivery to provide educational tools like workbooks and additional reading material. Simultaneously, other planners and event organizers have allowed exhibitors and sponsors to send samples and swag to help them connect with people in their homes.

Starting the event experience with some sort of mail-out will likely continue. Still, we predict event designers, planners, and exhibitors will refine their strategy, focusing more on the message behind the mail-outs. The key is seeking and providing meaningful connections and opportunities to educate and inspire, rather than sending yet another traveling coffee cup that fails to deliver a compelling reason to connect with a brand.

Attendee-Curated Experiences In A Live Setting

Attendees have been spoiled in the virtual world. We have allowed them to pick and choose what they participate in and when. This causes stress for planners who are used to controlling the behavior of their onsite attendees. As we move to hybrid, the challenge will be in finding a compromise. Allowing attendees to choose their own journey while managing the attendee flow ensures that critical content and messages are received and adopted by as many as possible.

Neuroscience As A Strategy And Design Tool For Hybrid Meeting ROI

2020 gave many event designers and planners a chance to re-educate themselves about experience design, psychology, and neuroscience. Learning how others process information empowers them to create more meaningful experiences that ensure content is not only delivered but absorbed and turned into repeatable retrievable capabilities.

By deploying storytelling techniques, planners will build on their understanding of the power of peer-group learning. This will create more confidence in managing community structures, creating mental alignment, and making positive collaborative cultures. Neuroscience as a tool translates into the ability to articulate better the long-term benefits of event owners and what organizations can expect from their event investments.

What’s Next

With news that an effective COVID-19 vaccine is around the corner, the number of hybrid events will continue to rise as the industry responds in its level of comfort to meet in venues. I hope these strategy and design techniques for hybrid meetings help you feel empowered to take them on!

Are you looking for more information on planning a hybrid event? Read last week’s post or fill out the contact form below.

The post Planner Tips: Event Strategy and Design for Hybrid Meetings appeared first on Hargrove.

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