Click the video to see a 3 1/2-minute recap of the Olympic Peninsula Tourism Summit.
The Olympic Peninsula Tourism Summit wanted a professional emcee to increase interaction, networking and collaboration between attendees. How did the Executive Director and her Summit committee know they got the right emcee to increase engagement?
1) The Emcee Did His Homework – This emcee did his planning, create interaction in the first minute of the program, and correctly sequenced more and more interaction and networking about establishing trust and safety in the room. In addition, this emcee researched the area and brought inspiring destination marketing examples from ESTO award winning communities that they could learn from. Ask your emcee what type of homeworking will they do for your event?
2) Brought The Theme To Life – The theme was, “From Trails To Tides: The Ripple Effect of Tourism When We Work Together”. This emcee brought this to life by calling ideas “drops” and showing how drops turn into ripples and ripples turn into waterfalls. He brought water droppers for people to put drops of water onto a penny after they created a collaborative idea. He found slow motion video of a single drop creating a ripple. He turned the “Ripple Wall” into electronic and post-it versions of collaboration with ideas. Ask your emcee how they will bring your theme to life?
3) Increased Interactivity and Networking – Up to 50% of the opening keynote time was for attendees to meet people they haven’t met before and it was structured in a way that even the most networking-adverse attendee felt comfortable meeting new people. From starting with a cell phone engagement tool, to sharing a story about a challenging tourism story to 15-minutes of collaboration, attendees top positive feed back was on the high level of interactivity and creating a vibe of collaboration. Ask your emcee how will they increase interactivity and networking and how much time will they be talking during their keynote?
4) Turning Mistakes Into Moments – On Day 2, lunch came out late. The emcee and the lead meeting planner quickly assessed the room and came up with a plan. The emcee announced that drinks are available now. The planner noticed that everyone still wanted to network. So we allowed the attendees to naturally talk and we agreed to move the schedule back 15-minutes. No one complained and the emcee was even able to shorted his closing keynote without missing any content so the summit ended on time. A great emcee turned this mistake into a valuable networking moment. Ask your emcee what was an event’s biggest mistake and how did they handle that?
5) Starting and Ending on a High Note – One important emcee tip is to Start On A High Note. To do this, John chose Northwest music and using his green screen studio, he was able to show him visiting all 5 counties of the Olympic Peninsula in under 37 seconds. This important “Start On A High Note” started the Summit with a lot of energy and translated into high and sustained energy through the 2-day summit. It also signaled to the audience that John understood the Olympic Peninsula and the important fact of including all of the counties. John does own an ASCAP license for this music at a conference and YouTube allows the artist to collect the revenue from this video. In addition, John was able to capture photos and videos during the conference and edit a 3 1/2-minute recap video (at the top of this post) and was the last thing people saw to celebrate the end of the Summit. Attendees were so impressed to see themselves as the stars of this video and it will increase the odds that attendees will follow through with connections made at this Summit. Ask your emcee how they will start and end the event? HINT: They better wow you.
RESULTS – The final secret to knowing you got the right emcee? The attendee feedback. With 98% valuable ratings, attendees were extremely happy with the Summit results. Last year, they gave feedback that they wanted less talking heads and more interaction and they said this Summit delivered that at a high level. Many attendees said they had notebooks full of notes and people to follow up with. The true result will be in a year at the next summit to hear stories and bottom line results of collaborations. Ask your attendees if your emcee delivered. If they did, ask them back as they will get to know you even better.
What is your secret to the right emcee guaranteed? Comment below!
