In this episode of Event Experience by Bizzabo, host Rachel Moore welcomes Katie McIntyre, Director of Strategy and Event Technology at Opus, to discuss the evolving landscape of event planning. They explore the increasing trend of last-minute registrations and how event planners can incentivize early sign-ups through strategies like first-comers, passes, and early access to session catalogs.
Katie McIntyre shares insights on the importance of experiential elements in events, especially for technology clients, to make abstract concepts more tangible and memorable. She emphasizes the need for events to be less transactional and more engaging, allowing attendees to have an organic interaction with the brand. The conversation also touches on the significance of understanding attendee needs and aligning them with brand goals to ensure successful and meaningful event experiences.
Here’s what you’ll hear about in this conversation:
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 continuation from Bizzabo's 2025 event benchmarks webinar, we welcome back Katie McIntyre. Director of Strategy and Event Technology at Opus to our microphones to discuss expectations by event planners for this year in the industry.
Virtual to in person events, micro events impact on networking, and registration conversion rates are on the docket to help you bench press an all new year in event experience. [00:01:00]
Rachel Moore: Our guest's career journey has taken her through exciting event roles at AWS and Informatica, leading her to her current gig as Director of Strategy and Event Technology at Opus.
She is a creative problem solver, I love those people, who thrives on using tech to turn big ideas into reality. She is all about crafting events with purpose, ones that aren't just about networking, but about creating authentic connections that today's audiences like yourselves, dear audience genuinely care about.
I'm really happy to welcome Katie McIntyre from Opus. Katie, welcome to event experience.
Katie McIntyre: Thank you, Rachel. It's a pleasure to be here.
Rachel Moore: Well, I thank you.
Um, I, yeah, I'm excited and, uh, for anyone who has listened to the podcast or dials into any of Bizzabo stuff, this is not the first time we're talking. You and I were across screens from each other along with a couple of panelists at our recent Bizzabo webinar.
Let me carry on into the, get to know you questions. So, um, I am going to ask the first question. I did ask you this in the webinar, but again, if anyone missed [00:02:00] it, um, if you're having a very long event day where, you know, you're going to be on your feet all day long, what are your go to event day shoes?
Katie McIntyre: I have the saddest answer possible for this. I only own one pair of shoes. They're Mark Nolan men's shoes. I accidentally ordered them a size too big, so they have a very cushy insole on the inside. Everybody always thinks that they're like a teenage boy's shoes when they see them laying the floor. Um, but they're fabulous and comfortable and I buy one pair of shoes and wear them until they fall into absolute rags.
Rachel Moore: Well, like you said, though, a wash, rinse, repeat, that works, then keep doing it.
Katie McIntyre: But I, I have an eight year old son and his two favorite things in the entire world are entropy and consumerism. So he's always wanting some kind of like obsolete tech gadget. Right now, it's iDog that you can only get on eBay for hundreds of dollars. And he's figured out, he asked for them for Christmas.
I want an X and I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry those, they don't make those anymore, they're [00:03:00] discontinued. And he's like, Is that a problem for Santa? So, we've actually had to delve into like, how Santa has to abide by licensing rules. He can't, you know, if it's a generic thing, like he can make you a doll, but he can't make you an X brand doll because of licensing.
And, so, it's, that's where all my money goes.
Rachel Moore: Oh my gosh. That is amazing. I like your son and it sounds like you have your hands full there. Like I, my, my son's the same. Like I, I swear, that kid. We keep thinking, I'm like, he's not going to go into, he was thinking about going to be a lawyer because I'm like that, that guy will find the loophole and he would just debate with us and I'm like, oh God, we're in so much trouble. So I feel, I feel the pain of it.
Um, is there anything that you're listening to watching or reading these days that you can't put down?
Katie McIntyre: So I just finished watching the second season of Shrinking. I am such a massive, this is my pretentious speech that I give all of the time. Find a showrunner that you love and follow them everywhere. So, Bill Lawrence. [00:04:00] Everything Bill Lawrence touches is gold to me. I watched, he just recently had Bad Monkey, which I enjoyed. Uh, Shrinking, he, he did Ted Lasso. Cougar Town, which is criminally underrated if never watched Cougar Town. Uh, so, yeah. Season 2 of Shrinking. Uh, amazing. Enjoyed it.
