19 March 2016

The experience of Live event

The event management students have assignment to hold an event to raise money for charity. Also, they have opportunities to attend events held by other students. This blog will discuss the experience of live events, and there will be two points of view of the live event's experiences, the experience from a consumer view and the other from event manager.

"Brain Crash" was the first event held during the event week, and also set up the promotion stall one week before the event holding. Although the event poster can not describe all the activities of the event, even for UK students do not know what "Huarong Game" is. The promotion stall creates a change to attract potential consumers know about the event and the activities. I had the chance to play "Huarong Game" in the limited time. Also for people understanding know about this Chinese puzzle, which was a good opportunity to know about the foreign culture, and try playing the game before the event heading. The good pre-event promotion help consumers creating good experience and expectance for live events. But, as one attendee of this event, it still has some miss with the explanation of slogan "who is the most intelligent person in HUD".

In fact, there were two competitions in the events which are Rubik's Cube and Sudoku.  That means to win one of these two competitions will correspond with the slogan.  However, from the point of self concept, if someone does not keen on or know about these puzzle games before, which lead to lose in the competition, does it mean he or she not intelligent? The companies or organisations can use such competitive concept to attract more attendees, but still need to consider about the influence on people potentially.


The other one is managing event experience. The real example about fully use the flyer, which means adding extra information at the back of the flyer. For the common flyers it usually that keeps blank on the back side, even include "Brain Crash"'s one.  To avoid the waste and create and extra use, the member of "Health and Wellbeing Event" team using a kind of "week plan", which also follow the event theme. 


As one stuff which are responsible for sending flyers, I use the extra function on the back side as a good reason to let others take and keep those flyers. Also, it had created the topicality by itself, which were helping the whole event promotions.

Above all, those experiences though the event heading really helped for understanding experiential marketing theory. Whether as an event organizer or an event attendee, the more understanding of marketing could mean more control marketing, or just make more money.


Smilansky, Shaz (2009) - Experiential marketing: a practical guide to interactive brand experiences (1st ed)