How to Create Engaging Live Events

Stop having boring activations at your event. Here are 11 activations that actually bring value to your guests. People are exhausted with the same old, same old: 👉 The cheesy photo booth with oversized props (how many more photos of you dresed sup like a cowbow do you need with your colleagues?) 👉 The sponsor swag table nobody visits (don't even get me started on swag) 👉 The random massage chair in the corner (I mean, i would briefly use this but it just looks weird) Those are outdated and they provide little to no lasting value. It's tired. Spice up your event with activations that enhance the experience, create lasting value for guests, and give your brand meaningful exposure. (1) Headshot Studio 📸 Professional lighting, backdrops, and a photographer with quick turnaround edits. Guests walk away with a headshot they’ll actually use (and think of your event every time they see it). (2) Podcast Recording Room 🎙️ Guests create content with peers and speakers. Podcasters get fresh episodes and new listeners. Your brand is mentioned every time those conversations go live. (3) Content Creation Lounge 📲 Guests shoot reels, photos, and collabs in a tastefully designed branded space. Your event (or sponsor) branding spreads with every tag and share. (4) LinkedIn Banner Creator 🎨 Guests sit down with a designer to refresh their LinkedIn headers using clean templates. Include your branding in some designs, increase exposure with every updated profile. (5) Personal Brand Reel Station 🎥 Guests get coveted time with a pro videographer to capture polished 30-second pitch reels and post them to socials with your event logo subtly built in. (6) Profile Optimization Cubby 📝 Branding experts offer quick tune-ups on LinkedIn or websites. Guests leave sharper, and your brand gets tied to their new professional edge. (7) Pitch Deck Bar 📊 Guests get prime time with a designer or investor for feedback. Your brand becomes the gateway to their next potential raise. (8) Gratitude Wall 🖊️ Guests write what they’re grateful for on a curated wall as they enter. Practicing gratitude shifts their energy and they’ll pass by it again on their way out, leaving with a meaningful memory. (9) Power Poker ♠️ Guests play short rounds of poker while learning deal-making strategies that sharpen instincts, while your brand owns the most buzz-worthy session. (10) Hot Seat Coaching 💡 Short 1:1s with experts already in the room. Guests get valuable coaching. Coaches gain exposure to future clients. Your brand becomes the platform that made it happen. (11) Small-Group Coaching Circles 🤝 Guests dive deep in peer groups of 6–8 on growth topics like scaling, AMA sessions with actionable advice. Coaches help more people at once. Your brand is remembered as the one that sparked connection. ✅ Guests take away value they can actually use ✅ Brands receive exposure that actually sticks Everyone wins. Which one of these would you want to participate in?

Most “experiential” events aren't experiences at all. If you were on my team or one of my clients, here are 4 ways I'd tell you to upgrade your next event so people actually remember it: 1. Design the emotion first, logistics second Before you book the venue or pick the menu, decide how you want people to feel when they walk in and when they leave. Inspired? Curious? Connected? Then reverse-engineer every single detail to create that feeling. The venue, lighting, music, the smell, even how people move through the space. It all serves that emotional goal. 2. Create moments worth sharing (that people actually want to share) Stop forcing photo ops with branded backdrops nobody cares about. Design genuine moments of surprise, delight, or connection. The best content happens when people forget they're at a "business event" and remember they're having a human experience and want to genuinely capture it. 3. Make it strategic, not just social Every element should reinforce your brand story. If your brand is about innovation, your event should feel cutting-edge. If it's about community, design spaces that encourage real conversation. Don't just slap your logo on everything and call it branded. 4. Plan for content multiplication One well-designed experience should fuel months of authentic content. Document the behind-the-scenes process, capture genuine attendee reactions, and create assets that tell your story long after everyone goes home. Your event becomes a narrative you can leverage for quarters. Events that have these components become part of people's stories. They get talked about at dinner parties and they influence purchasing decisions months later. Am I missing anything?