Rachel Moore: I have heard that as well. And I did not realize, um, what was the other one that you said he did? Uh, he did Shrinking, he did Cougartown and the other one. Oh, Ted Lasso.
Katie McIntyre: Ted Lasso, Scrubs.
Rachel Moore: Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. I, and you're so right too.
Cause I, I found that as well. And I am someone who nerds out that kind of stuff at entertainment. And I will follow, you know, follow certain directors, writers, et cetera.
But, um, I showrunners, I'm going to go check. Cause I bet a lot of my favorite shows have the same director.
Katie McIntyre: This is going to be the part where you Google and it's like, actually, Bill Lawrence was not the showrunner on some of those, so, cut me some, cut my pretentions some slack.
Rachel Moore: Well, it's, it's, this is immortalized already, so it's, it's going to, it'll always be podcast. [00:05:00] But, um, I, but at least you gave, but you did give us some great things to go watch. And now I've actually been contemplating watching Ted Lasso, again.
So I might have to go do that, but I will absolutely go, go check out those other shows and Shrinking is certainly on my list. Is there a particular social post, a piece of media, or even a hot take about events that you found interesting lately?
Katie McIntyre: I cannot comment on anything that has been happening on social media in the last several months. I, I have been doing my absolute best not to be on social media. With the exception of LinkedIn, which is like, we'll go LinkedIn.
Rachel Moore: That's work related, yes.
Katie McIntyre: Um, but I have been doing my best to stay away from social media, and I am very much a lurker, not a poster.
So, uh, if I do not have the courage to post on social media to, uh, friends and family that I know intimately, I am certainly not gonna give my hot take on professional life.
Rachel Moore: well, One could say Katie, that what you just said was a hot take that you are not, haven't been on social media for several months, um, which might sound impossible, but can actually be quite refreshing. So [00:06:00] I'm glad that you shared that perspective with our audience.
It's always, uh, I it's great to unplug. And particularly when you feel like sometimes you can't, you absolutely should.
Um, So some people might be a little more familiar with you, but since I just gave a super brief intro of you, I would like to toss it back to you. And Katie, tell us a little bit more about you, about your role at Opus and kind of what your world is like there.
Katie McIntyre: Yeah. So, I've been with Opus for roughly 13 years. I started off in the technology department doing front end web development for our proprietary platform. And about, uh, 2021, so mid pandemic, I got the opportunity to, to check out the brand side and see what that was like.
Was a wonderful experience with a lot of really amazing people, gave me a lot of perspective, but I missed my Opus family, so I came back. But I wanted the opportunity to do something a little bit different. At the time, I thought a little bit more creative, so I moved over into strategy. And then swiftly found that I missed the creativity of event technology.
So, uh, I [00:07:00] was lucky enough that Opus, Opus really cares about finding the right fit and the right role for their people and so they let me do both. They let me have, uh, the green grass on both sides of the fence.
And so, now I sit 50/50 on each of those teams and sort of, uh, work to advocate for the strategic importance of event technology.
Rachel Moore: That's really cool. I, I first want to point out too, I, I love that you mentioned that you did front end development first. So you're, you're, um,
You're kind of a nerd that you came in on all that. I, I'm always, um, surprised, but then when I think more about it, it's like, oh, it kind of makes sense, when people who are in more of those technological careers. But they get, they, they start tapping into the creative vein and, and they move into those kinds of roles.
So, I think it's fascinating that that's where you started, but you evolved in this direction.
Katie McIntyre: Yeah, I think that's one of the big misconceptions about technology, is that it's very precise and very mathematical and in some ways it is. I mean, if you leave off that semicolon, your code is going to crash spectacularly.
But in a lot of other ways, it's very creative and very individual. It's, it's like I tell people all the time, you know, one [00:08:00] plus one equals two. Yes, that's true. But two times one also equals two and four minus two, and a million different avenues to arrive at the same end point. And there's no two developers who code in exactly the same way.
