How to make money on IT conferences: our findings and mistakes



    We are doing a major international IT conference. Second.
    Now that a lot has been done and the first results can be evaluated, I decided to share our best practices, findings and mistakes in this controversial matter.
    If you are somehow connected with the organization of any event for an IT audience or are just thinking of doing something like this, the article will be useful to you. Perhaps she will convince you to never take it.
    I managed to deduce 17 morals with pictures , examples and a specific description of our mistakes. Why aren't we afraid to talk about it openly? Because it will not weaken us, and by next year the ideas will be new.
    Conference topics in 2013 - Money and management in IT. So I’ll tell you about money, and about the management features that the conference turned out to be related to.
    The ideas that are described in the article are the result of the work of the organizing teams of last year and this conference.

    Where did the idea come from
    The IT Spring Conference as an idea was born in the head of one of the managers of the Belarusian IT company Oxagile. A year ago, he approached the leadership with approximately the following sentence: “Our guys want to develop. They go to trainings and master classes and spend quite a lot of money on it. Let's make a conference for employees ourselves and call speakers who are interesting to them. ”
    So there was an IT Spring 2012 conference in Minsk. In terms of numbers, it was relatively small - 300 guests and 22 speakers. The entire employee was engaged in the entire organization; another 1-2 employees of the company helped him. He chose the name, identity and logo of the conference. The guys did a great job. Our studio was then attracted as expert advisors 2 weeks before the start. We advised, but did not interfere much in the work of the organizers. Helped more at the conference itself and took full responsibility for evaluating the event and processing the feedback.
    Then from the side we gave a lot of advice, not all of which were carried out by the organizers. Now we are at the center of the organizing committee and are also quite skeptical of outside advice.
    For these 2 years we have something to say about mistakes and findings in the organization of IT conferences.

    When you need to take it
    In a good way, you need to start preparing a conference for the year: with PR, creating connections and contacts, gradually informing, and also creating, checking and strengthening the team of the organizing committee.
    With more crowded work - for six months. During this time, it is possible to seriously negotiate with good speakers, influence the budgeting of future sponsors, get into the training plans of employees of specialized companies and start informing.
    We took up the preparation 1.5 months before the date of the conference (given that this was the second conference, although the team changed completely). This time is catastrophically short: there is simply no time left to implement many good ideas.

    Moral 1: Consider our mistake, take up the organization of the event no later than six months later. Otherwise, reputable speakers and major sponsors simply will not take you seriously.

    How to choose speakers
    Last year, speakers were selected only according to the interests of the employees of the organizing company. As feedback then showed, some speakers “fell in love” with only a limited number of guests, while others turned out to be the unconditional favorites of the entire audience.
    This year, due to the significant expansion of the audience, we have chosen a different approach. They created a commission of organizers, sponsors and authoritative opinion leaders, as well as launched a survey of last year's conference guests.
    Despite the limited time resources, we managed to attract 6 speakers from non-CIS countries, 4 of them were well-known American investors and owners of IT companies. Probably, this could not have been done in such a time if it were not for the personal connections and experience of cooperation with these people of the organizing company.

    So, what we came up with the speakers :
    1. We focused on foreign stars of IT startups and well-known IT companies.
    2. We invited speakers who are well-known in the field of finance and management, but rarely intersect with IT conferences. After all, our main topic is the development of young managers in IT, the introduction of "new blood" and new knowledge.
    3. Gathered rarely speaking, but having what to say, undeniable experts in the field of management and finance in IT.
    4. To create a friendly home-like atmosphere, we invited several obvious favorites and regulars of IT events and conferences in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

    Moral 2: Pay attention to the choice of speakers, try to bring more unique ones. It’s easier to work with famous and experienced ones, but you can listen to them at another conference - why go to you?

