In this episode of Event Experience by Bizzabo, Rachel Moore interviews Adam Palleschi, managing director of BB Blanc, about his journey from technician to director, the evolving role of technology in events, and the importance of sustainability in AV production. They discuss the impact of AI on event planning and the significance of human interaction in any event experience.
Adam Palleschi shares insights into how AI and AR are being used in the events industry, emphasizing the importance of using technology to augment rather than replace human interaction. He also highlights the need for creativity in event planning and the benefits of sharing budgets with AV teams to maximize value and enhance the overall event experience.
Here’s what you’ll hear about in this conversation:
Rachel Moore,: Welcome to Event Experience by Bizzabo, the podcast where we bring the best and brightest event experience leaders together to share stories, tips, and lessons learned from creating some of the world's biggest events.
I'm Rachel Moore, your podcast host. In this conversation, Adam Palleschi, managing director of BB Blanc, shares insights into his journey from technician to director, the evolving role of technology in events, and the importance of sustainability in AV production.
We also discuss the impact of AI on event planning and the significance of human interaction in any event experience.
Rachel Moore,: Today's [00:01:00] guest is all about the tech. Going from a lead technician, to his role today as the managing director of Canadian AV production company, BB Blanc. His career since 2008 has led him through the nuances of audio visual production to our guest seat today on Event Experience.
I'm pleased to welcome Adam Palleschi to the podcast.
Adam, thank you so much for joining me today.
Adam Palleschi: Thank you. Thank you so much, Rachel. I'm very happy to be here and very excited to be on.
Rachel Moore: Me too, um, I, you know, Bizzabo is an event tech company, emphasis on the tech. And so, we always love having people in tech, particularly when it comes to production and stuff, uh, here on the podcast.
So joyous to have you here with us.
Rachel Moore: The first thing we ask, and this is completely relevant to the events industry across the board because we've all been there where there's like these 14 hour plus days and you're on your feet all day.
So with that in mind, what are your go to on the ground event day shoes?
Adam Palleschi: So, um, as I [00:02:00] mentioned, I wear many, many hats, but, um, you know, as far as on the ground evente hats, for me, I'm going there to, you know, make sure that the standards are met. I hold the bar very high for the team and, you know, the rest of the team and company wide, the expectations are quite clear.
And, you know, every little detail from how the cables are taped down to is the drape perfectly ruched and is everything on stage, you know, as clean as it possibly could be, um, do we have trust covering put on like I can go through like so many different things, but, you know, I'm there to verify and ensure that all that's taking place, of course, chit chat with the clients a little bit, um, work with the crew and, you know, for me personally, I do try to get on site as much as possible.
And actually not just to do the things I said, but to actually work a shift, and I try my best to do that at least once a month for some of our larger events, and it's good to, um, you know, meet with all the crew and some of our freelancers and again, the clients and so forth and really get a firsthand [00:03:00] experience and, you know, for me, uh, one of the biggest things is, is learning from your mistakes and constantly improving.
And one of the big things is, I don't think you're ever perfect. I think, you know, you're always, you can be as good as your last show, but you can always be better. And, you know, I never want to be shut down and never walk around with, you know, we're perfect, we're the best. It's, yeah, we're good, but we gotta keep being better and that's really the end goal.
So, you know, I never want to lose track of that either and being on the ground and having that experience, let's say, from a technician standpoint or a project manager standpoint or an account manager standpoint, getting that firsthand experience is much better on site than you can ever get from your desk.
So, uh, that's certainly something I do force myself and actually genuinely do enjoy doing.
Rachel Moore,: Excellent. Uh, well, when, when you do have those days where you're heading around checking everything, do you have a particular pair or style of shoes you prefer to wear?
Adam Palleschi: Generally on site for, um, set up. It's a steel [00:04:00] toe boots. So.
Rachel Moore,: Impressive! Well, that makes sense, though. You are moving a ton of equipment. I mean, goodness, no one's going to be wearing flip flops around in that kind of environment, too. So, I still toe boots. Very good. My husband would sign his approval. He likes those too.