Rachel Moore: That's super. That's a cool way to think about it. And, and frankly, translating that over into, uh, event planners, you know, everybody's going to have their own unique approach to whatever experience they're designing, how they're looking at things, their strategy. So I think that's super fascinating too. Um, but yeah, I, and I'm sure a lot of our audience can relate to that. A lot of them might've come from that kind of background and be like, Hey, Katie's my people. I'm excited to have her on.
Now, I mentioned that, uh, you were a panelist on a recent Bizzabo webinar. And we tackled in that webinar, the benchmarks in the industry, uh, as we are, I think it's safe to say well within 2025 now.
I'm really excited to have this opportunity to expand farther into the, the short segments we had on there, obviously in a webinar. We have very short blips. We've got several people on the panel, and we got to like hit everybody. But [00:09:00] I have you all to myself right here, uh, in this podcast episode, so it's great.
I wanted to kick off with this question and for the audience. You're going to hear us talk a bit about some stats that got discovered by Bizzabo surveying 1500 event planners and audience or attendees.
And so, uh, there were a lot of findings. Again, talked about them in the webinar, but we're going to dig a little deeper into them here. We have a little more time to do that.
So, Katie, if you recall, uh, one of the benchmarks we discovered, 57% of organizers said that attendance at their events has grown in the past year, which 'yay!' That's great news. Better, better to have that a little bit of higher number on the top of the scale than lower.
But, um, I want to get your, your reaction to that and, and just, what do you think about that stat? Do you agree? Disagree? Tell us.
Katie McIntyre: I share your 'yay!' and I hope that trend continues and grows over the coming year. It's not surprising ultimately. And I think that there's a couple of reasons for that.
So we're seeing this renewed hunger for [00:10:00] in person experiences. I know that that is such a cliche. It's a quote that has resonated across the industry for the past year or so.
But we really are, and a lot of it comes down to travel budgets are expanding once again. People are getting comfortable going back out into the world again. And there's this, this hunger for face to face.
There's a statistic, uh, pre pandemic, networking really was a priority to roughly 20% of attendees. It was something that was a nice to have, but it wasn't considered essential.
Content was, as the saying went, king. We're not finding that at all these days. More recent surveys have put networking at around 88% of attendees citing it as the single most important contributing factor to their attending an event in person. And the pandemic proved that we can take in content online.
So, if we're going to travel, if we're going to, if we're going to put our lives on hold, get on a plane, get in a car, spend the money, we really want to see people and [00:11:00] we really want to connect with them in a meaningful way.
And I think that this return to in person event attendance is just a reflection of that.
Rachel Moore: Katie, that is a fascinating point. And I love that you call that out because obviously, yes, we all learned and, and in large part, thanks to event planners, um, who pivoted so quickly during COVID to say, okay, yeah, we can do things virtually, and now you have to. And they proved that yes, we can make this content happen digitally, virtually, that people can still ingest it.
Well, like you said, we all learned. And we're like okay, well, I know I can do that virtually. You know, the thing that I can't do as well is, is network with people. I've heard a ton of people say that too.
And obviously, I think even in the benchmarking report, we saw that, which we'll get into in a little bit. But, uh, we saw that there's just a lot to that in person experience that it's just, not, it can't quite hit the same way as, as, you know, on virtual as it would as in person.
Are you seeing an opus two? I mean, as far as like your, uh, the events that you've designed that you, you all saw like, hey, yeah, we're seeing that the in person [00:12:00] appetite for in person is, is definitely still high or is growing in fact.
Katie McIntyre: Absolutely. And a lot of our a lot of our clients are shifting from this idea of one single large event that everyone travels to, to micro events or hyper local events that take place within their communities. And we're seeing a lot of organic growth that way, too.
It's no longer quite such a commitment that brands are asking from their attendees, which makes it easier for people to kind of dip in and about as their schedule allows.
Rachel Moore: Yeah, yeah. And that's a great point too. And something I think, I we've all seeing that. And even like on this podcast, a lot of people I talked to, a lot of our guests have, have been saying micro and, and when we're talking micro, we're talking like sometimes it's super micro, like it might be 6 to 10 people that you invite to something. Might be a little bit larger. It doesn't have to be like, Oh, this is a big to do. Like it can literally just be a very intimate dinner or coffee or things like that. But those are certainly digging in there.
