For those of you who may not have heard of the Rise Award-winning the EVENT, it is an innovative movement and collaboration project put on by three Canadian MPI Chapters (Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal/Quebec) which kicked off its inaugural program in April of 2018. A few years before, at the annual MPI Chapter Business Summit, Canadian chapter leaders were discussing how to grow MPI in Canada.
Someone asked the question: “Why don’t we put on a joint event?” The idea of co-chapter event collaborating is not new, and we don’t claim to be pioneers, however, we will take credit for the unique way we pulled it off. From the get-go, we had no appetite to execute another “conference” with traditional formats and speakers recycled from similar industry events. In fact, we dropped the “c” word from our committee’s vocabulary to keep an innovative mindset at the forefront. What was one of our biggest and most successful innovations? Turning our sponsors into partners.
The Difference Between Sponsors and Partners
Plain and simple, without our partners’ buy-in, both from a financial and design point of view, the EVENT wouldn’t have had the funds to pull off its unique and engaging format. That’s why we didn’t want to subject our valuable partners to the tired sponsor scenario where they take the stage to mild applause, speak about how much they value your business, run over their allotted mic time, and end their speech with a video that fails to make an emotional connection.
I’m not saying that there isn’t still a time and a place for this traditional approach, but I don’t believe it should continue to be the norm. That’s why the partnership model for the EVENT was viewed from a different angle.
We engaged our partners throughout the entire creative process and granted them the freedom to design their own unique partnership experience that would best highlight their brand and connect with attendees...
We engaged our partners throughout the entire creative process and granted them the freedom to design their own unique partnership experience that would best highlight their brand and connect with attendees, in many cases, by using the five senses. In fact, only one of our 25+ annual partners gets any stage time, and that’s only because they are in charge of the plenary room.
How You Can Make the Pivot and Attract Partners to Your Event
The way I see it, any potential sponsor has numerous events, and marketing mediums, in which they can invest their time and money. In order to sell them on your event, you either have to leverage an existing relationship or sell them the dream of incredible ROI. Every success story has its share of ups and downs, and the EVENT’s no different.
In the beginning we had more naysayers than supporters, including those who said we would not be able to find partners because the industry was already too saturated with partnership opportunities. As the partnership lead and one of three co-founders, my response was simple: “Then we’ll just have to do partnerships better.” I set off to do some market research and spoke with many of the key stakeholders, including many existing partners, that I thought we could attract. I asked questions like:
-
What do you want to see in a new type of partnership?
-
What deliverables are important to your organization?
-
Do you have room in your budget to take on new partnership opportunities, or would you have to pull from another event?
-
Would you see more value in being able to offer your potential clients an experience in your dedicated room vs. stage time alongside countless other partners?
-
If we move forward with the EVENT, can I count on you to join our creative event movement?
After confirming there was support for the new approach we were taking, I needed to design the prospectus, which was no easy task. I purposely didn’t study other industry prospectus. I set to work creating something fresh and new, which was evocative of the opportunity we offered our partners.
Our prospectus leaves the door open to creativity yet provides enough deliverables to justify making an investment. We work with every partner individually and ensure their designs and activations are consistent with the EVENT’s yearly theme and innovative mindset. We encourage the partners to push themselves and their marketing teams and try something new that will leave the attendees no choice but to engage with their brand.
It is also a constantly evolving document. In fact, after year three wraps up in Toronto, we will be sitting down with our partners and the committee to evaluate what’s working and if there is a need to revamp it again. Since we plan the EVENT in three-year cycles, which allows it to rotate between three Canadian cities and MPI chapters, we are also going to propose new three-year partnership deals that provide financial consistency for us and allow our partner organizations to think bigger picture, create some momentum from year to year and really maximize the investment they’re making.
The Power of Forging Partnerships
What’s been so rewarding is that every one of our partners has accepted the challenge to transform their space into an experience. They’ve all made the commitment to try something new. We’ve seen everything from a jaw-dropping mountain and the four seasons of our nation’s capital, to a walk in the park and Jets fanatic BrainDate lounges.
The EVENT’s also seen non-traditional breakouts, including a custom-built escape room, a wellness lounge, a hockey rink, a speakeasy, street art, an improv lab, and even a happy hour unconference in the lobby bar. The innovations even extended to the culinary experience. Our casual grab ‘n’ go Foodery focuses attention on the regional appeal of our partners’ local cuisines while attendees enjoy the freedom of fueling up throughout the day. Even the washrooms feature “cheeky” messaging from one of our partners.
We could never have executed on all these unique set-ups and partner activations without the support of our most important partner — our host venue. Ultimately, each host venue needed to provide the EVENT a blank canvas to work with. This is because our program and partnership opportunities evolve year over year to complement our venue and not the other way around. We do not just copy and paste our formats or hold steady with the status quo. It does mean more work and committee resources to pull it off, nobody said innovation was easy. But with strategic planning and a culture that embraces change and doesn’t fear failure, it makes working on the EVENT a fun ride and in some cases even opens new career opportunities for our committee.
In closing, on behalf of the entire EVENT team, we encourage you and your organizations to engage your partners more (hint: drop the word sponsor), open up the lines of communication with them, and embrace creativity, for the end result can be game changing for all. We hope you’ll join us on the creative event movement!
Did you enjoy this article about experiential design? Join the MPI Experiential Marketers and Designers Community for more thought-provoking conversations, education and peer-to-peer exchanges.
