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7 Top Questions To Kick Start Your Event Research

Conference Producers – Where do you start with your event and topic research?

Michaela Ridgeway, Senior Content Editor at FT Live, shares the 7 questions she typically asks when researching a new conference:

  1. What are the 3 biggest challenges facing your industry?
  2. What are the top 3-4 problems you regularly face in your job?
  3. Who would you most like to hear speak?
  4. What professional bodies do you belong to?
  5. Would your company like to sponsor?
  6. Who else would you recommend I speak with?
  7. What else is hot?

Michaela aims to arrange at least 20 of these preliminary conversations with potential delegates.

Common answers to Q.1 and Q.2 become the agenda topics. She then drills into these during topic focussed calls later.

Common answers to Q.7 generate commercially compelling ideas for the next conference.

Once she has lots of common ‘What’s hots’ it is worth throwing in this topic validation question during calls:

‘Is […] a compelling topic for a conference?’ (And if not, ask ‘What is?’)

As an example, ChatGPT has been coming up frequently in Michaela’s research calls as an answer to the What else is hot? Question. That it is a hot topic is clear. But is it deserving of a whole conference programme?

We will be sharing more research questions other conference producers ask at the start of their conference and events programme research next quarter.

 

Want to find out more about a career in conference production?
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Please get in touch with one of our consultants for more information on how we can assist with your conference production job search or you can find out more about our services here

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