Let's talk a little bit [00:13:00] about, um, the thing, I think, it's a pain point all of us are feeling. I mean, even, and I'll just throw this up. I'll, I'll offer an anecdote.
Last summer, I think I registered for a conference literally 6 days before it happened. And it was in Washington, D. C., and that is not where I live, I live in Denver. And so I decided to go, I did pay a bit of a premium for my registration fee as a result, but it was just one of those things. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this.
So, I'm the poster child, everybody, for what I'm about to describe. And I apologize to all the event planners who are like, ugh, you people.
One of the things that we found again from the Bizzabo benchmark survey, 59 % of organizers said that compared to previous years, last minute registration for in person conferences, summits, and conventions is increasing.
It can drive us absolutely bonkers. I'm sure everybody listening and watching can feel the pain. I would love to hear from you, Katie. How are y'all managing that [00:14:00] trend where everybody's like, yep, I'll let you know, like, literally 11th hour that I'm gonna be there.
Katie McIntyre: I mean, it is absolutely a trend. Our registration team keeps statistics for us to reference on, on our registration surge periods. And we're still seeing something like 30 % of attendees at T minus 3 weeks. It's, it's beyond.
But there's a couple of things that we can do to kind of move the needle on that. So, the first is deincentivize procrastination, to make it impossible to procrastinate. So we see a lot of early bird. Early bird is the standard in registration.
The problem with early bird is that it is a, a set period of time in which I know. I can procrastinate and get the benefit. So, if your early bird period ends in March and it is currently February, I am still not thinking about it until March and then the likelihood that you've continued to have my attention through March for me to remember to register during the early bird period is very low. So, it's not quite the incentive that it has been in past years.
And what we like to recommend. [00:15:00] Instead, is a, a first comers pass. So a limited number of passes. Let's say, first 500 who register get this discount. And stack that on top of your early bird. But because it does not have a set duration, it makes it impossible for you to procrastinate if that is an incentive that actually works for you.
The other thing is to understand with a lot of attendees, let's face it, it's not their money. So the early bird pricing period for, you know, for a corporate attendee, depending on who their manager is, obviously, depending on what their departmental budgets is, but it might not be the personal incentive that we need it to be in order to get that individual to register at that time.
So, we like to pair that with sort of an early bird, early access as well, especially for conferences where there is still that high demand for content. Saying, you know, if you register during this early bird period, not only do you get the discounted pricing that makes your boss happy, but you will actually get access to the session [00:16:00] catalog or the agenda builder a week early.
Rachel Moore: Oh.
Katie McIntyre: Which means that you get to snap up all those sessions that are traditionally gone by the time you manage to log in.
So, giving them some sign, some sort of personal motivation to act quickly, uh, paired with that sort of,corporate overarching managerial incentive. We find it to be particularly effective.
Rachel Moore: I love that idea. Shoot. I mean, anybody who's ever, you know think we're all used to sometimes, well, especially nowadays, you go to movies, go to concerts, stuff like that. If it's not general admission, you know, you want to get you the best seats. Um, you need to be there right in the front of the line.
Hello, Taylor Swift concert that everybody was going to apparently. But it just really resonates that lines up a lot with things that we're seeing just in the in commercial environment where these are the things that you want to get to.
We'll be right back with more event experience. After the break
From backstage to the spotlight, The Event Experience Podcast by Bizzabo gives you a front row seat to the event industry's most captivating stories. [00:17:00] Want to get more out of each episode? Visit bizzabo.com/podcast. That's B I Z Z A B O dot com forward slash podcast for show notes, transcripts, links, and resources mentioned in each episode and more.
The Event Experience Podcast by Bizzabo, where events become unforgettable experiences.
We're back with Katie McIntyre to decide if registration to attendance rates this year are super great or super lame.
Rachel Moore: I like to you are actually, you're bringing that up as well, because I think we all know that like particularly if someone's like, hey, my, my company or my brand is paying for me to go to this. They have to contend with the internal approval process.
