Encore's Amanda Armstrong Talks Making an Impact, Igniting the Senses and the Future of Event Technology

In this Meetings Today Podcast, recorded on the IMEX America tradeshow floor, Taylor Smith sits down with Amanda Armstrong, senior vice president of communications and industry relations at Encore, to talk about how Encore made an impact at IMEX, the importance of awakening all of your attendees' senses and the future of event technology.

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Transcript:

Editors note: The following transcription was facilitated by AI program Otter.ai and proofed by our editors. Although it is very accurate, there inevitably will be some mistakes, so please consider that when reading. Thank you.

Taylor Smith 
Hello and welcome to this Meetings Today Podcast. I'm Taylor Smith, destinations and features content developer for Meetings Today, and I'm coming to you from the IMEX America tradeshow floor. I am absolutely thrilled to be here today with the amazing Amanda Armstrong, Senior Vice President of Communications and Industry Relations at Encore, and a wonderful human all around. Thank you for joining me today. Amanda, how are you doing?

Amanda Armstrong
I'm doing great, and that is so complimentary, Taylor. I appreciate that. It's day three of IMEX, so it's a mix of excitement and exhaustion.

Taylor Smith
I’m in the same boat. So, the Encore team has some exciting new announcements to share. Can you fill our listeners in on what's new at Encore, what they should be aware of?

Amanda Armstrong
Absolutely. So, well, specifically at IMEX, we're really proud, because this is our third year where we have brought the attendees here Break Free, and it started three years ago when we were talking about changing, just to change the way you're approaching event design, and also thinking about how to challenge conventional thinking. Then it evolved last year into continuing that journey on Break Free, talking about inclusive meeting planning.

Taylor Smith
I loved last year's exhibit too. It was awesome.

Amanda Armstrong
It was! I was so proud of the team. It was a digital short, as you remember, where we actually used people's senses to make them feel and experience what it would like be like to have an unseen disability in a meeting space. It was meant to make you feel anxious, you know, when you didn't necessarily hear the speaker or understand different things from screens, and so it just encouraged everybody to think about unseen disabilities and to be inclusive in event design. So I loved it. Now this year it is called Break Free: Unlock Your Impact, because that ties in to the IMEX theme of impact this year. So, did you happen to go through it?

Taylor Smith
I haven't yet, but that's on my list before we head out this afternoon.

Amanda Armstrong
Okay, well, then I'm gonna spoil it for you. Okay, some of your listeners that didn't get it.

Taylor Smith
That's what we're here for.

Amanda Armstrong
Okay, great. Well, Unlock Your Impact really was a focus around a need that we were hearing from our customers. Budgets are flat or decreasing next year based off of our planner pulse data, and a lot of industry data that you've probably read. However, planners are facing a really big challenge, because the internal stakeholders, decision makers that are basically writing the checks for their budgets or approving them, they have really high expectations and want more return on their investment. Yeah, more ROI, right?

And then the attendees are the second stakeholder, and we're actually hearing more that they really want…They have higher expectations on earning my attention and my attendance at your event. You really need to delight me and retain my attention and actually let me engage with your content. And so anyway, it's just a tough spot. So, we designed an experience, which is a maze of technology, where we take people through four different stations, where they actually get to see how using technology they might already be using, just use it in different ways to make a bigger impact on ROI as well as ROE, the return on experience.

Taylor Smith
That’s wonderful. And so, tell me what you've heard from the people who have gone through this experience so far, the feedback you've gotten from them and how they maybe will plan on taking it back to their own events and experience.

Amanda Armstrong
That’s a great question. So, to date, I think we're getting close to about 1,000 people have gone through experience.

Taylor Smith
Oh, wow!

Amanda Armstrong
Yeah, we are breaking records in year three, which is really exciting. But I think more than the numbers, the metric that's important to me is like, what's the behavior change? What are they going to do with it? And I think as they come out of the experience, which is an immersive experience, they realize that they need to be thinking about igniting all the senses, even on the budgets that they have. How can they lean into an immersive experience? And they just didn't think about, like, what could we do with sight and sound differently? What about smell and then taste of the food and beverage part, which everybody loves?

