It’s kind of crazy to think back to the COVID days when we wondered about the future of live events. It is clear now that people love to attend conferences to engage with their peers. There’s something about connecting with a live person that can’t be replicated digitally. We’re seeing that at our own healthcare marketing conference and the many healthcare IT conferences we attend each year.

In a recent interview with Wendy Porter, Founder of Wendy Porter Events and Michelle Hogan, Executive Producer at OVC Productions, we got a chance to learn from their decades of experiences in the live events industry to hear how live events can be leveraged to build trust.

We start off the interview with Porter and Hogan sharing why live events still matter and why events are still worth it even as budgets get tightened. The reality we’ve seen at Swaay.Health is that how you as a vendor execute at the event is really key to making sure the event is successful for your organization.

After discussing the value of live events, I ask Porter to share what it takes to build trust with your audience. Needless to say, trust doesn’t just happen automatically even at a conference or other event.  Building trust happens by design and with real effort and planning. Hogan highlighted this really well when she shared some of the ways that your event design can directly affect the audience’s emotion and either build or hurt your credibility.

Even though we were talking about live events, I couldn’t resist talking with Porter and Hogan about how AI is reshaping event production. As is happening in seemingly all areas of our lives, AI is becoming a great tool for event organizers. In fact, they’re even using it to avoid the near-disasters that every event organizer has experienced. That’s why we asked Porter and Hogan to share a story of a near-disaster they experienced and how they navigated to a better outcome. Start thinking about what you’d do if your party venue fell through last minute.  Listen to the interview to hear about that experience and how Hogan navigated it like a pro.

As we wrapped the interview, we did a quick lightning round of topics around: one thing health marketers should stop doing immediately, the best event marketing thing they’ve ever seen, and one event trend to lean into in 2026. Check out our interview with Wendy Porter and Michelle Hogan to learn more about live events and how to make the most of them.

Learn more about Wendy Porter Events: https://www.wendyporterevents.com/

Learn more about OVC Productions: https://www.ovcproductions.com/