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From global conferences to high-stakes board meetings, Virtual has supported more than 1200 events across 35 countries — often without anyone knowing they are there. And that’s by design. In this episode, Andy shares what it takes to deliver great events — and how Virtual helps drive success for its clients.

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He covers:

• Why events are back — and bigger than ever.
• The three essential elements for event success.
• Virtual’s approach to planning and executing events that exceed expectations.

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Like what you hear? Follow 5 Minutes With Andy for more leadership insights.

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Hi, Welcome to Five Minutes With Andy. My name is Andy Freed. I'm the CEO of Virtual, Incorporated. For the last 25 years, Virtual has been helping associations, consortia, and standards bodies as they make their mark on the world.

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Right now, we are in the middle of events season. That means we've got and we're helping clients with events all over the world, sometimes two or three per week as they're going on. Some of those are big conferences. Some of those are smaller meetings. Some of those might be an organization's presence at a larger trade show. They all have a common thread, and we want to make sure that they're all incredibly successful.

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Now, first of all, you might be at those conferences and not even know that Virtual is a part of them. If that's the case, we've done our job well, because what we are at Virtual, I like to say, we're the flying buttress. What do I mean by that? Well, if you've ever gone to Europe and seen the beautiful cathedrals of Europe like Notre Dame, they're held up by a flying buttress. You can't have an object of great beauty without the flying buttress that's behind the scenes supporting it.

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And that's what we try to do every day.

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When we're doing these events, there's a couple of things I'll say that make them successful, and a couple of things that I'd encourage you to keep in mind with your own events, whether there are small meetings of 20, or large conferences of 2000.

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We've done about 12 to 1500 of these over the last few years in 35 countries. And we've seen a couple of things that kind of are the common denominators of success. First is preparation. Every meeting that we do, whether it's a small conference, a small gathering, or a large trade show, we're thinking about the minute by minute details of what's going on. Where are people going to be? How does it all come together?

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That kind of preparation is so important for two reasons. One, it does help you prepare for and make things go well. But two, that's also the secret to making sure that everybody at the conference can be at their best. If you've got a keynote speaker and you haven't prepared and thought about how is that keynote speaker going to get water on the stage, if they get thirsty, you're not helping them be their best.

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If your answer to that is, well, we're going to have a water bottle on the stage, and that's going to be how they get their water, I don’t know about you, but I am not old enough to open a water bottle without squishing it and getting water all over myself. I don't know what that age is, but it's not this age.

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So, thinking about how you're doing that. Is there a water bottle on the stage? Have they been able to, has it been opened already? Can they pour it? Is it a pitcher of water? I've also never successfully poured a pitcher of water in my life. I certainly don't want to do that on stage in front of 1200 people. If that's the case, I'm not going to be at my best. I'm thinking about that, or I'm not getting water. That kind of little preparation makes a big difference.

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The other issue on preparation, and the second piece, is to expect the unexpected. We've been doing this for 25 years. We've had volcanoes that have disrupted air travel. We've had hurricanes that have canceled meetings. We've had power outages. We've had pandemics. We've had just about everything that can happen, has happened at one of our meetings. The secret is to be prepared for all of those things. Ask yourself questions of what happens if things don't go the way we want? What's our plan b? The time to come up with that is on the lead-in to your meeting, not on site when you're standing therewith things that haven't gone right.

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And the third piece is connection. The meeting isn't about you as the meeting planner. The meeting isn't even about your organization. The meeting is about the attendees. How do they connect with one another? And whether it's giving 20 people in a board meeting a chance to connect with one another and be able to hear from each other, whether it's giving the attendees of 1200 a chance to network, what are the moments of connection that you're establishing?

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There's a reason that people still go to events, and I remember there was a time during the pandemic when everyone was saying that events will never happen again. Well guess what? They're back, and they're bigger than ever. Part of the reason they're back, and bigger than ever, is people have been striving for and missing that opportunity to connect. Make sure as you're pulling your meetings together, you're giving them that opportunity.

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So, remember those things. Remember preparation, expect the unexpected, and connection. And that's your formula to start having great meetings.

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Thanks for spending five minutes with me today. I hope you've enjoyed this and make sure that you click, like or subscribe on the screen below so you can join us again.