The meetings and events industry loves a buzz word. Most recently we’ve all ‘pivoted’, got used to ‘the new normal’ and learned about ‘hybrid’ and ‘blended’ meetings and events. Well, here’s another one that may have gone under the radar, ‘fragmentation’.
That’s right, fragmentation, work forces, and people in general, looking to ‘de-urbanise’. Simply put, this is the trend of more and more people working from home, and because of that moving out of cities and towns, whose convenience is location, to seek quiet and sanctuary. This fragmentation is twinned with the changing of work styles, contract moving more flexible, the end of the 9-5; it’s not just about location, it’s about time fragmentation as well; we work when and where we want.
Not everyone has missed this important little trend though, it’s one that Lime Venue Portfolio’s Meeting of the Future report looked at in some detail, not least the important effects it has on meeting and event bookings. We summarised by stating that meetings now needed to recreate the office, not provide an escape from it.
But this fragmentation does have other knock-on influences on how events are being booked. The reality is, as people move further away from centres, they are less likely to want to venture into these locations for meetings. Delegate conversion has always been tricky, we need to now entice them from their comfy kitchens and home offices now. Therefore, for these modern professionals, they want the meeting to come to them!
Enter the Roadshow. At Lime Venue Portfolio we recently reported a massive growth in enquiries looking at this type of meeting and we put a lot of this down to the need for businesses and organisations to go out on the road and meet their delegates where they are, not vice versa.
It makes sense. Sustainability and travel are massive issues, at the forefront of business. In previous blogs we’ve talked about increasing investment in production, event organisers want this money well spent, they want delegates there. We also have the consideration that more and more events want to inject ‘locality’ to proceedings. With a roadshow they achieve both, better returns on numbers, and more engagement when they arrive.
It’s no surprise that Lime Venue Portfolio see’s this through these optics. Baked into many of our venues is the sense of locality. Be they the town or city’s local sports team, a pride of place attraction, or a place of local and historical significance, they lend themselves to a sense of local pride that adds to the setting of a roadshow. This can be amplified through simple things like food and menu choices, locally sourced, sustainable, but also representative of the area.
We also have a more functional, but equally important, positive. Through us an entire Roadshow series can be booked with one contact, it’s one of the great things about being a portfolio. Our award-winning customer service team can get events booked from Kent to Leicester, Bristol to Birmingham, Glasgow to London, each with its own sense of place and pride.
For many reasons Lime Venue Portfolio is supportive of this move. It’s only a good thing; it reduces travel and, from a further sustainability point of view, creates a lasting local legacy. It means that production can be used in multiple locations, hitting a higher total delegate number. It means that content can be more relevant, whilst still having a broad and inclusive them.
Most importantly, these events are excellent. They look good, they feel good for the delegate, they are productive and thought through. They are the future, it’s time for us to hit the road!