Is there anything that you are listening to, watching, or reading these days that you can't put down and it doesn't have to be work or events related?
Adam Palleschi: Yeah, so, I mean, a lot of my hobbies, uh, I have sports hobbies that I follow quite closely, um, Formula 1, I'm a big Formula 1 fan, and I follow that very well. But also, and this kind of ties into work as well. Um, I love, uh, interior design, I love, you know, architecture, and things like that. And I'm still pretty heavily involved with the design of our events, and have been, um, historically speaking here.
So, I like the amalgamation of putting those together. Um, architecture, interior design, into live events and into our sets that we do, um, produce and ultimately deliver to our clients.
So, that's ongoing. I follow a lot of our different designers from that, um, [00:05:00] standpoint and just get inspired by their work. And, you know, that's something I'm always kind of reading into and looking at and it's, uh, it's a bit of a passion of mine for sure.
Rachel Moore,: Awesome. Very cool. That's really cool. Is there any particular social post, or a piece of media, or even a hot take about events that you found interesting lately?
Adam Palleschi: Um, yes, actually. And I'm going to tie this back to AI. And, um, one of the things is again, as I already mentioned, a lot of us are looking, of course, to AI to come up with the latest and greatest. And, you know, one of the things that we constantly look for is trying to measure attendee feedback for the events that we put on.
And, it's very hard. Because most of the survey questions that go out, um, you know. If the people do fill them out, you're, you're kind of getting an answer, kind of a one to ten, maybe some people are going to put a sentence or two down, but it doesn't really, you know, get to the depth, I would say, of what we're really looking for.
And one of the interesting [00:06:00] things that I read that I heard is out there, again, AI based, is some form of camera system that is looking at the attendees during a conference. Let's say you're sitting in a main plenary, and it's actually tracking their facial expression.
So, are they looking down at their cell phone and, you know, doing emails? Are they looking straight ahead and engaged? Are they smiling? Are they laughing? Um, are they sad and frowning? I guess it depends on the information they're receiving.
But, it's something pretty interesting that, you know, we can now measure, you know, attendee engagement at a, at a far greater level than ever, you know, before thought possible.
And that's very exciting to me for
Rachel Moore,: that is
Super exciting and creepy, but also exciting.
Like, I have a mixed bag of like, I, it creeps me out that like people can be tracked so much, but as a marketer, I'm like, yes, track everybody.
Adam Palleschi: Absolutely.
There's kind of pros and cons to everything, I suppose. But, um, it's one of those things, though. It is lucrative because, you know, we're always kind of looking for that edge and some form of relevant data or statistics about, you know, how we're [00:07:00] making a difference. And, you know, that's one of the ways I've seen that, you know, could be a possibility in the future.
And that's pretty exciting.
Rachel Moore,: Wild. That's really cool. Everybody's gonna be like, I need to look that up. Um,
Rachel Moore,: Could you tell our listeners a bit more about you and your role, uh, at BB Blanc?
Adam Palleschi: Absolutely. And, um, before I jump into that, I'll go through my entire history here, and it has been quite long, and I think it's important to, I guess, understand my current position, um, at BB Blanc.
So, I've had a long history with the company. I've started back in 2008 when it was founded. And, um, we were founded in the owner's garage at the time, and the owner being Rennie Colelli. Um, he's a long, long history in the live events business. And, um, this is just another one of his many creations in the entrepreneurial world.
And, uh, we started in 2008 in the garage. And, uh, and the rest is kind of history from there. But it's been a great 16 years. And, um, working from there, we went on to many great things. The company was started [00:08:00] as a mix of social and entertainment, as well as corporate AV production.
And as the years progressed, we've turned into certainly a corporate focused company, and we still keep the social side as well. And that's a flourishing division of BB Blanc as well.
For myself, I began with Rennie as a technician. And during those many years, I was also studying for my Bachelor of Commerce. From there, I moved into a project management role, followed by technical director, and, uh, my bucket list, it was always to also, um, achieve my goal of getting my MBA, so I took care of that as well, actually, over the pandemic.