And like, oh, well, unless their boss or their department has like an allocated, yep, you get this much money, like from, you know, each year they're like, you just, we just know you have this and now go decide how you want to spend it.
But what's probably happening is most, most likely people are like, no, I don't have that, but I have to go make a [00:18:00] pitch to someone internal and say, well, I want to go to this, here's how much it costs and here's the, you know, they have to build on it. And if you're a smart event planner, you're, you know, you're trying to help them with that. Like, let's give you materials that can demonstrate to your decider that it's good for you to come to this.
I like that you're give us great, two great ideas. They're baking in a, uh, hey, here's like a very set number, a minimum number, an arbitrary number of people that they will get if they sign up first, they're going to get something nobody else is going to get no matter what. And then making sure that maybe there is that little bit of like, and by the way, Exclusive, exclusivity about the content that they're going to get, um, you know, if they sign up at a certain time. So, super smart. I mean, it all leads back to that FOMO. Nobody wants to miss out on the deal.
And, and again, it might maybe at a help make the case. Say, if we sign up by this time, I get this and that increases the ROI, ta da. So, really good. Uh, it's good. There's little sales involved with this feels like, right? Where you've got to help people like pitch with this.
Katie McIntyre: There always is. And that's, you know, it's a [00:19:00] difficult thing for, for planners when you're first rolling out your registration, it is very unlikely that you have your content fully baked. So you're making those justification letters for your attendees, it's hard to leave with specifics.
You know. We always see the justification letters that are like, let me go, this event will be great, cross my heart, hope to. You know, there's nothing quantifiable and a lot of times when we're going to our managers, we have to take back some sort of, of quantifiable data we can use to make our case.
So, things like that, and things like being able to look at, let's say, your submissions.
So, you can't necessarily say, we're going to have this specific number of sessions. But you can lean on historical data and you can say, you know, in, in 2024, X of sessions were around my industry or around my specific, uh, niche in, in my business, my, my role or my job title.
So, leaning on those historicals and then looking again at what you've got submitted, what's in your pending queue to be able to sort of glean insights that [00:20:00] people can take back. Can also help people make that internal pitch.
Rachel Moore: Really smart. Yeah, I think we've talked about that too. Anytime you've got the past data, historical data, but also those reviews that if people have said in any way, like here's, here's the kind of role I'm in and here's how this attending this helped me, then that, you know, it's like a case study and people can like identify with that and use that and go run with it. But, really great, uh, great knowledge there and some ideas.
Let me ask you about this next stat regarding registration conversion. So 37% of organizers, according to Bizzabo's benchmark survey, achieve a 20% to 40% registration to attendance rate. That seems pretty decent, but I'd like to hear from you. Like, is that, is that to you, is that like, Hey, that's a great stat or is that kind of like, ah, nothing really changed or where's your, where do you fall on that?
Katie McIntyre: I would need to unpack this statistic because that seems staggeringly low to me. So I'd like to know if that includes, uh, in person [00:21:00] events only or hybrid or, or virtual as well.
I mean, I'll say in the virtual sphere, that's, that's great. You got 20% to 40% of your people to attend your webinar, fantastic. You are doing something right.
In person, I think it comes down to, to the old quote that I trot out all the time. What we gain cheaply, we esteem lightly. If you are our, uh, comping attendance for everyone at your event, you're telling them that your content is not worth much, your event is not worth paying for and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they treat it accordingly.
A lot of our events are fee paid events, and we do not see a high number of attrition.
Rachel Moore: I would imagine not. Yeah. I mean, and it, you know, it gets back to that last like. It's, it's probably a lot easier to say, Oh, well, I just had to, I just registered with an email and, you know, if it's a virtual event, you're like, well, you know, now something came up, or I don't feel like doing that, or, oh, I can just get it on demand later, especially if you offer that. Which, [00:22:00] you know, there's some advantages that. You could still like get that content, you've got the person's email, which as we all know is currency, uh, you know, in the business we're in, but, um.
But yeah, you're talking like an in person event. Especially if you're doing, like you said, if it's comped, it's free. There's no stake that person has, um, in, in like, well, I get to go or not go and it doesn't make a big difference to me. Whereas as, as it makes a big difference to the event planner.
