Less Captive Hybrid Events Require Better Storytelling

A little over a year ago, Filene’s marketing and events teams had to rapidly pivot to a novel method for engaging industry professionals in a learning and experiencing environment, instigated by the novel coronavirus. Today, nothing feels novel about where we are in this, and quite frankly, as we sit on the precipice of the next normal, we’re collectively feeling the urge to jump head first into whatever’s next.

It is widely agreed upon that there is no going back to the way things were. Still, many things from the past are hard-wired into who we are as humans, like our powers of resiliency and adaptation. If we’re not going back and we’re not staying here, where are we going? Where we’re headed is ours to decide – what we build on from what always was, what we keep from this interim phase and what we want to invent in the next phase.

In the context of credit union industry events, we’re laying a film of in person atop a structure of virtual built on the foundation of in person. To clarify what this means, we’ll break down the key considerations for planning, promoting and executing next-normal events.

Building and Executing Event Experiences in the Next Normal

Over the past six months, we’ve witnessed the return of in-person meetings on both a regional and national scale. As an events manager on the board of the local Meeting Professionals International chapter (Beth) and a marketing leader adamant on centering our audience in everything we do (Holly), we’ve been paying a lot of attention to all that’s evolving from a planning and executing perspective.