9 EVENT INDUSTRY LESSONS I LEARNED FROM ... MY SON’S BARMITZVAH!!

Shalom!

This past weekend, I tried my hand at the art of Event Organising as it was my son, Jake’s Barmitzvah.

So, I guess I was really involved in "Oy"-vent Organising.

Actually, truth be told, my WIFE did the event organising. I did what I normally do at an event as an MC – showed up after all the hard work was done by others.

Like many in our industry (and our clients) who have planned events in one format, and then had to adjust to new restrictions quite late in the piece, we were hit hard by changing COVID restrictions. We had to transform our event from a live Synagogue service followed by a party and dinner for 150, into a fully locked-down and isolated Zoom-Mitzvah.

On the surface, it appeared that it was going to be world’s away from the warm and vibrant family-and-friend-filled celebration we had always envisioned for this once-in-a-lifetime event.

But, to cut a long story short (yes, I’m aware that kind of implies we’re moving from a Barmitzvah to a circumcision), we ended up with an absolutely awesome and fulfilling celebration.

And I learned a few valuable lessons about shifting an event online that I thought worth sharing:

1. THE EVENT STARTS BEFORE THE EVENT STARTS – Part 1

Have you ever seen people’s faces as they’re waiting for a Zoom meeting to start?

It's generally not a showcase of happy humanity, is it? It's usually a collection of blank or bored expressions, indicating that most people would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else.

Now, what do you think a group like this MOST needs at this time? Something stimulating? Something that gets them excited about what is about to happen?

But what do we generally provide them at this point? An "uber-stimulating" loop of sponsor slides and online platform instructions!

Oy vay!

Whether you're organising an online party or an online business event, wouldn’t you prefer people to arrive at the start with a more positive vibe?

We did two things that that won over some hearts and minds … and gave the event some personality … before it had even begun.

The first was that we delivered to people the day before an A4 size box … a Jake-In-The-Box … filled with two sorts of items:

1. things they would need to use during the event (like special candles, some sparkling wine and Tim Tams), and
2. things related to our son and his personality (and you’ll see in Point 3 how it added a whole new dimension to the event)

I know we didn’t invent the idea of delivering boxes to attendees, but we gave ours a bit of personality by printing “Please Do Not Open Until Instructed” on a sticker on the front … AND … and this was the vital part … inside the box, just under the lid, was a piece of paper saying in large font: “We told you not to open it yet!”

About our half our guests texted us to tell us we’d caught them out taking a sneak-peak!!!

But it added humour and a bit of mystery to the event from the day before. Surely that’s the vibe we’d like for corporate events, too?

2. THE EVENT STARTS BEFORE THE EVENT STARTS – Part 2

The second thing we did prior to the 7:00pm start time was something that doesn’t happen enough in online business events, and it should. We prepared something engaging for delegates to look at on the screen.

When you think about it, doesn’t it make sense to make the item you want people to be interested in looking at for the next two hours, interesting to look at from the start??

You can still put up a welcome slide and loop sponsor logos and other dry messages for SOME of the time. But why not add in something that lifts spirits, builds adrenaline or just has people feeling more at ease through a knowing smile?

Here’s what we did, and it worked fantastically:

i) We began with a welcome slide with backing music. ALWAYS have music.

ii) Then, when we knew we were ready, we put on welcome slides that alternated between ‘serious’ and quirky. Here's a sample:

iii) These launched into a photo montage of my son’s life set to to the wonderfully upbeat tune “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” by Deniece Williams … and whilst I accept that may not be an easy idea to convince corporate clients to go with … after all, why would they be interested in photos of my son? (Ha! See what I did there?) … surely we can help them see how important it is to start an event with something that excites or delights.

You could put together a montage of people from the host organisation … or their clients … to really ramp up the warmth of your event. I’m proud to say that my Grin & Tonic Reels are also an affordable and highly effective solution in this area, and are being used by more people to kick off their events.

I’m most proud of the 20-second ending I made to the photo montage, which counted down to the start of the event proper, and really spiked people’s anticipation.

Click here to watch it.

That was over 160 photos of Jake, presented in chronological order!

3. GIVE DELEGATES SOMETHING TO DO OTHER THAN JUST LISTEN

No matter how interested delegates are in a session, or how important the subject matter is, it is always an enormous challenge to keep online delegates engaged for the entire duration.

We used the contents of our box to bring the event directly to our guests, and it worked a treat.

The best idea we had was to make life-size cardboard cut-outs of Jake’s face and we asked people to take a selfie of themselves with Jake, to make it look like they had shared the occasion together.

You could see the energy and the engagement life as people posed and sent in their pictures. Imagine sending everyone a cut-out of the CEOs face and having them do the same?!

We used other items in a similar way. When Jake’s love of Star Wars was mentioned, told guests to look in the box for the Star Wars Pez dispenser we had included. When it was time to toast Jake, we had put in a mini bottle of sparkling wine for the adults, small bottles of Coca-Cola (which we called ‘Kids Champagne’ for the children, and a few small cups.

It wouldn’t take too much brainstorming to come up with some great things to send to delegates at your events.

4. GET TECHNICAL HELP

Online events are technological mysteries to most of us. Sure, we know how to log onto a Zoom call, or join a Microsoft Teams meeting … but very few of us know how to make the most of them and ensure they are running smoothly.