    How to formulate a program
    Formation of a program is a separate important work, which always poses a threat. Is it possible in principle, close to reality, to calculate the occupancy rate of audiences with simultaneous 3 reports streams?
    Last year, at our conference, there were cases when guests dispersed according to reports unevenly. I had to substitute chairs, but there was no particularly stalemate. At some conferences, I observed cases when the speaker was left without an audience at all, while in the second people were sitting on each other's shoulders.
    To avoid this, we initially decided to conduct a survey among all visitors about who they were going to listen to. But it immediately became clear that such a survey would not give us valid results. The decision about who to go for is made by comparison, in a choice of 3 (and also by who the friends are going to). Therefore, the possible options for researching demand in this case is not a list of speakers, but a ranking, a choice of 3, as well as variable wordings like “I know this speaker and I’ll go,” “I don’t know this speaker, but I want to go,” etc. d.
    All these methods of researching demand require a lot of work in processing and interpreting data, so in the formation of the program we went the other way. All reports were divided into 3 streams: “Finance”, “Startups” and “Management”. At the same time, themes and figures that were in conflict with each other in popularity and disjoint audience of audiences were arranged (as far as possible).
    Now we are redoing the program using this technique. If necessary, we will launch a survey among guests, but this survey will definitely have to be built on a new program.

    Closer to the start of the conference, more speakers wanted to take part in it than the time of 2 days allowed. The speakers are interesting, some of them are not known at all to regulars at conferences and seminars - I did not want to miss them. And we decided to use the American version of the round tables with the simultaneous presence and discussion of several speakers on the stage.
    So, the conference program added:
    - Round tables with the simultaneous presence of several speakers.
    - StartupMixer (meeting startups with investors, free of charge and only for conference participants).
    - Trainings and master classes (we specifically provided for big discounts for conference participants).

    Moral 3:Pay attention to the study of demand for speakers and the distribution of guest flows across parallel reports. Use alternative forms of reports with the simultaneous participation and activity of guests: workshops, open-space, master classes, debates, round tables. Make the speakers keep the format, give more activity to the guests and do not proceed to the lecture.

    What pulls the main expenses
    In our case, the main money pulled:
    1. Hall rental. We wanted a lot of guests in the very center of the city and rented the restored halls of the Palace of Trade Unions (a few meters from the zero kilometer, in the very center of Minsk).
    We also plan an event for 700-800 people: for this amount of space is needed.
    So, the rental turned out to be 4 times more expensive than last year (then it was a hall in a good hotel on the outskirts of 300 people + a couple of conference rooms).
    2. Road, accommodation and escort of foreign speakers.
    3. Coffee breaks. No matter how strange it may sound, coffee and cookies are really quite expensive.
    4. Printing and promotional products. These are the most pleasant gifts that can be brought to children from the conference. They take on a fairly large part of the finances.

    The last two points - coffee breaks and printing products - we partially decided at the expense of sponsors. About this - below.
    All these expenses, plus less extensive, but mandatory, as a result are not covered by the declared cost of tickets.

    Moral 4:Do not expect tickets to recoup costs. In a competitive IT conference environment, this is almost impossible. The profitability of conferences largely depends on the contribution of sponsors and partners.

    How to calculate the ticket price
    Of course, payback was taken into account, but maintaining the supply – demand balance was more important.
    Therefore, they relied on the experience of attending such conferences and on our Central Asian views on how much a ticket for a 2-day conference with such a program can cost. We compared prices from free webinars to 2,000 cu. for the same time.
    Agreed on the price of 99 dollars.
    And what an interesting thing they came across. Potential conference visitors are wealthy people and, on average, spend good money on their education and development. And the opinions of these people about the price were divided: a part with a drooping head said: "Well, you turned down the price ...", the others exclaimed in surprise, "Why is it so cheap ?!" Of course, there were a third of people who said: "Let the troubled bosses - let them pay." The most benevolent third.
    How they worked with objections at a price - lower.

    Moral 5: Pricing in IT events is most easily explained by the “From the Ceiling” law. To keep the ticket price low, you need to be good at spinning with sponsors. To justify the high price, you will have to invest heavily in advertising and wait for a longer payback.