We had a little bit of downtime and I was able to, uh, take care of that and I don't think it would have ever happened otherwise. The many nuances of this industry working, uh, you know, around the clock to put on many great events takes a lot of time and, you know, doing MBA is not easy and, uh, the pandemic kind of allowed for a little bit of that. So that worked out quite great for myself.
With [00:09:00] all of that, combined with the education and, you know, with all the work experience throughout the years and in the industry, uh, with BB Blanc, the managing director position, uh, became available and, uh, I'd like to say I was a pretty good fit for it.
So, putting all those years of experience together with, um, the education, got me into this current position and, um, I'm very grateful for it, very excited for the challenges. And you know, every day I find myself encountering new challenges. Ones that I thought I would never imagine, and you know, sometimes you find yourself saying, uh, "you've seen it all, or you've done it all" or, you know, who knows what's going to come next, and you're constantly, uh, amazed by all the new challenges that come up every day.
It's always something new. So, uh, that keeps it, uh, fresh, that's for sure.
Rachel Moore,: Yeah, I'd love to hear more about those challenges, like, like, what is your typical day? Like, what is a day in the life of a managing director of BB Blanc?
Adam Palleschi: Yeah, so, um, I wear many hats and I guess coming up through the company as a startup, you know, in the [00:10:00] entrepreneurial world and in the whole world of startups, you have a few people doing many things. And slowly as the company grows and gets larger, you are able to segment those things into separate specific roles.
So, now I'm not so much doing each one of those separate specific roles, but overseeing and providing direction to them all. So, from marketing, to sales, to the production end, project management, design, creative, the list kind of goes on and on. But I have my hand in all of that. So it's very busy and that is what keeps it so exciting as well.
Uh, there are many days, you know, that, uh, you just, you can't catch a break. You don't even have a time, you know, a second to eat lunch or anything like that. You're just running from this meeting to that meeting. And, you know, you're trying your best to be involved as much as possible in every division of the company and making sure that, you know, it is moving in the direction that, um, is conducive for our business and for our vision.
So it's um, it's it's definitely, it's exciting. It's always constantly busy. It never [00:11:00] slows down. Even when we're slow business wise, I feel like, you know, in our position, myself in particular, I'm even busier focusing on planning for the future and ensuring that every division, you know, is on the correct path that we want them to be on.
Rachel Moore,: Yeah, sounds busy. Um, I can only imagine, but I think it's so great too. I mean, you talk about the origins too, uh, of working, working with the founder in the garage. Um, but it really sounds like, and honestly, I'll just be honest. My audience probably knows this from listening. I can't relate.
I mean, I've, I've definitely been someone who's moved around with different companies over the years, but, what a great longevity and a great legacy to have, to be with uh, with BB Blanc for so long.
Makes perfect sense that you're a managing director today to, to help kind of guide things into the future. And, and also, also you obviously have the, the knowledge base that's needed, you know, knowing all the ins and outs of the business and be like, "Okay, master of ceremonies, let's get this done people."
So I, I think that's amazing. Um, I would love to, to dive into some of this stuff with you, obviously, [00:12:00] you know, coming from technical perspective from AV production perspective. And I, I know, uh, as we're recording this episode, I mentioned to you off air that we, I just recorded a host of the webinar for Bizzabo.
We were just talking about trends, uh, for events. And one of them that came up was AI. And we've heard from several guests on this podcast about how, uh, trends like AI, uh, and related technologies like AR and trends like sustainability are going to figure into the future of events.
I would love to ask, could you share with us your view and philosophy about how those technologies are a part of events today and will be in the future?
Adam Palleschi: Absolutely. I'm very happy you asked. I have a very long winded response.
Rachel Moore,: Bring it!
Adam Palleschi: Feel free to jump in at any point. But to start, so we mainly service the corporate event space. That's our primary business focus for live event production and in terms of AI, there, there are really two ways that I see AI [00:13:00] being able to help and one, I would refer to as internal and another I would refer to as more external.
