Keeping the audience in the heart of meeting design


By El Kwang on 31/10/2016


To sustain delegate interest and engagement, event organisers cannot afford to ignore the layout, breaks, and engagement in meetings.

Words: El Kwang | Selina Chavry

For Selina Chavry, October 2016 edition Guest Editor and Global Managing Director of Pacific World, the key takeaway from the recent Singapore MICE Forum 2016 was the need to widen her company’s view on what they are really selling and what their business wants to achieve. 

With the constant shift in purchasing and value chain, her company has to go beyond an expertise in managing complex logistics, organising events, and sourcing for venues and activities. Her company is in the business of creating experiences. To be good at that, her company requires a deeper understanding of the clients’ objectives and applying the art of meeting design to curate solutions.

For businesses likes hers to remain relevant and competitive, they must be ready to morph according to macro-economic impacts like Brexit and to keep abreast of possessing the right skillsets as a solution provider in order to remain relevant and competitive. 

Meeting designs focused on the audience

Having meeting design know-how and being creative in a collaborative approach has never been more relevant. 

Clients want to stand out by being unique, and expect meeting programmes to go beyond the traditional eight hours and unlocking the experience from a four-wall environment. Clients want the meeting production to curate multi-sensory experiences with surprise elements planted along the way to sustain delegates’ attention throughout the day.

The layout of the plenary session sets the tone for the day. Key considerations to include are software (content development), hardware (AV equipment) and space planning (seating plan). Planners should use pre-event surveys to gain better knowledge of delegates’ behaviour patterns and combine that with the client’s key objectives in the design layout. 

In the book titled “Into the Heart of Meetings” (The Book), authors Eric de Groot and Mike van der Vijver gave an example of a new CEO who sought to gain the employees’ trust through an open dialogue. It was better for them to divide a large audience into smaller groups, and for him to be seated amongst them. What would not have worked is if there was a large stage set up in front of a large auditorium, as it would only further alienate the CEO, sending the audience a “me versus all of you” perception. 

For one of their previous events, Pacific World created an immersive environment for delegates where the speaker was positioned on a thin long runway stage in the middle of the room with the chairs and screens on both sides of the stage. Such a set-up sent the message that the presenter wanted the audience to be part of the experience or product they were launching. 

The Book also cautioned planners not to be have an extended meeting programme with heavy content that requires delegates to sit for long periods of time. It quoted Mark Twain’s famous saying: “The mind can only absorb what the bottom can endure.” It is better to inject innovative breaks in between. 

One example is one that Biz Events Asia experienced at the 2014 Meetings and Events Australia annual conference held in Kuala Lumpur: the event organisers used virtual reality to display videos of sunny beaches in a meeting room that did not have much natural light or breakout sessions.

Another useful application is to allow the audience to tweet questions and comments on a live feed anonymously to keep conversations between the presenter and the audience “fluid” – this allows delegates to feel included in the programme and content. In addition, programme fluidity is an upcoming trend that is especially popular with the younger generations.



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