Hippo Events Blog - Maximising Your Event Agenda

Event agendas are one of the most important elements of your Corporate Event Management and are frequently overlooked. Too often the agenda is adapted to fit the content, rather than the content being adapted to the agenda. “What?” I hear you ask. Think about it like this.

Fundamentally, you hold an event to create content to give attendees; content you want them to remember. However, if you have not created the optimal environment for the attendees to absorb the information in, then how can they be expected to remember it?

The human brain is not wired to remember all information received from back-to-back plenary sessions. You may say “well, they don’t need to remember everything, just the key points”, but how is the brain supposed to remember which points are key when there’s so much other information clouding their memory?

Consider the psychology behind how we, as humans, best absorb and retain information. Multiple studies states that we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see. Whereas, we remember 50% of what we see and hear, 70% of what we say and write and 90% of what we do. Psychologists often challenge these figures, however other studies demonstrate how “Experiences” are far more memorable than “Verbal symbols”, “Radio recordings” and “Motion Pictures”. To further back this up, look at the trend of in-store retail nowadays. We often find stores creating “customer experiences”, which provide a memory for the buyer and a much higher emotional connection to the brand.

Fundamentally, if we were to take the above, event attendees need to interact with the content, creating their own memories from which to absorb the information. No longer are long plenary sessions considering the optimal way of delivery. Below we’ve provided some tips on how to maximise your event agenda.

Build in regular breaks – Building in formal breaks every 90 minutes will help keep guests attentive and refreshed. Having a dedicated break space where snacks and drinks will be available and where attendees can catch up on emails and calls will ensure guests don’t get unnecessarily overwhelmed.

Shorter, sharper sessions – Attention spans are short. Our minds wander too easily. Ted Talks, hugely popular worldwide, are only 18 minutes. They provide informative content, delivered concisely. TED curator Chris Anderson states “The 18-minute rule works because the brain is an energy hog. As the brain takes in new information and is forced to process it, millions of neurons are firing at once, burning energy and leading to fatigue and exhaustion.” Less can indeed be more.

Offer different session types – Establish a mix of plenary talks, interactive engagement sessions (especially after lunch when attendees can feel sluggish), breakouts with differing layouts (to keep it fresh in each room), roundtable discussions and panel sessions. A mixture of these types of sessions will keep the brain feeling fresh and stimulated. Differing session types offer a variety of stimulus – hearing, reading, doing, speaking, writing, interacting.

Allow delegates to personalise their agenda – Allowing attendees to plan their day around what appeals to them will ensure they receive the most relevant content from your event. A mixture of simultaneous breakouts and fixed sessions tailors each attendee experience and ensures the information they receive is entirely relevant.

Appeal to their emotions – Did you know people actually trust their own emotions more than facts? Therefore, to heighten attendee engagement you must inject emotion into your sessions. Consider storytelling when delivering content or other stimulus that creates an emotion from the attendee – gameification for example. Remember the “experiences” example from Retail above. Experiences are led effective because they invoke emotion.

So, next time you’re thinking about your Corporate Event Planning for your forthcoming event, try implementing some of the above, remembering to then shape your content around your agenda.