We hired a technical wiz by the name of Bentzi to set up and run our Zoom. He set up a monitor so we could see what our guests saw, hooked up our TV to the call, so we could maintain a gallery view (which he scrolled through from time to time) and played videos and music on cue.

He also ensured it was all recorded, the sound was good ... and simply made it so that we had one less huge thing to be worried about on the night.

So, get experts in for the tasks you consider essential. AV is, naturally, high on that list. Ánd, if you consider delegate engagement essential, get an expert in delegate engagement involved (yes ... I mean a professional MC!).

5. SPOTLIGHTING

There’s a feature of Zoom and Microsoft teams called ‘Spotlighting’, which I hadn’t heard of before. But it is brilliant.

It makes a person’s Zoom feed the large featured box on the screen. The host can select who gets spot-lit, and when, and Benzti used this throughout the night to great effect. It had a “Kiss Cam” kind of effect.

When someone noticed that they were spot-lit, they felt extra involved and their behaviour showed it. Not only that, but no-one knew if or when they would be spot-lit, so it really helped keep them engaged as they didn't want to risk appearing on screen talking on their phone or anything!

6. USE PRE-RECORDS WHEN PRACTICAL

Live events can be nerve-wracking, both for the event organiser and for the speakers involved.

One of the pleasant advantages of going online is that, since everyone is viewing everything on a screen, you can pre-record segments and they don’t appear any different to live. They’re still being watched by the audience on a device.

You can’t get away with that as easily at a live event.

We had Jake’s two younger sisters, Lara and Ruby, give a speech which I recorded earlier. It took them about six takes to get it right, so it was really helpful to have this option.

At the online events I’ve been MCing, I’ve been noticing event organisers going down this path more and more. The one piece of advice I would give, is make sure you ask the speaker to begin their presentation by giving an upbeat thanks to whoever introduced them, otherwise it can seem a bit disjointed.

7. PLAN YOUR POWERPOINT PROPERLY

Call me odd, but I’m a big fan of PowerPoint. I know, nothing can make a presentation more boring … but, if used properly (and the vast majority of people DON’T), it can be an invaluable way of engaging your audience.

I put together quite a bit of PowerPoint for our event … but I forgot one thing … when people are watching on Zoom (without the use of an online platform like E:Volve, Delegate Connect or Cvent, which formats the screen for delegates), there will always be a chance that some of the screen is obscured by a small box with a head in it, or a gallery of faces or possibly even a chat feed.

It's a good idea to remind your online speakers to leave the right-hand quarter of your PowerPoint slides empty (or, at least, not have anything important on them), so that people have somewhere to put that stuff if they want.

8. ONLINE CAN BE ... AND SHOULD BE ... FUN

When we were forced to change our party from live to online, we really feared that the atmosphere would be lost. That there would be no ‘ruach’… the Hebrew Word for ‘heart-warming spirit’.

But through:

• engaging delegates (with the Jake-In-The-Box contents and through using lots of humour)
• having on board an expert like Bentzi
• and inserting fun moments, especially using music

the event was able to have an upbeat vibe. And it was not only joyous in OUR house, but in our guests houses as well.

Here’s what it looked like when we played the sort of music people would typically dance to at a barmitzvah:

Click here to view

Yes, yes, yes. This wasn’t a serious corporate event. But it WAS an event that could easily have been dull. When that's the case, you HAVE to do something to make your delegates' online event experience more dynamic.

I promise you that, if you played some music (between speakers, during or coming back from breaks) you would get some of your people bopping, too. And, if you used Spotlighting, you’d get even greater delegate engagement.

You can’t do it for long … but it proves something that I always try and tell my clients (especially those who preface their briefing of me with words like: “Our people are pretty quiet and conservative”): Give them an opportunity to have fun, anyway. Sure, not everyone will embrace it. But it’s far better to allow SOME of your people to have a good time by giving them the chance, than ensure NONE of them do because you didn’t.

9. AS AN EVENT ORGANISER, I’M HOPELESS.

In the end, the night was a huge success. But credit for that lays squarely with my wife, Amanda, not with me.

She is many things I’m not and, in the run-up to the barmitzvah, it was her extreme organising skills that we relied on more than anything contributed.

She is proof that, if you want an event to be a triumph, you have to hand things over to the people with the right talents and abilities.

I was given a few tasks that suited my skill-set: MC the night, write and deliver a speech, make the necessary videos, photo montages and PowerPoint and make and run a Kahoot Quiz inspired by Jake and his interests.

The invites, the box contents, packing and delivering … the religious stuff, Bentzi and a host of things I am absolutely unaware went into the night … that was all Amanda.

All up, the event was joyous, engaging, inclusive and, most importantly … Jake really enjoyed it.

But it wouldn't have been that without the right people with the right skills doing the right things. Which is why clients should always se a Professional Conference Organiser. It turns out that Barmitzvahs ... much like a corporate event ... are far more difficult to organise than they appear.

And, I learned a lot about how it is possible to bring atmosphere … ruach … to an online event. I hope it has lifted your spirits … and given you the encouragement to deliver some to your clients.

DARREN ISENBERG IS ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S BEST-LOVED MC'S AND SPEAKERS ON POSITIVE INFLUENCE. CHECK OUT HIS WEBSITE AT www.dipresents.com.au