Event guests have no idea what goes into the production, nor should they, Sound Planning Co-owner, Partner and Manager Jessica Ludders says.
As an event planner, Jessica Ludders knows more about you than you might think.
She knows whether you’re a vegetarian or carnivore. She knows exactly how far you’ve traveled to that conference. She knows where you’re staying.
Ludders is co-owner, partner and manager at Sound Planning Meeting & Events, a 20-employee, Seattle-based firm that puts on about two dozen major events annually. On her LinkedIn profile, she calls herself a “cultivator of culture and value.”
“It is caretaking,” Ludders says. “You are under our custody. You’re here. We’re hosting you. What can we feed you that’s not going to kill you? How can we make it easier for you to navigate through the space that we’re building out for you?”
Here are several things most event attendees never notice.
Take me through one attendee. What do you know about them before they arrive? We’re dealing with thousands of attendees. We could find out if a person is celiac, or whether they’re hard of hearing. We ensure their care and comfort. We know which company they’re from, which industry sector. We find out what interests and goals they have for the event.
What’s one piece of information you discovered that changed what you did? We might receive information that somebody actually doesn’t have a smartphone, so they can’t access the event app, so upon their arrival we have a tablet ready for them so they can engage. We might have to make adjustments if a person is hard of hearing.
What’s a tiny change you’ve made that an attendee wouldn’t think about, or see? The obvious one is a 10-minute change in the agenda (or when sessions run long). People think nothing of 10 minutes, but the agenda is on the website. It’s on an app. We need to adjust that all downstream. It can affect the banquet orders the venue is creating.
Tell me about a problem you prevented that attendees didn’t know existed? We also have hotel data, and we oftentimes do behind-the scenes cross-checks. We see that a person has a hotel room on our rooming block, but they’re not registered for the event. That’s one of the more common ones.
What’s the invisible thing you’re proudest of making invisible? Designing our space so that long lines don’t become an issue. How do guests enter an experience? How many people are going to be on the main floor, or in a breakout session? People may be converging at this escalator or this elevator all at once. We ease those points of friction before they ever show up.