Consulting/JS

Enjoy the Q&A below and then scroll further to ask Joanne a question.

A quick fire Q&A with Joanne Sackett, Consultant, EventTouch.

How did you get into the events industry?

“I started my events career purely by chance, I had finished University, worked for a year to save up and travel for 18months and then needed to pay back my debt! I secured my first role within the Virgin Group – a start-up for brands who wanted to connect with university students; on campus we activated campaigns and events to build brand awareness. I learnt very quickly how to plan and run events, being accountable for actions, adapting on-site, and making decisions based on budget and available resources while still managing to maintain focus on the student experience”

What has been the most prestigious event?

 “I have had the privilege of planning, activating and reporting on many events from small to large (circa 15,000 delegates), online and in-person. It is difficult to pinpoint the most prestigious but I think there are 2 events I can pinpoint as the most pinnacle personal successes. Firstly, a tradeshow space of 300sqm in Hannover, Germany for the manufacturing audience, this was in my first year at Cisco where we brought together our partners and customers on the booth for the first time telling one story not 5 or 6 different spins which was the usual execution. And then secondly the c-suite track we run as part of the Cisco Live event, it was touch and go on attendance and the first time in EMEA we had run this for our Exec customers for 10+years, but the focus we placed on 2-way interaction and what our attendees wanted and needed out of the time spent together was phenomenal – and resulted in $62M in new business bookings!"

name one of the biggest challenges for event organisers?

 “There are many challenges today, budget cuts, doing more for less and maintaining innovative execution; there are only so many ways you can present content! But for me, the key to success is to keep the attendee’s experience as the focus, if you lose sight of this then it’s unlikely to meet your objectives and it won’t be a memorable experience. This is a huge challenge, events are often initiated to tell attendees the latest and greatest offering from that company (telling, rather than listening or enabling) but often the event experience is about connecting with peers, networking and spending quality time together – so this is a tricky balance for event success. My suggestion: people are time poor, so listen to what your attendees want and keep them at the heart of the event experience”  

What impact did Covid have on the industry?

  “Covid had a huge impact on day to day lives, values and our priorities. For events it revolutionised the whole format – digital and virtual experiences became the norm. What we learnt from this is that content can be delivered just as effectively online as in person. However, no matter how hard you try it is very difficult to replicate the human contact and in-person experience and feeling we get as humans when we meet in-person at an event – so there is a time and a place for online events, but in-person creates experiences. We also know since Covid that people are much more selective about where they spend their time, so to give up their time to travel and attend events it needs to be valuable to them”  

How do you see the market over the next 3 years?

 “AI is penetrating all roles, jobs and brings efficiency and technical innovation – we need to look at how this can benefit the events industry and yet not forget the impact of human interaction” 

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