But yeah, I, I would think it sounds like if you're, like you said, unpacking this, which any of you can do, I know this is me getting my little Bizzabo 'guess what' hat on, but, this is a free download for to, to get a benchmark survey, which we'll dig more into stats like this saying, well, here's where this is coming from and what kind of events we're talking about.
But yeah, if you've got skin in the game, if you've got money down, then you're far more likely to, to go and, and not have to, um, miss that event, but, uh, good, good, good information on that stat.
Katie McIntyre: I will say that there are things you can do to incentivize people to attend your, uh, your [00:23:00] virtual event and also your in person event. A lot of it has to do with with how you're planning sort of the life cycle of your engagement.
If you're only planning for that in person, you know, butts in seats moment, or planning holistically, the pre during in the post. I heard a, a panelist on a, another event recently give the suggestion that you should never offer on demand access, unless people have checked in and watched X percent of it live.
So, it's not, you have to watch all of it. It's, you have to watch, you know, it's a 30 minute presentation. You have to log in and be there for three minutes. That's it. Three minutes out of your day. After which we will send you the link to unlock the on demand.
And what this person found is that by doing that, people got in for the three minutes, got a little bit hooked on it, watched, know, five to seven, cause genuinely they were busy, but then had something that seed planted in their mind that made them want to follow up and watch the on demand that kept it present and top of mind.[00:24:00]
It's the same thing for your in person attendees who can't come. If they have some sort of alternative. We all know that life is very, very busy and chaotic these days and, you know, people, people who have invested the time to register for your in person event or potentially made travel arrangements, they, they want to go or they did at some point.
So, planning in advance for avenues to engage those people virtually or through some sort of drip content that you have that's specific for them, as you said, you've already got their information, sending them daily recaps of, you know, this is the best of what you missed. If you can't afford to do a virtual component or to record all of your sessions, having highlights, having the, the slides available for people to download who couldn't go, is another great way to keep. Them engaged with your brain and your event, despite the fact that they couldn't be there in person.
Rachel Moore: I think that's such a great point. And gosh, I mean, you really are, I think about video marketing. Um, you know, if you think about your, your average, like YouTube that people watch. [00:25:00] You need to like get into the guts of the content within two to four seconds or people bounce and same thing here. We are like, okay, but if I can keep them that long and even if they do, but you know, if they're like, Oh, I'm just going to stay here, but I'll bounce right after that.
But I liked that you have that little teaser there, where it's like, if you're here this long, then you get the content. Um, we're not just automatically give it to you because you registered. And a lot of people listening might think, ah, you know, I'm a little scared, but why don't you just test it?
You can always test it and see, um, you know, even you get, you could test that with a single event with like half your audience, or even a portion of your audience say, like, maybe you just send that portion saying, okay, you only get the on demand content or something if you're here for a few minutes and, and see what happens and, and test it that way.
But I, I love, that's a great idea. And again, that, that it's always going to lead to other people's ideas too. Like, Ooh, what are some other ways I can, I can keep that retention and convert that person, um, and make sure they stick around for the whole thing. So, really great insights. Thank you for those.
So in the webinar about [00:26:00] benchmarks, we did talk, um, during one segment about experiential. And making sure that, um, you're, those are being incorporated into events.
I would love if you could expand a bit more on that and even provide an example of how you and Opus have, have incorporated experiential into your events since that seems to be what people are hankering for.
Katie McIntyre: Well, we work with a lot of large technology clients. And the challenge for technology clients often is that the, the things their products do can feel like an abstract.
So, for example, let's say, and this is not an actual example, but let's say, that you're, you're working on an event that's about cybersecurity. There is this idea of, of defense against a threat. It's very nebulous thing until it happens to you. And so, it's difficult to get people motivated and invested in the story, when the story is faceless antagonist against, you know, uh.
So finding ways to incorporate experiential that are [00:27:00] narrative, that are immersive, that really bring these abstractions to life. It can be a very helpful way for people to not only engage with your content, but to remember your content.
Novelty is the number one thing tied to memory formation. So when, when we see the same old content that we're used to, the same old talk tracks, the same old, you know, thought leadership, presented in a way that's slightly different, it flags our brains to pay attention, even though we may, I mean, that's why remakes, right?
