The first quarter of 2021 was busy for our event management team here at cred. We helped bring seven virtual events to life through our contributions on speaker management & sourcing, attendee comms, virtual platform management, and more! With every event, we become more efficient and effective with our processes, and learn new ways to engage in the virtual world. 

In Q1, we were lucky enough to work with new client Lightspeed on their invite-only virtual panel & roundtable discussion Building Tomorrow’s Boardroom, Today. During this event, dynamic leaders and boardroom members came together to discuss how to drive necessary and meaningful change to empower and promote BIPOC communities in the boardroom. 

Where else were we this quarter?

• SaaStr Spring Semester in late January where SaaStr hosted intimate “how-to” roundtables designed to start the new year off on the right foot for scaling. 

• Wellness Coach’s webinar on Why Employee Wellness Starts from the Top Down

• Two Datavant webinars that shared unique case studies, insights, and analysis on chronic conditions, and explored how linked data can help you to better understand the patient journey and outcomes for specialty products

• RampUp in early March packed informative content with rockstar speakers and occurred on a much more intimate, virtual scale than their normal 3,000+ attendee annual event in San Francisco. 

• SaaStr Build in March focused on growing revenue, scaling up teams, and closing deals faster.

Here are just a few of the incredible speakers we had a chance to work with.

We continue to enjoy playing a role in elevating the voices featured by our clients at their events.

• Issa Rae, Writer, Producer, Actress

• Dara Treseder, SVP, Head of Global Marketing & Communications, Peloton

• Sean Downey, VP, Media Platforms, Google

• Denise Persson, CMO, Snowflake

• Jeff Lawson, CEO & Chairman, Twilio

• Ivan Zhao, Co-Founder & CEO, Notion

• Mellody Hobson, President & Co-CEO of Ariel Investments, Chairwoman of Starbucks Corp.

• Thasunda Duckett, CEO, Chase Consumer Banking, JP Morgan, Chase

• Tristan Walker, Founder & CEO, Walker & Company Brands

• Kyle Porter, CEO & Co-founder, Salesloft

We’ve noticed a few trends in the past quarter.

Events are changing, that is for certain.

• Shorter sessions & event days are still the best route: virtual attendees are looking for concise content. Limit content blocks to no more than 30 minutes to keep the audience’s attention over a computer screen. We’ve seen a lot of success with ½ days instead of full days as well. 

• Q&A time is key: after your content, ensure there is ample time for audience Q&A. These opportunities for engagement between speakers and attendees are so critical for both. Attendees love getting to converse directly with high-level speakers and likewise, speakers love the chance to get more of the real-life connection that can often feel lost in a virtual presentation without in-person reactions. 

  • No time for Q&A after the session? See if your speakers will allow you to share their email for further inquiries. 

• Agendas are seeing more diversity on stage: As the world is becoming more aware of the lack of diversity, well, everywhere, we’ve seen sessions fill up with more women speakers and BIPOC. Speaking of—check out how cred honored International Women’s Day here. 

• A strong internet connection is vital to a speaker’s success: By now we’re all used to losing someone’s audio or going frozen - but during a live session that’s the last thing you want. We recommend hardwiring into a modem for the strongest internet connection. If you have to be on Wi-Fi, ask other members in your household if they could avoid using it while you speak live. Test your internet connection here: www.speedtest.net—upload speed greater than 6 Mbps is recommended

• Test, test, and test again: Remember to triple check your server capacities, attendee & speaker experience, and that your platform is meeting its deadlines to be ready to go by event day. Conduct these tests at least 3-4 weeks before event day. 

• It is critical to always have a plan B: We know by now that the virtual world can be unpredictable, so ensure you have a strategy ready if something falls through. 

Spring is upon us and that means a lot of events in the queue for Q2! We’re anticipating stellar content and insights on technology trends at Meraki Network in June (new event management client alert!). On top of that, we look forward to continuing our work with virtual events from OneReq, Wellness Coach and SaaStr. 

Have an event you are looking to bring to life? We’d love to help! Email us at hello@credpr.com