Corporate and association event planners gathered in Frankfurt yesterday for specialist education sessions on the eve of IMEX.
Exclusively Corporate, held at Melia Frankfurt City and Association Focus, staged in association with ICCA, AC Forum and ASAE at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel, welcomed delegates from 25 countries.
Sonia Cuchillo from the European Central Bank who attended Exclusively Corporate said: “Attendees want to make the most of their time at an event be it new contacts, new learnings or personal development. Our clients, very rightly, have high expectations and we want to do our best to meet them.
“However, it can be a challenge to come up with new, creative solutions when we have to work to defined parameters, with restrictions on resources and budget. It’ll be interesting to see how other planners are tackling this.”
A survey of the Exclusively Corporate room revealed that in-house planners had entered the events industry via avenues including marketing, tourism and human resources. What they all had in common was resource and budget constraints along with a hefty workload.
One of the sessions at Exclusively Corporate tackled this head-on: How to beat burnout was hosted by Grateful Lemon founder Mike Ford.
He said: “The amount of rest we’re able to have outside work has a direct bearing on our professional performance. There’s a clear correlation: physically, mentally and emotionally. We need to learn how to master the dance between stress and recovery.”
Delivering a positive impact on the planet was on the agenda at Association Focus.
Evelyn Mansutti from the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, explained: “Sustainability is a challenge. Each year we introduce new initiatives and have begun measuring CO2 emissions, but we now need new ideas on how to make our events more sustainable.”
Jose Luis Mira Mira, UPEI – The Voice of Europe’s Independent Fuel Suppliers, added: “We live in an era where we’re all connected around the world, but sometimes we can be overwhelmed by how much information we receive. Our biggest hurdle is getting across our key messages and raising awareness of the importance of sustainability and the transition to greener energy solutions.”
AI can help support planners in communicating key messages as Veemal Gungadin, CEO, Gevme explained in his session: AI: Artificial Intelligence meets Association impact.
“Think of generative AI as your new brainstorming partner,” he said. “It can handle those pesky first drafts of emails, presentations and proposals, freeing up your time for truly strategic work. AI won’t replace your creativity, but it’s an incredibly powerful tool to streamline the early stages of content creation”.