Here’s what I’m learning hosting a weekly LinkedIn Live event. 🧵 The good, bad, and ugly. Why live? Launching the 1000th B2B podcast felt risky. TBPN (and others) are showing how live blurs the line between content and events. It’s authentic, real, uncut — and an opportunity to rise above the noise. I also wanted to democratize access to guests by letting the audience ask their own questions, not just me. So far, here’s what I’ve learned: 1. Driving registrations is hard. Weekly database emails feel spammy. Organic LinkedIn promo gets suppressed, and manually inviting 250 connections at a time is painful. The best tactic: guest enablement. Have them post ahead, connect their socials in StreamYard, and trigger live notifications. Audience borrowing is the name of the game. 2. Despite the pain, LinkedIn Live works as the platform. The built-in virality is hard to beat by any webinar tools. I’m seeing ~10x more participation from network reach than from registrants. 3. Audience engagement needs work. Numbers are still small, and getting viewers to ask questions is tougher than expected. I’ll need new ways to get the audience involved. 4. Production is way easier than I imagined. Tools like StreamYard make it simple. Local recordings = high-quality audio/video to repurpose into podcasts, YouTube, newsletters, and social. 5. Live is a great tip-of-the-spear. An hour of prep + an hour live = a podcast, YouTube video, newsletter, 3 days of social content, plus the event itself. ROI is high, and distribution expands as guests and viewers share. I’m no TBPN yet, but the model feels right. Staying in the game and shipping consistently should build participation. Best of all, I’m putting in reps, improving the craft, and learning what content is most helpful as leaders build brand humanity. Anyone else building a content program with LinkedIn Live? Would love to learn from you.

I’ve been having lots of conversations about LinkedIn for events from organisers wanting to drive visibility and engagement, to exhibitors heading to upcoming tradeshows, and everyone in between. Whether you’re hosting, exhibiting, or attending LinkedIn can help you get more out of every event: ✨ More visibility 🤝 More connections 📈 More business outcomes Yet LinkedIn is often underused in the event space. A one-and-done post. A quick thank you. A flurry of activity... then silence. But here’s the thing: the event isn’t the beginning and it shouldn’t be the end. To get the most value, LinkedIn should be part of your strategy before, during and after the event. Here’s how to make the most of it: 🌠 1. Be LinkedIn Event Ready Your profile and company page shape your first impression often before anyone meets you. They should tell a clear, credible story that aligns with your event involvement. Organiser Tip: Create a LinkedIn Brand Kit for your speakers, exhibitors, and team – banners, hashtags, talking points, and example posts. Exhibitor Tip: Use an event-themed banner to show your stand details or branding. 🌠 2. Build Relationships Before the Event The most valuable connections rarely start cold on event day. The lead-up to the event is prime time to increase visibility, build familiarity, and position yourself as someone worth connecting with or visiting at the stand. Organiser Tip: Spotlight speakers, exhibitors, and sessions early and use tags to amplify. Exhibitor Tip: Shortlist people you want to meet - clients, prospects, collaborators, media and start connecting early. 🌠 3. Maximise the Event Experience Use LinkedIn to take people behind the scenes, amplify moments as they happen, and make your presence visible to those who couldn’t attend. Organiser Tip: Have someone live post from the floor, tagging participants and sharing session soundbites. Exhibitor Tip: Make it easy for people to connect with you it creates immediate pathways to keep the conversation going. 🌠 4. Keep the Momentum Going This is the stage where most people go quiet, but this is when the real relationship-building begins. Use LinkedIn to keep the conversation going. Share your takeaways. Follow up with new connections. Repurpose content into future posts. Organiser Tip: Share a highlight post and set the stage for what’s next even a “Save the Date” works. Exhibitor Tip: Send a personalised follow-up message referencing your chat. 🌟 Key Takeaways LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools you have to extend your event beyond the room. It allows you to build relationships before the first handshake, stay visible throughout the event and strengthen credibility and connection long after the banners are packed away. And if you'd like support to develop your own LinkedIn event strategy that's more than one and done, I’d love to help. Because showing up is just the beginning. #linkedin #events #eventmarketing

𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘀: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿 After managing more than 50 tech events of different scales, one observation has become consistently clear: people no longer attend events, especially in person, just to listen. They attend to interact. In an era where most talks can be watched on demand, long monotone speeches or tightly controlled panels with no room for questions struggle to justify physical attendance. According to multiple event industry studies, audience attention drops significantly after 10 to 15 minutes of uninterrupted speaking, and more than 70 percent of event attendees cite interaction and networking as their primary reason for showing up in person. Yet, paradoxically, Q and A sessions remain one of the hardest parts to manage. Live microphones, time pressure, off topic questions, and unequal participation can quickly derail an agenda. Still, removing Q and A altogether is not the solution. Tools like Slido or Kahoot have proven to be effective compromises. They allow participants to ask questions asynchronously, vote on what matters most to the room, and help moderators prioritize relevance over spontaneity. In practice, this often leads to better questions, broader participation, and more focused discussions. Another key point worth reconsidering is that events should maximize impact for attendees, not only visibility for organizers or speakers. When formats are designed primarily around stage time rather than audience value, engagement drops, both during the event and afterward. This is not a call for radical change, but for thoughtful adjustment. Shorter, sharper interventions. Built in interaction moments. Structured, tech enabled Q and A. Formats that respect why people actually show up. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. #events #tech #ai #impacr #community