    Discounts
    Discounts are needed. They give pleasant little things to guests and help regulate the purchase of tickets. If you are told that people are tired of discounts - do not believe it.
    There is only one important rule: do not change the conditions of discounts during the sale of tickets. If you started selling tickets at the basic price, you can’t return to discounts. But there are many other options to increase sales:
    1. Special price for visitors to last year’s conference
    2. Discount for early purchase of tickets (we made 25 days)
    3. Discount for group tickets (we made 3 or more tickets)
    4. Discount for teachers and HR: a growing discount on one ticket when buying from 3 tickets on the recommendation of this person.

    Moral 6: Use discounts, but do not change the conditions when the sale began.

    Gifts and draws
    We draw all the draws on Facebook. Perhaps this is our omission, since the audience that we attracted through contests and daily useful news can not be considered large.
    What we used:
    1. Draw a ticket for the conference among those who put a “like” to the conference page. One of the most unsuccessful of our draws, as its conditions did not contribute to the dissemination of information about the conference and did not help us expand our audience.
    After the draw, a video was shot with the winner. It turned out to be an interesting guy, a guest of the last conference. So the interview with him corrected the situation a little.
    2. Draw of 2 tickets in the contest “Comics on speakers”. This contest brought a good feedback: we not only attracted an audience, but we all had a good time: more than a dozen funny versions of comics about Pankratov and Orlov were sent, and the voting intrigue forced us to make the second stage and play a comic with Dorofeev. Involved in this action, of course, were the heroes of the comics themselves.



    One of the heroes, Maxim Dorofeev, responded with a sweet trolling to the conference. He made and posted on the conference page in FB a picture:


    3. Draw (among those who bought a ticket) of 2 copies of a book on how to buy and sell offshore outsourcing of the American speaker of the conference Steve Mezak with an autograph and contacts of the author. This competition received an unexpected turn.
    The book is really cool. It is especially useful for development companies in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, as it contains a detailed description of why Americans should or should not work with our countries.
    But here is the strange thing. Good coverage of the news (7,000 who saw it in 4 days) and a large number of reposts, and there are still very few people who have left their ticket numbers for the draw. To increase the awareness of our guests that you can get such a book personally from the author, we will additionally inform them in other ways (for example, by e-mail).



    The author of the book specially shot video messages for conference guests:

    4. A draw (among those who bought a ticket) of a free individual (or pair) photo shoot of a famous brutal photographer, a conference photo partner. This photographer was chosen specifically for an unusual style. So our conference will get an unusual stylish photo report. They decided to launch the drawing of the photo shoot specially by March 8th.



    5. Drawing (among those who bought a ticket) of an expensive gift from the Anniversary partner. The gift will be tasty, 8 times higher than the price of the ticket, so we hold this competition to the very start of the conference.
    6. Prize draws and contests from partners during the conference.
    7. Discounts on dinners for conference participants in the nearest cafes and restaurants.

    Moral 7:More gifts and draws. Sit down and make up. Each of them should give joy, bring new users and be an independent information guide.

    How to work with objections of participants
    Objections are always encountered, even when attending free events. And it’s very expensive to put an unambiguously experienced seller into calling and direct sales to all potential customers (when planning 600-700 seats). Honestly, such a talented seller still needs to be found.
    Therefore, we decided to find out the main objections and work with them using more accurate positioning.
    They clarified objections in personal conversations with opinion leaders and typical representatives of Central Asia, as well as by calling the guests of last year’s conference.

    There were not so many objections:

    1. “I have already visited 100 such conferences. Why do I need this?”
    Such objections are met mainly by experienced middle-aged managers.
    For such objections, we began to focus more on 2 features:
    - we invited unique experts to the conference who never spoke at our conferences, and they have a lot of experience in managing IT companies and teams.
    - The conference is conceived for young professionals in IT who just want to do management or have already begun to manage and are faced with problems. Here they have the opportunity to ask their personal questions to experts and colleagues.

    As the positioning of the conference was clarified, the picture with the subject changed: from more complex formulations aimed at experienced managers to simpler ones for beginners.

