Way back in ancient Rome, the image of the two-faced god Janus was everywhere. Hailed as the deity of beginnings and endings — of duality, time, and transition — his profile flanked doorways and gates and topped passages and temples. He doesn’t mean much to us today, but the word for this first month of the year is directly derived from his very name. 

Event planners and ancient gods don’t really have a lot in common. But when you consider that Janus was always depicted as looking simultaneously back into the past and yet deep into the future, things start to make a bit more sense. After all, there’s an inherent sense of duality to event planning, something that ensures that — just like Janus — planners always have one eye to the outcome of their last event all while preparing for future success. With the end of January upon us, now is the time to remind ourselves of how the power of event-tech can help planners to replicate past success all while building fresh triumph. 

Replicate successful processes — not old content 

Perhaps Janus — with his one watchful eye on the past — was on to something after all. As an event planner, you know the inherent risks that come with repeat events: the audience fatigue, the overall stagnation in the quality of your content, the negative impact on your ROI … we could go on, but you get the picture. While repetition of event content is a swift and certain route to failure, there’s nothing to say that you can’t replicate the behind-the-scenes processes that proved to be the gateway to past success. In fact, this is exactly where a solid event-tech system comes into its own.  

From year to year and moment to moment, every event is completely different. As a planner, you know exactly how to tweak and refine each new or upcoming event to ensure it actively engages with your delegates and attendees, your stakeholders, and your sponsors. Your years of experience in the industry have given you an instinctive feel for what works and what doesn’t.  

And yet, the internal processes planners rely upon to drive forward the success of every event remain unchanged. More than that, a savvy planner knows that it pays to look back at past events — or rather, at the very mechanics of these events — to build future success. Regardless of any superficial differences, event-tech is the common denominator behind every past triumph.  

Looking to the past to create the future: How event-tech can help  

As a planner, you know that a good event-tech system offers an almost limitless range of capabilities, each of which can be used to enhance any occasion. But as you consider your past successes, you’ll probably find that you relied on event-tech to make your life easier — whether via streamlining your internal operations, gathering insight, collecting data, or enhancing the overall experience of your attendees. On those occasions, you likely leaned heavily on your event-tech for its tried-and-tested ability to do one (or more) of the following things: 

  1. Automate repetitive tasks: Whether it was your registration, ticketing, or email communications, you set yourself up for success by automating repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on the more strategic aspects of your event. 

  1. Enhance attendee engagement: Maybe one of your events featured an element of gamification while another offered live polling. In another instance, perhaps you used your app to host a Q&A session or as a platform for networking. Whatever it was, your event-tech helped to make your event more interactive, more memorable, and ultimately more successful. 

  1. Analyse data: Without a doubt — whether you’ve used it to gauge attendee behaviour or to measure overall engagement levels — the foundation of every successful past event you’ve ever built was rooted in carefully analysed data. 

  1. Create a more personalised experience: Time after time, event after event, chances are you’ve leaned hard on your even-tech to tailor content and communications based on the preferences of your attendees. 

  1. Create cost savings: The cost of building and executing events has only increased over the years. With budgets getting tighter, you’ve probably already relied on event-tech to create digital invites or virtual swag bags. If you’ve used this tactic across multiple past events, you’ve not only reduced the need for physical materials, but created considerable cost savings in the process.  

It’s true: None of these strategies are new or novel, but this is one of those times where it pays to be a bit more Janus. If you’re prepared to cast your eye back over your triumphs as a planner, to tactically deploy the tried-and-tested strategies that served you so well in the past, then you’ve laid the groundwork for future event success. 

Get started with Eventsforce today

Whether hybrid, virtual or in-person, see how Eventsforce is the right solution to help you meet all your event objectives.

Book a demo