So, an internal AI tool to me, is one that helps the vendor, people like myself and event planners. External is more attendee focused. So things like messaging, networking and learning, which we'll get to in a second.
So firstly, in terms of internal, uh, AI tools that can help with this are essentially things like logistics planning, uh, design and creative ideation, tools to help measure attendee engagement, which I'll reference a little later on. Um, those are all internal, so things to make our job easier and more efficient and more effective.
Um, for external, we need to remember, as I already just mentioned, uh, the purpose of events to me are based on three main objectives. And this is messaging, networking and learning. So, us, and our job as event professionals, working in the corporate space, is to help promote those goals.
So, when it comes down to [00:14:00] AI tech, it needs to help with those objectives. So how can AI help attendees learn faster? How can AI help with attendee networking, and ultimately assist with attendee learning. So, these are all the questions that I try to find solutions for with AI and all the kinds of other forms of, uh, of technology. So that's kind of my view on it for sure.
Rachel Moore,: Mm hmm.
Adam Palleschi: In the future, I think, um, AI integration obviously is going to continue to improve. I think this is, um, obviously only in its absolute infancy stages of AI. I know many of the, uh, large technology professionals in the world, people like Elon Musk and so forth, have all referenced their concern of the power of AI and where that's going to lead to in the future. And obviously they know far more than I do about this technology.
But for us, I can certainly say that we are definitely in its infancy stages, and we have a long, long way to go. With regards to that, as far as live events go, um, I think we have to always remember, again, the purpose, and I keep going back to the same three objectives. It's [00:15:00] messaging, networking and learning. And I don't see AI necessarily taking over anything in that space, but it will always be there to assist and aid it.
So again, as I mentioned, aiding and messaging, aiding and networking, aiding and learning. It's overall improving the live event experience. It can't replace a live event, and I'll give you an example in a second, but it will certainly continue to help event professionals put on better live events and help attendees get more out of them.
So, one reason why I don't believe or don't think that AI is going to necessarily, you know, be the main focus on events is we kind of got a little dose of it during the pandemic. With all the, um, the streaming and the virtual events, all the zooms and the never ending, sort of, virtual conferences that we've all attended in virtual meetings we've been a part of. And I think a lot of people are pretty fatigued from it.
And I know in my world, and the planners that I was working with [00:16:00] quite closely. As soon as live events started coming back, I thought for sure that, you know, uh, virtual wasn't going anywhere, virtual 100% be a staple and every single live events in the future.
And, you know, this is just how it's going to be moving forward. But, I was actually a little surprised. I didn't necessarily think that so many people will come back and be like, you know, actually, we're going to meet 100% live in person and it's going to be this way or no way at all.
And don't get me wrong. Like, there are still loads of events that are hybrid there. I'd probably say with our event portfolio, probably 60% to 70% of all our events are hybrid. And probably only 30 or 100% in person without any virtual element. But especially at the beginning, people were very tired of virtual and they were very, you know, almost burned out of sitting in their laptops at home. And people wanted that live events experience.
And, you know, part of the reason why people go to conferences, you know, it is to learn, and it is to get education and knowledge, but it's also to network, and one of the things and one of the [00:17:00] challenges we found in networking, you know, through technology is, is hard in a sense, I know, obviously all the social platforms and what have you. But in terms of the event world, um, people want to meet people. People want to get FaceTime with someone they've been trying to talk to, you know, for the past year, maybe. Maybe it's a five minute conversation, maybe get to specific vendors they want information from, or vendors to particular clients, and so on and so forth. And there's so many examples I can continue to give.
But ultimately the goal, I think, still remains there that human to human contact is very important. And I think, even some people getting on a plane and travelling across, whether it's North America or the world, to attend an event. You know, it's almost a bit of a getaway, although it is still work, but, you know, between the dinners and all the meetings outside of the actual conference, uh, it does add a lot to the experience, and I think a lot of people do value that.
Back to AI and going purely virtual, it's definitely a tool. Like I said, it's a tool and the tool needs to be there to help and obviously help the end goal [00:18:00] for sure.