    The first option:



    A modified version (much more specific and selling, but too verbose):



    The final version (less informative, but concise):



    2. "A little expensive ."
    This objection will always be what price you put. Contrary to logic, it often appears in parallel with “Why is it so cheap for so many speakers? What's the catch?"
    For such objections, we compared the average price of an ordinary 2-day training or master class of a “middle-hand” guru with the price of our ticket and created a talking picture. This image was posted on social networks, press releases and newsletters. She also laid the foundation of printed flyers.



    3. “I was at the last conference. Not exactly what I need . "
    Indeed, despite the fact that the last conference was rated as “very sincere”, part of the audience of last year’s conference was left with the impression that can be expressed with a tweet from one of the guests: “I would like more IT in IT Spring”.
    The goals and positioning of last year and this conference are different, so for the guests of the last conference they formulated and sketched 10 main differences between the two conferences.



    4.“Then I will watch video and presentation of reports. Why pay? ”
    We have met this objection less often. Usually, people very clearly distinguish between distance and face-to-face events. Conferences and seminars are held for personal communication, contacts and personal consultations.
    Therefore, in informational materials and press releases, we began to focus on the fact that we specially think over the program and coffee breaks so that participants have more opportunities to turn directly to the speaker with a personal question, meet old friends and make new acquaintances.
    In addition, we organized round tables, workshops and - a very important event for young guests - StartupMixer: a meeting with investors.

    Pictures in development
    Closer to the conference, we will launch a few more pictures to work with the remaining objections (if advertising is still needed):
    1. Comparison of the ticket price for a 2-day conference and the price of one beer evening with friends.
    2. Comparison of pictures with video files on the computer desktop and live communication in a coffee break with speakers.
    3. (My favorite) A colorful picture with a terrible weather forecast for March 16-17 and the text: “How to spend the weekend?” - “In a warm communication with friends and colleagues.”

    Moral 8: Learn about customer objections as early as possible and prepare your entire team to work with them. Write scripts to managers and create pictures. Come up with a couple of objections yourself. And smash them to smithereens.

    How to look for sponsors
    At last year’s conference, there were only 2 types of sponsors: IT companies and IT recruiting agencies (money sponsors, from “general” to “silver”) and information partners. All information about sponsors appeared on the website and in the conference program. The most important logos were placed on badges. Other methods of promotion were regulated by sponsorship packages.
    The main motivation of IT companies to participate in the conference is headhunting and HR brand development. Motivation of information partners is a good free PR.

    This year we made two “horse moves”:
    1. We made flexible the line of sponsorship offers for IT companies, and we had a very large “Game partner” (guess who) and “Jubilee partner” (a large Belarusian IT company in 20 years this year).
    2. Invited non-core sponsors, taking into account the interests of the target audience. So we got a “Photo partner”, “Tasty partner”, “Training partner”, “Printing partner” and others. Such commodity-money participation allowed to reduce organization costs and add more fun to the conference participants. Since now cookies have become not just cookies - in the interests of the sponsor it remains to make a delicate and sweet “cookie show”.

    For non-ordinary sponsors in our conference there was an additional interest: not only public relations products for a large audience, but also business contacts with other sponsors. For some of them, the most important thing in the conference was a business dinner with other partners and speakers.

    Unfortunately, due to the tight deadlines for preparing for the conference, many sponsors refused to participate because they did not have time to adjust the budget, or did not have time to prepare well. However, despite this, there were several cases where the sponsors themselves quickly offered cooperation after learning about the conference.

    What you need to control with sponsors:
    1. Sponsors do not always withstand the conditions. Excessive activity in PR sponsors can overshadow the true organizer of the conference. People might even think that the sponsor is the organizer.
    2. Promo girls from companies with which there were no agreements at all can come to the conference. To avoid this, send an offer with your conditions in advance to those companies from which such unexpected visits are possible.
    3. Sponsors sometimes tend to refuse at the very last moment.

    Moral 9: Attracting sponsors is a separate big sale. Think about how you can be interesting to everyone, and start as early as possible. Use the exchange of goods and services. If you give sponsors everything from coffee to printing and technology, the event will turn out to be free for you.