So, they've got that. But like, how can they incorporate that into the overall event design? And then, of course, touch right? So, soft seating. But we also have the catch box, and we are playing around with that. So, we just are playing into the five senses and how you activate it, because that's really important with message retention, does something have you feel like all of your senses. There's a lot of neuroscience around that we won't get into it today, but anyway, we've heard that over 85% of planners want to do immersive experiences, or are already doing them. And so we gave them some things to think about, and they're taking that back directly to their meetings, which is great.

Taylor Smith
So, we have to consider, too, the need to keep younger generations engaged and entertained. And of all the Gen Z research I've done, I've discovered their average attention span is between 1.3 and eight seconds. So how has Encore kind of helped you engage and include that younger demographic?

Amanda Armstrong
Well, those are great stats, and I feel like we're just applying that to all attendees, but the way that we're thinking about keeping people's attention is really about engagement. And so when we think about like, how do you make sure that they're part of the conversation? We're doing it through Polling Plus, which is basically polling through your events on the screens where people can interact. Everybody's been doing it. But thinking about chat, if it's virtual and engaging your audience on the virtual side and having them participate, that's the key. Participation leads to better engagement. So how are you doing that in your events? And then how can we help using technology to get there?

Taylor Smith    
What are some general trends that Encore has been seeing? And is there stronger meetings marketing now, with all of this Artificial Intelligence? What are some other general, big market trends that the team is kind of taking notice of?

Amanda Armstrong
We are seeing that when you make this investment for an event, how can you get that you know, more bang for your buck, right? That ROI. So, there's a lot of great technology coming out there that is actually taking the transcripts of your breakout, your meeting, and then regurgitating it back to you so you can use it as content going forward, whether that's for marketing, maybe it's learning and development, maybe it's a module for education, but it's actually what happened in that meeting room. How can you make that message and that content go further? That's just a really good investment strategy for our customers and our planners. So that piece of AI I'm really excited about because I do think that it shows that your event can live on past the actual meeting dates itself.

Taylor Smith
I think too, that we also realize that AI, the more we utilize it to our advantage, the more we stay on top of it, the safer almost our industry will be, the more prepared we will be. And there's this fear around new technology and AI, but I think the only people who should be afraid are the those who aren’t willing to embrace it and take these changes and implement them into their events.

Amanda Armstrong
I agree. I think change is always hard, right? Yes, and so this is the part where we're all learning this together, and I think if you pause, I worry that you're going to get too far behind. I love the art of discovery. I'm kind of addicted to change, and obviously with Encore, we invest in a lot of event technology, so we're embracing this, and it's really interesting to see how our customers are going to use that, and then we hope to join them in that journey.

Taylor Smith
We talked about the theme of impact this year, which is really all over the tradeshow floor. I've seen it everywhere, and I think everyone's leaving with a personal impact that they found, or their team's impact. So, to wrap up today, what's been your impact from IMEX America and something that you'll take away with you and hope to see in the future of our industry?

Amanda Armstrong
So that is such a great question. I would say that the impact for me at IMEX every year is also on several levels. One, personally, I love seeing all of our customers and our venue partners, and just a lot of our industry besties. It’s so fun every year—you included. And so that always just kind of fills my heart, but then also what fills my heart is seeing the innovation and seeing what people are doing. And that's why I feel like this is just a tradeshow that you can't miss every year.

So, I have a list of things that I need more time to process. And then I think the larger impact for me is that I'm in the right career, like I love this industry, and every time, although I'm exhausted on day three, I'm so grateful that I chose this industry, that I'm going to retire in this industry, because these are my people, and I just believe that events do change the world in a positive way.

Taylor Smith
That was perfect. Snaps to that! I feel the same way. I think our listeners will too, but those are all my questions for you today, Amanda. So, thank you for joining me. It was great to chat with you.

Amanda Armstrong
Absolutely my pleasure. Thanks, Taylor.

Taylor Smith
That was Amanda Armstrong, Senior Vice President of Communications and Industry Relations at Encore. Once again, I'm Taylor Smith, destinations and features content developer for Meetings Today, and I want to thank you all for tuning in to this Meetings Today Podcast. If you're interested in more podcasts or checking out some of our IMEX America coverage, visit us at www.MeetingsToday.com and thanks again for listening.

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