We've the original, why do we go to the new one? Because there are things inside of it that are just slightly different enough to stand out and to pique our curiosity.
Rachel Moore: Yeah, exactly. I thought about of those things too. And those are always, I'll just be honest, when I've gone to trade shows, I think we were all normal, you know, we used to seeing a normal booth and how it's set up and you've got a little seating area and you've got the little stand up, you know, tabletops and, um, that people can talk at and things like that where, you know, okay, exchange of ideas and information here and, and, you know, scan, let me scan your [00:28:00] badge.
But, if you can construct something too, and you're right when it's something that's a little bit more nebulous or a little conceptual, and, and harder to kind of experience. If you can put someone saying, okay, well, let me, let me help you tap into that empathy. How does someone who needs this feel, if they're in an, in an instance where either they really need it or they already have it and they're feeling that satisfaction and trying to tap that, tap into that side of it, is a very smart idea.
And again, you can do it. You've got, especially if you've got, um, that physical space. Be different, you know, and, and offer people something different. Cause at least people will be talking about it and then they're going to learn more about that anyway. But I really, I think you're right. I think there's, there's ways, and our event planners, everybody out there is so creative. Like, like, you know, we talked about.
Just think about those ways where you're like, okay, what can I do that's, that's gonna maybe shake things up a little bit and, and get people, like you said, to come outside of their normal myopia, if you will, and, uh, and think about what is, what is the thing that I didn't know I needed, um, from this [00:29:00] particular brand or vendor.
So, really great idea there.
Katie McIntyre: We've known about the power of customer stories, customer success stories for ever, ever so long. And that's all that experiential really is. It's taking other people's experiences or, or taking, you know, imaginary perspectives and making them physical, making them real, making them something that people can interact with.
A lot of it comes down to being less transactional. We all have this reluctance to engage at events. When something feels mercenary or transactional or inauthentic. And taking it outside of, as you were talking about, that booth experience, that very salesy, pitchy, I'm here with a purpose, sort of uh, format, makes it feel a little bit more accessible, a little bit less mercenary.
And I people really resonate with, with being able to safely experience brand content in a way that doesn't feel like they're being taken advantage of, or they're pitched to, or they're going to be asked to make a commitment [00:30:00] immediately.
You know, I'm, I'm one of those people that walks into a store and I want to look, I want to browse before the salesperson comes up and starts asking me if I need anything. And it's, it's very much like that in the world of events.
Rachel Moore: Mm hmm.
Katie McIntyre: People want to have, have an organic and holistic impression of your brand,
before they're approached in a way that feels transactional.
Rachel Moore: My final easiest question of all, where can our listeners find and follow you online?
Katie McIntyre: Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the Katie McIntyre at Opus. I'm one of about 63 Katie's. So, uh, McIntyre, M C I N T Y R E. Um, and, uh, connect with me there if you want me to silently lurk you. Since, as I stated, that is what I do.
We'll skill up with Katie's advice on the best approach to ensure positive [00:31:00] attendees sentiment.
Katie McIntyre: Curiosity is paramount. There are so many events that I see being done, that are done because it is people's entire jobs to do them. And they, their legacy and many of them are quite successful. I mean, I'm not, I'm not knocking the lather, rinse and repeat when it works.
But you have to understand why you're having an event and who you're having it for. And have to make sure that the brand goals and the attendee goals have moments of overlap where both are getting what they need. Those are the moments that really resonate at events to me, are those where the brand purpose is clear. I know why they're having an event, therefore I know what's expected of me as an attendee of this event.
And they know why I came and thus they're ready and willing to meet those needs. And I think it's a, it's a perpetual refresh. If you want to have an event that stays current, stays relevant, you have to be curious about why people are coming and what your brand can offer them and provide opportunities for a true engagement.
We talk about events as [00:32:00] engagements all the time, but at a surface level, it has to be a true conversation that is not unilateral. We have to provide our attendees with opportunities to tell us what they need and then find ways to meet those needs.
Thanks again to Katie McIntyre for joining us on Event Experience. And thank you for listening.
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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.