I was at Bloom Nutrition's Energy Bar pop-up in Austin today, and it felt different. This wasn’t just an influencer-driven marketing stunt. It was an experience — one where the brand didn’t just want to be seen but wanted to be felt. For years, brands poured millions into influencer campaigns, chasing clout through sponsored posts and paid shoutouts. But the smartest brands are pivoting from influencer-driven to community-first marketing. Influencer marketing isn’t fading, but it’s evolving. Brands now realize that digital buzz alone isn’t enough; they need real-world engagement. Here’s why Bloom’s pop-up worked, and why more brands need to be thinking like this: 🔥 Exclusivity without exclusion – Anyone could sign up, yet the long lines created buzz and demand. Making an event open to the public while maintaining an exclusive feel is the sweet spot for community engagement. 🎯 Hyper-localized branding – They didn’t just drop a generic activation; they spoke Austin’s language. From ATX-branded hats to signage that read “Bloom loves Austin,” the event felt personal and intentional. When brands embed themselves in local culture, they foster deeper connections. 📷 UGC at scale: Live experiences generate way more organic content than a single paid post. Instead of relying on a few big influencers, they turned every attendee into a brand ambassador. 🙌 Participation = ownership – A photobooth, a charm keychain station — small, interactive moments made attendees part of the brand experience. People don’t just want to see a brand; they want to engage with it, create with it, and share it. Your audience doesn’t just want to be marketed to — they want to be included. The future of marketing is experiential, participatory, and community-driven. If you’re not building real-world experiences that make people feel something, you’re missing out.

Here’s a win I’m celebrating this week: 81% attendance rate for my client’s onboarding webinar. Y’all ever seen anything like that? I haven’t, and I’ve built and run scaled, live events for 7+ years at four other companies. If you get 50% attendance rate, you’re generally doing well. So how’d we get 80? We removed the waiting period. Removed the option to forget. We tried simu-live events. It actually came about as a solution to a problem. When I evaluated this client’s previous onboarding process, I noticed a huge gap between what those who got paid onboarding received vs. everyone else. There was a need for a better “standard” onboarding, with some level of hands-on guidance to close the activation gap that was leading to churn further down the line. The solution I proposed was a webinar – content that could get customers from 0 to 80% of the way there in around 30 minutes. The trouble was there was no bandwidth in the team to have someone (or multiple someones) repeatedly hosting this webinar. Plus – the data showed that the window for successfully engaging and onboarding customers was usually hours or a couple days, not weeks. We needed this webinar to be engaging, and delivered live, frequently. But we didn’t have the manpower to do daily sessions. The solution came in the form of simu-live events. One recorded onboarding webinar that felt like a live event and could happen whenever the customer was ready for it. I’ll admit – I was hesitant at first. I’ve had my share of experience with recorded-live events, and they always felt disingenuous. But the tool we used this time allowed us to level up the experience. Our webinar has interactive cards, resources delivered at specific intervals, and access to live support via chat. We’re not just getting 80% attendance rate – we’re also seeing 67% interaction during the webinar. Now we’re focused on how to continue driving awareness of the event and increase the number of new customers that attend. Because the content is working, we’ve just got to get it in front of more people. Have you ever tried simulated live events? If so, what was your experience? Curious to learn what I should be watching for as this continues on! 

Ever wonder why 3 pm feels like nap time at most conferences? After working with countless speakers and events and reading up on the current research, I've learned there's actually a science to keeping people engaged (and awake). Here's what actually works: ⏰ Match Your Content to Natural Energy: Early Morning: People are still waking up, skip the networking Mid-Morning: Your heaviest content goes here Post-Lunch: Keep it interactive or you'll lose them Late Afternoon: Short, high-energy sessions only 🎯 Session Length Reality Check: - Most people check out after 47 seconds if not engaged - Even your best speakers shouldn't go past 60 minutes - Build in breaks every 90 minutes (minimum) 💡 Quick Wins: 1. Get people outside during breaks 2. Mix presentation styles throughout the day 3. Build in flexibility for organic conversations 4. Keep your sessions shorter than you think you need Event planners: What scheduling tricks have worked best for your events? #EventPlanning #Programming #Events Based on insights from neuroscience research by M&IW (2024) and Dr. Gloria Mark's attention span studies (2024).