Rachel Moore,: Yeah,
We'll be right back with more event experience after the break.
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Rachel Moore,: We're back with Adam Pallesch to identify the guardrails for event planners who use AI.
Obviously everybody listening is going to have their own takes on AI. I mean, we, we, we're seeing it manifest. We're seeing it evolve a lot. I really love too that you brought up, you know, how it had a place in COVID and I right there with you.
I'm someone who is like virtual never. [00:19:00] It's always going to be. And it's like people just did have and have that such that appetite to get back in person and, and get back into that. And you do always have to just follow like what what is the human inclination? What what are our audiences? What direction are they going? And we need to make sure we're ready for that.
What's interesting to me too, and I, um, I want to get into this next question for you. I mean, I, I can think, and I'm sure our listeners can think to be like, you know, yeah, I can use AI to help me with logistics of my job.
Like we can all probably put up, pull up a chatGPT and, you know, be like, "Hi" and even a lot of the tools we use now all have some kind of AI component in it, right? Where it's like, just ask the software, ask this, this app that you're using. Can you, you know, collate this information for me? Can you organize it? Can you come up, you know, help me formulate some ideas, that, you know, get you from blank page.
I'd love to hear how AI and AR, and even sustainability or any, any combo of those three, how are those being manifested, like in, in [00:20:00] your side of the world of events where it's, it's audio visual production, things like that.
Could you give us some examples of practical applications of AI and AR, um, of how, how your, your team is using it in, in events that you're helping execute?
Adam Palleschi: For sure. So I'll speak to a bit, you know, very close to home with our team and so forth, but also mentioned industry wide.
So, sustainability is obviously been a huge initiative on so many people's parts. For us, ultimately, being an AV production company, you know, we rely heavily on the equipment manufacturers and the individuals and companies that, you know, come up with all the new tech that, uh, you know, we get to utilize and use to put on these great events.
And, um, I gotta say that everyone's doing a fantastic job, but it's all still hinged on, you know, the development of technology. And realistically, you know, in the last, even since bb Blanc was founded in 2008, we've come an incredibly long way in a very short period of time. And it also do with technology and a few examples of [00:21:00] that, I would say the most obvious example is LED technology.
And of course, you know, that being utilized in lighting has been huge. So, massive energy efficiencies come with that, of course. You're getting brighter fixtures. The weights of these fixtures are also lighter, no heavy ballasts and such. Which helps with trucking efficiency and so forth. Uh, there's also less waste because there's no disposals of things like lamps.
And you ultimately get a longer lifespan of the products, which is quite nice. So less waste again. So, all those things, that's just from a lighting standpoint, and I could go on to all the other different, you know, various fields. But, um, you know, there's quite a bit of sustainability, uh, advancement just from that.
Rachel Moore,: Yeah.
Adam Palleschi: That's been very tremendous, um, industry wide, of course. So, you know, we've all obviously leveraged that and we've all continued to, to buy into that line of product and, um, you know, it's been serving us and our clients well. And of course, the ultimate goal of sustainability.
Something that's a little more close to home and personal. And again, I don't want to give away all [00:22:00] their little secrets, but I'll give you a couple of high level. One thing that we discovered that actually is tremendous for us is, you know, and this is more of one of those internal AI tools for sure. I'm using something as simple as ChatGPT to analyze reports.
So, in the corporate world, we work with a lot of fortune 500 companies. And in doing so, for us, we're very solution based. We want to make sure that we are targeting the problems of our customers with the best possible solutions. And making sure that their messaging and whatever they need to convey with any particular conference or event, is being conveyed at the highest level.
So a lot of ways that we learn, even by using company reports. So they have a lot of shareholder reports and so forth. So we pull these reports and, you know, for most of these companies, there are publicly available. And you can run them through chat, GPT and do a quick summary. So some of these reports and they're 70 to 100 pages, something along those lines.