    Who to take on the team
    Our team currently consists of 4 people, their composition is changing, most are involved only in part of the working time (no more than 4-5 hours per day). Some specialists are recruited from time to time, many of them remain at the stage of advice.
    Important:Do not take in the team of consultants and advisers - take those who will do everything with pens. If these same people are also literate and have a "sense of beauty" - you are the winner.
    But if there is a choice between the doers and the advisers, the doers must win anyway.
    So, to organize a conference, you need at least:
    - a fundraiser
    - a seller
    - a copywriter
    - a designer
    - a typesetter
    - a PR man
    - an SMM-shchik
    - a manager for relations with speakers
    - a manager for relations with guests
    - an editor of texts and presentations
    - a “hostess” - a person, which solves all issues of premises, catering, equipment, etc.
    - the project manager, he is also a system integrator
    - a person “with feeling” who knows the audience and “feels” that she may want.
    It seems that the list is significantly higher than our 4.5 people, but we can do it. And assessments on the Internet such as “pompous conference”, “well-publicized, hell”, “yes you took it seriously, it seems” show that we are going right.

    Moral 10: A conference can easily be made by 4-5 people, if only everyone would work with their hands, and not just their heads.

    What to consider on the conference website

    1. Button "Buy" or "Register". Make sure that this button or tab is visible on every page of the site, that it is always easy for the user to find it. And do not forget to indicate the price. The sooner they see her, the better.
    2. Conference program. It is important to place it as quickly as possible, even if it then changes. The program creates a sense of reality and the availability of the event, it is easier for a person to plan his visit and make a decision.
    3. If possible, complete information about speakers and reports. We urged speakers to send out topics and abstracts as soon as possible. Then the work of the editor began: the theses were not only read out, but often reformulated into more understandable and “selling” texts. Including, often we proposed new names.
    There was even a situation with one speaker. Our PR man proposed to rename his report “How to make a million”, adding the intrigue: “How to make a million and 100 dollars”. But from the speaker, we received a very clear protest with the words: “I do not teach how to make a million and one hundred dollars. I can only tell you how to make a million. " Well, we had to give in.
    3. Next to the names of speakers in the program, indicate companies and countries. Pay attention to this: not all guests will know all the speakers by name. Without specifying companies and countries, your speakers in the eyes of the audience will simply turn into “Sing” and “John” who want to talk about something.
    4. Plugin with updating posts on Twitter: tweets appear on the page as a news feed. It’s better to display actual tweets rather than create an imaginary movement by displaying last year’s tweets. Although, for the period of "hibernation" between the seasons, it is possible to change the plugin to a retrospective one.
    5. Buttons of social networks and YouTube, buttons “Share” and “Like” on each page of the site.
    6. A large plug-in with a "showcase" video, uploading video from the conference video channel.

    Moral 11: Grind the site constantly. Find out from people that they could not quickly find on it, and immediately refine it.

    Promotion, PR and advertising
    1. We spend as little on advertising. More precisely, while we have invested a couple of cents in the promotion of news on Facebook, that's all. We don’t want to go rude advertising - we are sure that we will do more at the expense of witty and unusual moves: we want the conference to be associated with the guests not with impudent promotion, but with something intellectual and interesting.
    2. Do not forget about social networks. Last year we did not use social networks at all, this year we chose the following channels:
    - Facebook - creation of the official page, groups and events; posting news in related groups. Here our main task is the daily placement of useful content about speakers and reports, video messages, programs, news, draws and contests.
    - LinkedIn- News and press releases are posted in major professional and thematic groups.
    - Twitter - periodic news about the conference and reposts from Facebook. We use the hashtag #itspring for personal news posting. It was not so easy to start your own conference channel: someone from Turkey bought the name and refused to enter into negotiations. I had to invent a close name - it turned out pretty well. We plan to place screens with the translation of actual tweets in real time during the conference.
    - YouTube - we have created our own conference channel, where we post the video messages of the speakers. This is a good move. People want to “see the goods face”. In our case, the video is enough to evaluate whether the speaker will like it live.
    This especially works well with the Americans. The channel posted not only their appeals, but also clippings from their “victories”. For example, excerpts from the movie “Startup.com”, in which one of our speakers starred.