The 95/5 Rule of Event Execution: The Smartest Money You’ll Spend In events, every dollar counts. Budgets are tight, your bosses expect ROI, and costs add up quickly. The difference between a good event and an unforgettable one often comes down to how you spend the last 5% of your budget. The 95/5 Rule: Manage 95% of your budget to the penny Be strategic, efficient, and precise. Spend the last 5% “foolishly” Use this money to create unexpected, high-impact moments. Why? Because attendees don’t know or care if your venue came in 10% under budget, but they will remember how they felt at your event. Putting the 95/5 Rule into Action at User Conferences 1 - Surprise & Delight Moments Imagine a hidden lounge only accessible via NFC wristbands, a one-night-only collab with a cult-favorite local chef, or a limited-edition piece of merch designed exclusively for attendees (and not for sale). 2 - Immersive Storytelling Build an atmosphere. Scent branding in key spaces, live data visualizations showing real-time attendee engagement, or stage design that evolves throughout the event based on major themes. 3 - Personalization at Scale Use tech to create hyper-personal experiences. Things like session recommendations based on past behavior, QR codes at networking stations to exchange LinkedIn details, or a VIP concierge that texts updates tailored to your attendee’s interests. 4 - Moments of Joy Surprise is the most underutilized emotion in events. Think: a mysterious, invite-only after-hours experience revealed via text, a product demo staged as a live mini-theater performance, or an "Easter egg hunt" worked into the event with hidden rewards for attendees who discover them. 5 - The Grand Finale - Departures Most events end without...well much. What if you offer: Luxury rideshare codes that appear in-app just as attendees leave the venue. "See you next time" golden tickets—attendees randomly receive an upgraded experience for the next event. Ship it home! Let attendees scan and send swag, printed materials, and even personal items straight to their door (so they’re not stuffing their carry-ons). Managing budgets tightly is key, but that last 5%? It’s an investment in the moments people will talk about, share, and remember. Have you experienced anything at an event that made a huge impact on you? -------------------- Hi, I'm Jay Designing experiences for events that drive ROI for our clients. #business #branding #sales #marketing #eventprofs

Webinars Are Dead. Here’s What B2B Events Will Look Like in 2026. -Webinars had their moment. -In 2025, they’re no longer  the gold standard of B2B engagement. -They’re just one tool in a much bigger playbook. ❌ The Old Playbook: Host a webinar. -Gather MQLs from form fills. -Send follow-up emails. -Push MQLs to sales. -Pitch your product. It's time to evolve: 👉 What's working in 2025: -Today's B2B buyers want more than a one-way conversation. -They crave value, interaction, and a sense of community. A few Examples and my favorites: 1.Workshops Over Webinars: Buyers want to be involved, not just observe. -Interactive workshops let them learn better. -Whether solving real problems in a live session or gaining hands-on experience, workshops create deep, personal engagement. -I conduct workshops, which help me learn a great deal while teaching. -I structure them as a hands-on, problem-solving session around a common pain point my prospect faces. 2.Micro-Communities: Think beyond large, impersonal webinars. -B2B decision-makers get increasingly drawn to smaller, niche groups where they can connect with peers and gain specialized knowledge 3.Live Case Studies with Clients: Inviting clients to co-host live case studies where they share their success stories and strategies. -It helps build trust and showcases real-world solutions. -These sessions highlight the tangible outcomes of your product or service. 4.Courses and Micro-Learning Sessions: Today's B2B buyers appreciate short, focused courses that they can immediately apply to their work. -Building an educational track with bite-sized learning around key topics is a win-win for engagement and brand positioning. 5.Casual In-person Local Events The most underrated B2B growth lever in 2025. We’re seeing a revival of local, low-pressure, high-value meetups. You can organize: -CXO breakfast roundtables -12-person pizza & strategy evenings -Founder-led coffee sessions with 1-2 enterprise prospects -Co-branded "mini ABM events" with a customer as a host -The vibe is Informal. Intentional. Invite-only. -These formats are perfect for 1:Few and 1:1 ABM strategies. -No decks. No sales pitches. Just proximity, context, and honest conversations. Here's an Example: -Use LinkedIn + HubSpot (or your CRM) to map your Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts by city or region. -Once you’ve got your local clusters, don’t just wait for conferences. Just host your micro-events quarterly. -Even a 2-hour breakfast session with 5 decision-makers can create a more robust downstream pipeline than 500 passive webinar attendees. . It’s not about the number of attendees. It’s about curating the right conversations with the right people.