Tech Events are Expanding

Tech event strategy hasn’t shifted, it’s expanded.

Flagship events are still critical, but alongside them, there’s clear growth in smaller, more regional events - More cities, More targeted audiences, More frequent touchpoints.

So it’s not flagship or regional. It’s flagship and regional - Great for engagement, tough for internal event teams who have to manage more events, without increased headcount - and the event dynamics are different:

Flagships:

• Lots of hotel booking history
• Lots of international visitors - known demand
• Large room blocks
• Long lead times
• Lots of buying power

Regional:

• No hotel booking history
• Regional/domestic visitors - unknown demand
• Shorter lead times
• Less buying power

All of these factors can result in event teams not offering a hotel booking service for regional events - and I completely get why. The problem is, delegates expect official housing to be offered.

So what's the answer? I think a good first step is to recognise, flagship events and regional events are different and they require different strategies. You simply cannot replicate your flagship approach across 10 regional events - you'd burn out and it wouldn't work.

Flagship events will always be heavily contracted, based on known demand - Big room blocks, financial guarantees, high-touch, managed risk. That's not going to change.

Regional events typically won't warrant big room blocks. It's all about smaller courtesy blocks, live-inventory, lower-touch, lower-risk.

The right event hotel partner will firstly help you source courtesy blocks, but secondly blend them with live inventory - selling them alongside or after one another, via the same point of sale.

I emphasise the right event hotel partner, and I think that's important. There are hundreds of companies offering hotel booking, but their capabilities vary wildly. It's important to run your due-dilligence, asking yourself the following questions:

1. Central - Can you book everything in one place?
2. Synched - Does the solution integrate with your registration provider?
3. Simple - Is the booking expereince as good as B2C channels?
4. Choice - Are you offering all hotels, room types, boards, cancellations
5. Value - Are the rates strong? are there hidden fees?
6. Local - Does the solution work in all languages/currencies?
7. Empower - Can you assess options based on reveiews and travel times
8. Security - Would you trust your card details with the provider?
9. Support - Can they support your customers 24/7/365?
10. Pride - Are you proud to offer the solution?

Point 10 is a big one. If you aren't proud of it, don't go with it. There are providers out there who will deliver exactly what you need.