And, you know, you can very quickly put these reports in, search what you [00:23:00] want, and just ask, you know, basically chatGPT, what you're looking for. So, you know, what are the company's main goals? What are their pain points? What are they investing capital in? Um, all these questions where, you know, it takes you hours to go through the report, highlight, summarize, and get to this point, that chatGPT can get to in a matter of seconds, if not, you know, minutes at the worst.
So, it's very, very quick to get a lot of information. And it aids us in obviously being very efficient in finding out information. And effective at ultimately acting on the information that we get.
So, that's been, um, very, very helpful to us.
I would say another example, with virtual reality. And the benefits that that brings to us. So as far as, um, event rendering goes, uh, we've had lots of advancements with that and different softwares and, um, different ways to view those renderings, uh, has been tremendous once again to, um, to us and ultimately our end client.
Being able to completely pre visualize the space as, you know, we imagine it and be able to show [00:24:00] them that in a very hyper realistic way, uh, that speaks volumes again to our design. And then also, you know, ultimately to the solution that we're providing our clients with.
Also, in terms of programming, in terms of lighting and video programming, we can previs all of these elements, um, in virtual reality before we ever roll a case in on site. And that again, that saves us lots of time and gives us the ability to be, to ultimately provide a far better looking product than we'd ever be able to do with just a short amount of time we have in our load in window.
So that's another way that it's helped us quite a bit.
Rachel Moore,: I would imagine. I mean, you've talked about several things where the technology has brought everything forward, whether it's, like you mentioned with LED lighting, where it's definitely got a whole wealth of benefits from transportation to, you know, recycling, you know, and cost of those items and, you know, how long they can last.
But also, I think we've all, I mean, I don't want to assume anything [00:25:00] about our audience, but I'm willing to bet most, if not all of us have tried out chatGPT. Or just, you know, an AI prompt of some kind. But I'm constantly amazed just from a personal standpoint of like what you can ask it to do.
I have some colleagues and some peers that I work with where they're like, yeah, I asked that did this and they put this together.
And so, there's a whole wealth of things that can help you do just a bit faster where, it's it, you know, it's using brain power, but maximizing the time that you have to be able to dedicate to other things and helping you. What is that phrase? Work smarter, not harder.
Adam Palleschi: Absolutely.
Rachel Moore,: Right? But I, and I just personally, I, I'm someone in my household. I love VR because I, and, you know, events is just one industry. I'm sure VR is super helpful with, but being able to demonstrate, you know, to give a client a realistic view or give yourselves a realistic view. Like, here's what this setup can look like without actually implementing it all and then, "Oh, that doesn't look the way we wanted. Let's take it down" and things like that. So I think it's [00:26:00] super cool that, um, you're all using that.
Do you all have VR headsets at your company? Like, so that you can like, you know, do your employees just use them regularly? So you can like visualize stuff.
Adam Palleschi: Not everyone, not everyone, but some certainly do. Absolutely.
Rachel Moore,: That's awesome. Yeah, it's super cool. And who knew, you know, I don't know if even 10 years ago, we'd all be like, oh my gosh, yeah, this is, this is what we're all going to be using. It's wild to see all this, this manifest in the events industry.
Let me ask you this, from a cautionary standpoint, you know, and you brought it up a little bit earlier where, like, there's lines, you know, ways you think it can help.
I love that you mentioned augmenting. You know, it's like, the technology can augment what, um, you know, you're trained professionals like yourself at BB Blanc and beyond what you're able to accomplish.
Where do you think the line is that event planners need to be careful of crossing before their event becomes more about the tech, more about the AI than it does about the attendees attending the [00:27:00] event?
Adam Palleschi: Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm happy you asked it because I feel quite strongly about this personally. And, um, you know, to me, there's a lot of things that are introduced to the market. And, you know, obviously everyone's trying to put the best foot forward or gain some advantage, um, over the market and, you know, their competition.
And I think, you know, for planners in particular, the big thing to keep in mind is, is always keep your event goal in mind. So I'm going to, again, reference the big three, um, that I mentioned earlier. But, is the main focus of your event messaging? Is it networking? Is it learning? Is it a mix of all three?
