In May 2020, the IMEX Group pivoted their 12,000+ in-person live event to a digital alternative, PlanetIMEX, an immersive evergreen experience. With only five weeks to plan, here’s how Carina Bauer, IMEX Group CEO, describes some of her team’s learnings. Read our full interview with her here.
What was the reaction from your team in planning PlanetIMEX, especially with such a short time to create it?
CB: For our team it was a challenge—they put this together in just five weeks—but also an amazing learning curve. It really helped us to focus on something positive after the show was cancelled. It created many cross-team squads who worked together to deliver, it allowed people to shine with skills we might not have known they had before and it really fostered a strong sense of teamwork and pride.
What didn’t work, and what did you learn from it?
CB: Some elements of the user journey are not as elegant as we would like and we are still learning about what works online in terms of networking and creating business connections. The design process has highlighted how powerful live engagement is and how that connection is irreplaceable digitally. However, digital engagement is a powerful amplifier and one we will continue to explore. We learned a huge amount about what we should/ should not look to do in terms of the management and delivery of online events and will definitely do parts of this differently next time around.
How do you measure success?
CB: Initially we look to measure the success against the three strategic priorities that we created at the outset, and we feel that we have delivered successfully against each of these. Now we are re-evaluating those priorities and working out new success measures to take us into the future. We had over 20,000 unique people visit the site as well as an attendance of 12,000+ for the various educational events—for a first-time digital experience this exceeded our expectations. Now we have a baseline for future events to measure visits and engagement.
If you’re ready to take the next step in experience design, enroll in one of our upcoming Event Design Certificate courses today. You can also join our online Experiential Marketers and Designers Community.
