We’ll continue to push boundaries — and extend our reach — in San Francisco. I invite you to join us on our journey.

The business events industry lost a giant with the passing in July of former PCMA President and CEO Roy B. Evans, Jr., CAE, who built PCMA into the global leader in the business events industry it is today.

Looking for a way to differentiate your conference? Drop the ‘something-for-everyone’ program approach and use your event as a setting to deliver wisdom, says Dave Lutz of Velvet Chainsaw Consulting. Here’s what that looks like.

Event organizers often face competing needs: Suppliers rely on booth traffic while attendees want to pack in as many sessions as possible. Velvet Chainsaw’s Dave Lutz outlines strategies to please them both.

Organizers spend a lot of time putting together their conference’s education sessions. Models vary, but most include a 15- to 20-person conference committee (slotters) and an army of reviewers (graders). It’s time to rethink the traditional model for creating your conference’s education program.

If your scientific or medical event is heavily dependent on participants who justify their attendance because you’ve accepted their oral or poster abstract, you may be diluting the quality of the conference experience. Think about this strategy instead.

When it comes to event-tech decisions, your rule of thumb should be that customer experience trumps staff efficiencies. This means that instead of organizing around your organization’s products or silos, organize around your customers.

The most glaring of five realities of the B2B buyer — that three out of four B2B buyers conduct the majority of their research before talking to a salesperson — remains a major issue a year after we first discussed it.

Getting the convention learner experience right — planning and offering education sessions that go beyond surface learning and enable participants to find meaningful and mentally stimulating experiences — is one of the biggest challenges facing program organizers today.

Your conference is for professionals — not the elite membership.

Will a new rule prevent your event app from being accepted in the App Store?

Can a conference for hundreds or thousands of attendees capitalize on the mass-personalization trend — making it seem like a program for one?