Keep those three things in mind. Like any, you know, problem, the solution has to solve the problem. So when you're thinking about AI, you have to think about it and remember, is this going to help one of those things? Is this AI activation or something that I'm introducing to the conference, is that helping with the messaging or is it actually a distraction to the messaging?
And is it a distraction to the main [00:28:00] purpose, you know, that, you know, you're trying to solve, you're trying to solve this problem and this might not be aiding in that.
So, look, I don't know, I don't want to completely have this negative outlook, and I hope it really isn't coming off that way. Because, um, it's not. But, all I'm trying to say is really, does AI help solve X? Does it help solve the problem? And if it does, I think then it is a tremendous benefit to all parties involved. Um, if it doesn't, I do think, you know, you might be crossing the line, and you might be trying to fit a circle into a square a little bit.
And, you know, right now you can kind of tell and you can kind of see it when you go to a lot of the industry trade shows and what have you. It's almost like this arms race of technology and everyone's trying to have the next best thing and the latest and greatest trying to win this client and win that over.
And, you know, that's true, certainly for audio visual providers, and I'm sure it's true for planners and, um, you know, producers that are trying to give their clients the best and so on. At times it can certainly feel very forced and, you know, it's like the shiny new [00:29:00] toy and everyone's trying to leverage it.
But, you know, the real cautionary practices again is just using it in a practical form that ultimately does help the attendee. Or, like as I also mentioned from the internal perspective, it helps yourself too. If you're in the industry, tools that help. are obviously fantastic.
And, you know, no one wants a tool that, uh, they can't use or can't, or doesn't solve, um, you know, a practical purpose. So, that's probably my take on that, I would say.
Rachel Moore,: Well, I wonder it almost makes me think like, what if we were to go to chatGPT right now and say, okay, should I use you? Should I use AI? Like, I wonder how it would answer, you know, be like, of course you should, you know, and,
Adam Palleschi: Absolutely. You should try it.
Rachel Moore,: Right, right. Like, is it going to be self promotional where it's like, yes, use me in every way, shape and form and use me to excess and, you know, nevermind what the attendees want.
I've actually, I know we've, uh, I've interviewed some of our podcast guests do and they talk about, sometimes they'll plug in saying, "Hey, uh, I want, you know, help me plan, uh, the [00:30:00] attendee experience, uh, from the time they enter this door here until they get down over to this breakout room here." And, um, you know, just even with, like, coming up with those ideas. It can do that heavy lifting of, like, being a sounding board, even, at minimum.
But, um, I appreciate what you said, too, because I'm sure we've all seen, all of us listeners, people watching this can think of, Yeah, I remember a time where I'm like, really? Did you need to make that happen just for the sake of saying, we did this with AI? They've kind of crowbarred it into a, an activation or an event, and you're like, that didn't feel like it worked.
And so, I appreciate that you're, you're kind of saying, look, it's, is it solving a problem? But as you said, you always have those three core goals in mind, the messaging, networking, and learning, and every event planner should have.
What is that goal? And then, you know, be asking that question before they implement the AI, right?
I would like to ask, we were coming [00:31:00] up on the end of 2024 as we're recording this, um, 2025 brand new year. Do you have any specific projects or activations that you're looking forward to, uh, for how you plan to leverage AI or AR VR sustainability or any of the above for all of those?
Adam Palleschi: Yeah, for sure. And I would mention, um, you know, on our sustainability effort, we do still have our in house studio, studio 41 operating. And for us, it's a, it's still a great option for our clients.
As I already mentioned with virtual, it came in in the pandemic and we developed a very custom, but yet open solution for our clients to come into. And it's a space where, we can see a pretty big, emission reduction in as well. Because we're not loading multiple trucks, we're not traveling across the country, we're not sending crews out and so forth, everyone's close to home.
So, um, you know, the stat I believe I read a little while ago was 60 to 70% emission reduction in virtual events.
So, um, it [00:32:00] still serves a good purpose for us and our clients ultimately. And with that, there's a lot of great technology in there that we utilize as well.
