Even event organisers go to other events and if you are like me when it comes to choosing which events to go to and which ones to give a wide berth, it all starts with a quick look at the programme:
What's the date?
Where is it?
What's the over all theme?
What's the topic?
What's the speakers' title....
And that's when I either continue or stop reading.
If you are like me, you've probably noticed the increase in the amount of speakers who are there to do a pitch than provide information. And because of this noticeable increase, you start to take more notice of who the speakers are and their title and then work out, based on your past experience, if they are more likely to Pitch or Provide content.
Unfortunately, I find myself thinking that if there are more who will do a Pitch than provide content then the risk of going and getting no content is too great so it's a 'no go' event!
But why are the Pitch-fests on the increase? And what's the big deal?
Several reasons and I predict it will be causing several major problems for the Conference Expo industry within 5 years time!
There has been a steady increase in the growing trend of the new style conference companies that are basically selling everything! By this I mean, they sell tickets to the audience, sponsorship and exhibitor packages, lists to the supplies, charging for speaking slots...
Yes - you read right. Charging speakers to be there on their stage and present to their audience!
Sounds a great idea and you could be wondering why you hadn't thought of this for your own event instead of paying the speakers and going through all the usual in-house budget related arguments.
But before you start down this road, here's the issues and the backlash for your event:
Speaking slots are prime estate at any event.
There are a number of different ways to fill this, so here are the current top 4 popular ways and respective outcomes:
1) You Pay a speaker
If you pay for a speaker's services, you expect them to deliver exactly what you want which is their services for your audience - be it entertainment, information or simply a personal appearance. The audience will receive the speaker's service as they would have expected and the event is then seen as being an acceptable cost of their time and money invested to attend and so are more likely to come back next year. I call this the 'Pitches not included' method because you know the audience won't be subjected to one as you've pre-instructed the speakers they can't do this and they suffer a consequence if they do.
2) You use an Unpaid speaker
If you are using speakers on a pro bono base, then you are more than likely to get a speaker who is wanting to use this opportunity to provide content to your audience because it's also their target market for their 'post speech' service. When audience and speaker are matched well, your audience will be happy and feel like they've received a value for their time invested and as for the speaker, they will probably be approached afterwards for further information if they've provided the right content for that audience. I call this the 'Triple Win Pitch' as organiser, speaker and audience get something from it.
3) Paid for as part of the Sponsorship package
While this is a nice method of giving some value to the main sponsor so they feel that they have something for their money, it does leave the organiser at the complete mercy of the sponsor's speaker. For the audience, they are already prepared that this particular slot will be angled, biased, pitched, selling, or a glorified advert from the sponsor. This is what I call the 'Forgivable Pitch'.
It's the one time the audience will forgive the event if the sponsor's speaker does indeed accidentally turn it into a pitch while trying to give content. The good news here is that most sponsors will try and give content as they are trying to raise their profile in a good way too so when they do provide content, the audience view this as a bonus.
4) Speaker pays you.
This is where you know you have a 'hot audience' and have a number of speakers wanting to talk to them, so you decide to let only those who can pay you for the privilege to buy the slot. Sounds a great money generating idea but while you will get money in from this, it's a very short sighted tactic because the dynamics of Speaker:Content:Audience=Value go out the window. This is because the audience are often unaware that the speaker has paid to be there. The speaker or the organisation who's paid for this slot however, will need to recoup their outlay so will use this opportunity as best as they can to create business for themselves. This means that the audience will be subjected to a pitch more often than content and if they've paid to be there too, they really won't appreciate this and will consider this speaker and the event unfavourably, I call this 'Warfare Pitching', as no one is really the winner. As an audience member looking at the original program details, I wouldn't have been able to second guess this pitch was coming and most likely would have expected it to have been providing content instead. Therefore, I am less likely to trust the speaker or the event in the same way and next year I know I'd be thinking again about attending....
And yet, despite the increase of the Warfare Pitching due to the organisers going after short term gain rather than long term repeat footfall and growth, the event will see dwindling numbers leading to it's demise or be morphed into something else. No matter which way it ends, it will give the misleading message that "Events are dead because no one goes" when the truth is - no one likes to waste their time and money which would be very obvious if only events could occur at the same time rate as a weekly shop, because then you could see this particular product line wouldn't survive the standard 3 month trial!
You've worked hard to find and work with the right speakers for your event. You will be rewarded as successful Event Organisers are only as good as the audience they continue to keep happily returning each year.
Look after your audience, look after your speakers and they'll look after you.
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