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STUDENT #1

Hands down the biggest trend affecting our events is the "greening" of events. Our association is seeking LEED certification for our building and one of the requirements is that all on and off site meetings must be green.

As a result, I am currently Chairing an internal staff committee that is focusing on the development of a set of policies and procedures for greening all meetings our association holds on and off-site. Our largest challenge is going to be changing the mindset of employees who are "stuck in their ways" and not willing to embrace significant change when it comes to how we run our events.

Slowing economic conditions that will eventually affect our membership and thus revenue levels will also affect greatly how we hold our events. We're going to have to be more cost-conscious of how we hold our events but at the same time make them greener which can sometimes result in higher costs.

STUDENT #2

The downturn in the economy has affected sponsorship but has had an even bigger impact on our exhibitor registrations. As technology improves and there are more opportunities to connect with audiences online, it seems many companies are reducing their participation in tradeshows.

Tight and busy timelines that most of our members have has forced us to reduce the length of our annual convention and tradeshow. Feedback indicated that members were having a hard time sending multiple delegates and have them all away for a minimum of four days. Because of this, our next event will be a tight schedule run over 3 days.

The biggest challenge for our association related to events is our insufficient human resources. We are understaffed and one of the key staff who deals with tradeshow registration and management operates in a silo and does not communicate with the rest of the team. This, combined with being regularly under staffed, means that our program goes out late year after year. As a result, the education session component suffers slightly because we simply do not have the time to properly research speakers. I think we need to plan better – the conference procedures manual outlined in the readings would be a great tool to get everyone on the same page and to orient any contract staff that we bring on for the event.

STUDENT #3

Our national convention, which once changed locations annually, is now held in Toronto every year. Although smaller shows are hosted every year in each region of Canada, members feel they've lost something big and that Toronto wins again. Also, association eventsusually cost more to produce than small table top shows in ballrooms held by small private groups who don't bother with insurance, security, professional registration, etc. As a consequence, the association gets perceived as a 'money grab'.

Competition by the private sector is increasingly ferocious. Vacuums left by the pace of slow decision-making due to our governanceprocess and structure were filled by private companies who saw the potential in publications, tradeshows,websites, etc. The association didn't turn around fast enough. As a sub-issue, I would say that loyalty towards associations isn't as reliable as years back and we are feeling the erosion by the private sector in many areas.

Travel restrictionsand virtual meetings are definitely causing a decrease in attendance and it's hard to establish trends as the pick-up in registration for webinars isn't increasing as fast.

Mergers and acquisitions are affecting our tradeshow revenues significantly. As two and three exhibitors become one, we are providing the same service to the group under one banner for much less revenue. And, because this factor is beyond our control, we are having difficulty replacing that loss in revenue.

STUDENT #4

One trend affecting our association events is the many different things that are competing with us for our members’ time. We can and we do plan many events throughout the year. I can think of one situation in the fall where we ran about five different events in three weeks. So, not only are we competing with other commitments our members have but with ourselves in a sense.

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