And AR and XR are part of that. So, external reality and augmented reality to ultimately help enhance that end user experience even more so. So, that's a continuing initiative that we plan to continue for 2025.
Rachel Moore,: Well, AI can obviously help event planners with a bunch of stuff. Is there anything that you think, off the top of your head, anything that you think um, event planners themselves can fix but may not be able to be fixed by AI?
Adam Palleschi: For me, I would say, in some of our daily experiences, I'm working with various planners and groups and corporations. Probably on the forefront of that would be fix the RFP process please.
Rachel Moore,: Yes! Yes!
Adam Palleschi: Allow for creativity and allow yourself to be open for different ideas. I hear it all the time. We're looking for something [00:33:00] different and something new and exciting for our attendees and yet the RFP goes out and it's the same ask, you know, 2, 9, 16 screens, 15K projectors, stage size X, PA for the room, this many mics.
Like if you continue to ask for boring, dry, mundane things, you're going to keep receiving boring, dry, mundane things. And us, uh, creativity and design is on the forefront of one year, one of our differentiators, and we do pride ourselves in the product that we put out there.
And, you know, some of our best, uh, ultimate stages that we've built, and experiences that we designed have all come from clients who gave us the freedom to allow us to show them, um, what we think would be a great idea for their event. And, um, remove the restrictions and remove, you know, the, um, the standard, you know, we need two screens and whatever, to allow to come up with a very creative solution.
So, uh, my big thing is, is, I think, [00:34:00] if you change up even some of the wording or some of the requests with RFPs and you do get, um, to a point to allow for more freedom of creativity and design expression. I think some more incredible things will definitely come out of it for sure.
And I know for us, that's one of the things that oftentimes with new clients, um, in particular, that holds us back is because, you know, do you want to address the RFP head on, or can we flex our creative muscle a little and go above and beyond, uh, which we love doing so much?
So, that's definitely, um, I'd say one of the big points for sure.
Rachel Moore,: Last question, easiest question. Where can our listeners find and follow you online?
Adam Palleschi: Absolutely. LinkedIn will be the best way. Adam Palleschi, on LinkedIn Managing Director at BB Blanc.
Rachel Moore,: Excellent.
Adam Palleschi: I'll put a little note out there for everyone who wants to check out a little more on what we do. You can see us at bbblanc.com and have a look at our website and there's many great feature articles and case studies there as well to see some of the [00:35:00] great work that we do.
Rachel Moore,: Every event planner can skill up with Adam's advice about when to involve AV in your planning process.
Adam Palleschi: Uh, Production is not to leave us to the last minute and not to treat us as, you know, let's say the paint on the walls versus the foundation of the building. A lot of things, uh, hinge on audio visual production from the setup of the space to how the contents produced so on and so forth.
So treating us more of as the foundation of event of the event versus, you know, just an afterthought of we need to fulfill this. So, let's get X.
I think we'll lead everyone much further down the road and everyone will be much happier with the event experience, the attendees, the planners, the end client and so on and so forth.
And finally, um, one other point that I would like to also mention here is, uh, don't be afraid to share your budget. [00:36:00] Oftentimes you find a lot of secrecy around that, where, you know, the budget's close, uh, you know, near and dear, and I feel personally, and I can speak to, you know, how we operate. We like to maximize our clients value.
Essentially, we want them to get as much value as possible for the budget. So instead of guessing and, you know, trying to figure out if we match the RFP versus if we go crazy with an amazing design, are we going to be viewed negatively? Perhaps one way or the other. But, um, I think if you do share the budget, um, that does allow us to give you as much as possible for that.
And that allows us to again, flexed creative muscle and come up with something hopefully that, you know, our clients will find unique and as a different, better experience for the attendees and ultimately engaging them further and hopefully they can walk away learning more and, uh, have a much better experience overall.
Rachel Moore,: Thanks again to Adam Palleschi for joining us on Event Experience. And thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the [00:37:00] show, we'd love to hear it.
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You can find transcripts of each episode and key takeaways on bizzabo.com/podcast. On behalf of the team, thank you. We'll gather again soon for a new episode of Event Experience.