    This year, we deliberately excluded VKontakte because we saw older people in our Central Asia. Next year, I believe, VC will need to be actively included. We are not talking about Classmates at all.
    3. Placement of the event on Habré (only the placement of the event led to the site immediately 4 times more new unique visitors).
    4. Direct mailing by e-mail addresses of IT companies.
    5. Direct mailing by e-mail to the addresses of last year's conference visitors (with requests for feedback and offering a special price).
    6. Attracting info partners (we have 26 at the moment).
    7. Attracting the press: interviews with speakers in magazines, interviews with the organizers on the radio, press conferences and exclusive interviews with foreign speakers, invitations to television and newspapers (with obligatory posting of interviews on the website and on the FB page).
    8. Placing posters of A3 format in the corridors of educational institutions (on the poster - it is mandatory to place the conference program, date, place, contacts and QR code).



    9. Distribution of fun leaflets in a cafe near the venue and in the vicinity of large IT companies.
    10. Creation of out-of-competition viruses.
    Viruses in PR are an ambiguous thing. Especially considering such a thin audience as IT. Therefore, we were not particularly active with viruses.
    Discussing the price difference for a typical master class of one humanitarium that teaches business and more than 30 investors and business owners, we decided to visualize this difference.
    And somehow it turned out by itself that the brain of the humanities turned out to be several times smaller in our picture than the size of the brain of an IT investor. It is quite visual and obvious. In another audience, the joke would probably have passed. In some - no one would notice the catch.
    But not in IT. And we had to abandon the “speaking and insulting analogies”, replacing the basic meaning only with the slogan of evolution.

    Wanted:



    It turned out:



    Moral 12:Use maximum channels to promote information. Make notes and news useful and meaningful. Allocate for this separate person. Do not be afraid of scandals, negative reviews and criticism - all this leads to an expansion of the audience.

    The main risks of the conference
    In the organization of mass events, the risks are full. To force majeure is added the human factor of all people involved in events.
    People are unreliable. Try not to bet on them. But how to do without them?
    - Team Failure. The fast pace and work in the style of “all tasks are important and everything had to be done yesterday” demotivates. More than others “mow” people tasks related to direct sales or phone calls, as well as the search for sponsors. On these tasks, people burn out rapidly (suddenly there are unplanned urgent departures, hospital, forgotten phones and other "childhood illnesses"). Put the most trusted on these tasks. Specify in advance that the person ahead does not have sessions, holidays and other events that he can use to let you down.
    - Sponsor Failureat the moment when part of the work is already concentrated on it. The most unpleasant thing is when sponsors drag out the decision-making time, insisting that you don’t turn to similar companies, and then refuse to participate or begin to “twist your arms”, offering new conditions. Keep up your sleeve with a couple of fallback options.
    - Failure of the speaker . Speakers “break away” both before the conference, when their names are already in the program, and during the conference. The most “fire” case we had was when the speaker could not be called up to 1 hour before his report. As a result, he got through to his employees, who notified that he still had not returned from a business trip abroad. For such cases, provide a loyal speaker who can quickly move forward and fill the window with a speech.
    - Non - completion of the hall . Not filling the hall threatens not only a financial fiasco. Sponsors are betting on the hall, speakers are preparing for the hall, guests are orienting themselves on the hall. Therefore, if you can’t sell all the tickets on time, invite the people who are important to you for free. Use it as gifts to customers and partners of the company. Do not leave the room empty at all. No way.

    Moral 13: Think “Plan B” for every possible threat to your event. "Aware = armed."

    Dynamics of ticket sales
    Do you remember the book by J. Moore “Bridging the Abyss” about different promotion strategies at different stages of product development? In our case, the same thing happened, about which its author wrote - an abyss happened.
    Our guests were clearly divided into 2 groups: those for whom the lower price was very important and those for whom the 11% discount was not of particular importance.
    We attracted the first group of customers, informing everyone as much as possible about the discount, and focusing on it. Needless to say, closer to the last discount day (25 days before the conference!) The sales curve has grown almost vertically? During this period, we sold more than a third of the planned maximum tickets.
    The next day, sales fell sharply. We exhausted the first group and fell into the "abyss". This abyss should not be afraid. She is natural. The main thing here (read the book) is to completely change the methods of promotion and focus on the second group. Which we started to do. Sales began to grow again.

