Johnny Earle aka "Johnny Cupcakes" joins us in the VIP Lounge to discuss how his t-shirt company started with a desire to make strangers smile and has become a case-study in how to design unforgettable experiences.

Co-hosted by Nick Borelli, of Borelli Strategies, Johnny shares some incredible insights on:

• How the smallest of details make the biggest impact
• Building a team you trust
• Why failure is not a bad thing
• Remembering that your guests always have other options 

The concept of mentorship sounds great to many, but creating a program that builds a strong relationship between the mentor and mentee is vital.

Identifying the best and brightest young talent to lead your organization forward is challenging. That’s why mentorship opportunities are so important.

Through the right program, organizations can spot the employees with the greatest leadership potential and build into them over the course of several years.

While it might seem like the growth strategies we talk about in this edition of the VIP Lounge would be obvious, event planners still don't take the time to do them.

We sat down with Nick Borelli, of Borelli Strategies, and Rachel Stephan, senior event marketing strategist with sensov/ event marketing, to discover what strategies more events should be doing to sell more tickets and effectively mine their audiences.

In 2002, nearly 200 people showed up for a small music and gaming festival. Fastforward 18 years, and MAGFest's attendance has grown to more than 23,000 with several spinoff events and a cult following. 

Nick Marinelli, the event's executive director, sat down with us to talk about their incredible journey over the years, as well as how they dealt with all the ups and downs that came along the way.

You've been hearing more and more about how popular hackathons have become, but how does it work? What does it look like? How can you make it a successful part of your event?

Donna Kastner, founder of Retirepreneur, and Jamie Murdock, Vice Presient of Sales at Experient, discuss their experience planning and executing a hackathon at PCMA's Convening Leaders earlier this year.

When you think of experience design, how often do you associate the methodology with designing your registration and housing website?

Experient's Aaron Dorsey, PMP, Director of Client Technology, and Chrisse New, PMP, VP of Project Management, discuss how this commonly overlooked step can make a huge difference in registration and housing pickup. 

You can register for the special webinar here: https://bit.ly/2FybSVP

If you’ve been following Experient on any number of social media channels, you’ve likely noticed an uptick on the wealth of insights being shared.

Mitch Cooper has been championing this initiative and his role is now expanding to include content marketing strategy.  

In this interview, Mitch shares strategies and tips you can run with to take your own event content marketing game to the next level.

We also talk about the interesting stats from 2018 that will make you take a second look at podcasting for your event marketing.

In this edition of The VIP Lounge podcast, we’re thrilled to showcase an interview with David Peckinpaugh, President of Maritz Global Events.

Our chat with David starts with a closer look at his career journey, as he shares more about what he enjoys about the events industry.

Then it’s on to Experience Design. While many might talk about event experience design, few have focused so intently on this crucial success driver. Since its development in 2011, the design team at Maritz Global Events has continued to refine their design methodology and practice.

To date, more than 120 clients have moved through at least one Design Lab, emerging with actionable ideas they can immediately apply to enhance attendee experiences.

In this edition of The VIP Lounge podcast, the focus is on event reinvention.

It’s a lofty goal that’s top-of-mind for many organizations these days, including the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA).

We caught up with two change champions at NACA:

• Toby Cummings, Executive Director
• Maureen Taylor, Director of Member Development and Services,

to learn more about how a design lab experience served as a catalyst for their event reinvention initiative.

This podcast episode starts off with a book recommendation. Then it’s on to emerging trends that tee up challenges to solve and opportunities to seize for event organizers.

Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder

Chip Conley’s latest bestseller explores a segment poised to deliver meaningful value for events – Modern Elders. 

In our zeal to connect with younger generations, could we be ignoring a segment that could deliver more Know-How and more Know-Who for events?

Event Trends Wisdom from Michael Dominguez

If you’re a big fan of industry events, chances are high that you’ve enjoyed a Michael Dominguez keynote presentation. Mike’s adept at helping us all to connect the dots, as he reveals event trends and economic trends that will impact our industry in the future.  

In this chat, we moved through several hot topics, including technology, keeping up with the speed of change, and leveraging data to design more relevant event experiences. We also dig into hotel booking trends and why more transparency is needed on both sides.