    Moral 14:Be clearly aware of what audience your PR activity is aimed at. Do not expect a smooth curve from sales: most tend to buy tickets at the last moment (before the end of the discount and before the start of the event).

    How to evaluate the conference
    Last year’s conference was an experiment, a start. Of course, we needed to understand how he went, and what needs to be done next year.
    We investigated the following methods:
    1. Questionnaires after the presentation of each speaker.
    We have confirmed our point of view: people are not motivated to answer questionnaires and do not pay attention to them. To collect a sufficient number of questionnaires, we additionally reminded about them before and after each performance, after which we put up 2 employees at the door asking them to remember to submit the questionnaire, if it was completed.
    As a result, although the questionnaires were collected, information from them was only partially useful. So, if you ask to rate the speaker in points, people are generally inclined to evaluate well regardless of whether they liked the presentation.
    So, a girl who ran away from the report 8 minutes after its start passed the questionnaire to our employee, where there were only high marks. To the employee’s question, “Why are you leaving since you rated the speaker so highly?” She replied that the report was not for her, but she really did not want to offend the speaker.
    So, questionnaires are a way to collect inadequate positive feedback. Questionnaires are needed to report to the investor, but not in order to find out the true attitude of the guests.
    The only way to get useful information from the questionnaires is to ask questions about what was most liked in the report and what the author should have developed, as well as what the author should have improved. Here people really sincerely write useful things.
    2. Final questionnaires about the conference. Be careful - do not hand out questionnaires on the first day of the conference: no one will inform them by the second day. In order to motivate us to fill out the final questionnaires, we played an electronic reader among those who filled out the questionnaire. Due to specific questions about the disadvantages and advantages of individual points in the organization of the conference, we received really useful tips from these profiles. Important: do not formulate questions in general and do not ask people to rate something on points. Usually the answers to such questions are useless.
    3. Shooting video reviews of participants at the conference.
    4. Gather feedback about the conference by mail and by calling guests after the conference.

    In order to confirm and supplement the data from the questionnaires, we organized an additional observation:
    5. Attracted “secret smokers” and “agents” on coffee breaks. Our agents listened and recorded guest reviews in private conversations. It is known that in smoking rooms and coffee breaks, people are frank and exaggeratedly critical, so this information was especially valuable to us.
    6. Mandatory observers and listeners in the halls. Their work was similar to the work of “smokers”.

    Moral 15: Test the methods you use to evaluate an event for information. Simple feedback questionnaires are ineffective, they are filled by 10%, and they do not write the whole truth.

    So we are at the finish line. A little more than 2 weeks are left before the conference. Tickets continue to be sold. Sponsors continue to be involved. Promotion has not stopped yet.

    Final financial calculations are too early to do. Now it’s already clear that we are not bankrupt and are leaving “to zero”. This is taking into account the undeniable benefits in developing the brand of the organizing company and the brand of the conference in terms of its investment attractiveness in subsequent years.
    Our next goal is to purposefully expand our geography, to create an uniquely recognizable annual event for hanging out and developing young IT managers from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other close neighbors.
    The chosen time — the cold beginning of March, when people have nowhere to go and nothing to do especially — is great for going to "talk and develop" in Minsk.
    Selected place- An inexpensive and comfortable country with attractive post-Soviet authenticity for tourism purposes - also fits perfectly.

    Moral 16:
    The project is very dependent on the people involved in its preparation. People break down and fail when they meet sponsor failures, criticism of guests, vagaries of speakers and weak sales. Therefore, it is worth undertaking a conference only if you are confident in these people.

    Moral 17:
    The annual IT conference is a project with a short payback period, but a longer period of obtaining sustainable financial profit.

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