THE FORUM GROUP – Sydney Event Management Company

With Easter just around the corner, we thought it would be a great opportunity to share with you some simple and inexpensive tips to help you make the most of your holiday.

1. When making drinks for your guests – (both young and old), why not try a few of these Easter themed beverages. Click here.

2. Don’t have a lot of space to hide Easter eggs? Try placing eggs in small, homemade baskets or grass patches, and placing them strategically around your flat. Have a lot of plants? Use the pots as hiding spots for your Easter eggs. Wherever your kids or guests find their eggs, simply finding them is sure to put a smile on their faces.

3. Jellybeans – in the appropriate Easter colour palette always make a nice statement. Try this: get a clear bowl and fill it with yellow, green, white, pink, grey and purple – a simple yet effective look.

4. Having family and friends over for dinner? Why not give each a personalised Easter egg with their initials? They won’t forget it and it is sure to add that extra something special to their holiday.

5. Bring on the trivia - Test your guests knowledge of Easter with a short, fun quiz. Could be a great option to have around should the weather turn sour. Here’s a really fun quiz we found on Martha Stewart.com

What are some other inexpensive tips and ideas for celebrating Easter this year? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below.

It is unquestionable that the iPad has impacted the Events Industry. From client presentations, product and information displays, evaluation surveys,  to project management apps there seems to be a feature or application for everything. So what are the Top 10 Apps that The Forum group can suggest? Read below to find out;

1.  Keynote - Create a world-class presentation with animated charts and transitions. it’s as simple as touching and tapping.

2.  iSurvey – The tool that market research professionals use when they are tired of using old fashioned clip boards and paper forms for face to face interviews. Great tool for conducting evaluation surveys at events.

3.  Go To Meeting – The easiest and most convenient way to attend online meetings. View slide presentations, design mock-ups, spreadsheets, reports and more.

4.  Office HD – View, create and edit word (DOC and DOCX) and Excel (XLS) files on your iPad.

5.  Super Planner – Business app for the event professional. It provides a variety of planning tools including calculators for venue capacity, staffing, catering, staging and floor plans.

6.  iLeads – The world’s first lead retrieval app. It enables exhibitors to collect leads at trade shows.

7.  Daily Notes and To Do – Great app for jotting down notes, thoughts and things to do.

8.  MindMeister – The one and only mind-mapping app you’ll ever need. Helps you organise, prioritise and generate new thoughts.

9.  Pocket Informant HD (Calendar and Tasks) – This app won “Best of Show 2011′ at ‘Macworld Expo 2011′. Tonnes of features and worth checking out.

10.  Sign My iPad – Simple to use PDF reader and annotation tool. No more printing documents to sign and then scanning and emailing. Do it all from your iPad.

What are some other great apps for Event Managers? Leave a comment with your suggestions below.

From incorporating a new form of entertainment to producing an innovative ‘one of a kind’ large scale event experience – event managers are always looking for new and innovative ideas to make your event stand out.

By doing so, you are providing your delegates with something that they might not have experienced before, something that your competitors probably haven’t offered before and something that is guaranteed to get people talking – and remembering your event for a long time to come!

So what are some examples of fun, innovative and creative ideas that are  guaranteed to leave this lasting impression? Read our 5 quick suggestions below:

1. Growing Gifts - Environmentally friendly gift ideas. Why not give someone the gift of a tree? (www.growinggifts.com.au)

2. Chocolate Prints – Take chocolate to a new level! Print high resolution images or logos on your delegate treats that are 100% edible – your delegates will be sure to thank you! (www.chocolateprints.com.au)

3. Paper Tiger Products - New and exciting sustainable products that are Australian designed and made, re-usable, recyclable and brandable. Showcase your corporate social responsibility by using some of these products at your next conference. (www.papertigerproducts.com)

4. Brad Blaze – The speed painter who painted his way to the top of the event entertainment industry. If you want dinner entertainment that’s a little different to your standard jazz band, then check this out. It’s guaranteed to keep your audience captivated. (www.bradblaze.com.au)

5. Adrenalin Adventures – Provide your delegates with an experience of a lifetime. With over 2000 adventures to choose from – ranging from massages to V8 car racing – you are sure to find something perfect for your next event!

Do you have any event ideas you would like to share? From small gift ideas to big sustainability ideas – we’d love to hear your thoughts on how to make your next event stand out.  Leave a comment below.

We keep hearing about social media. Twitter this and Youtube that! The growth is substantial – with facebook alone having more than 400 million active users! However the question remains, are the majority of these 400 million users uni students that engage in social media purely for…social reasons? Or is it true that social media outlets like facebook are in fact becoming effective marketing opportunities for corporate brands? And are they currently facilitating these opportunities?

Exhibitor Media Group decided to get to the bottom of this issue by inviting nearly 8,000 marketing professionals to participate in the 2010 Social Media in Marketing Survey. Some interesting statistics are found below;

• Two-thirds of companies surveyed have used social media for marketing
• 90% claim that it holds “moderate” or even “limitless” potential
• Of the one-third that don’t use social media, the biggest obstacle is lack of time
• Nearly 10% of respondents dedicate 21 hours or more per week to their social media campaign

It is unquestionable that corporate brands and marketing executives are definitely on the social media bandwagon. Certain benefits including increased brand awareness, increased press coverage, increased event attendance rates and even increased sales. However it is also recognised that by engaging in social media outlets, there is a trade of – it is time consuming.

How do you find the right balance between time spent on social media, and time spent on more traditional marketing initiatives? Which do you think has a greater ROI?

We’d love to hear you thoughts. Please comment below.

Twitter and other social media platforms are undeniably changing the nature of presentations. Real-time communications are now shared between the speaker, the audience, and others that aren’t even in the room – with the added comfort of being able to sit passively in the audience! Twitter makes it easy to engage, there is a risk of humiliation however what people are finding, is that what often results is an honest, productive and content rich conference or presentation.

Here are some examples of how to incorporate tweet-mania into your next conference or presentation;

1. Set-up a hashtag on twitter and hook it up as a live feed via a big screen/s (ensuring that both you and the audience have clear visibility). Begin your presentation with a slide listing your name, title of your presentation, your twitter username and the event hashtag. Announce to your delegates that tweeting throughout the presentation is encouraged!
2. Twitter feed – to get them started, ask the audience to introduce themselves via the twitter feed. This will enable delegates to get an understanding of who is around them and the general demographic (a great way to do this is by starting with a poll – ask delegates questions and help break the ice, or ask them to tweet three words that describe how they are feeling, or what they would like to hear about in this presentation – the possibilities are endless!)
3. Encourage your audience to ask questions and make comments throughout your presentation! Make your time together as productive as possible and give them the content and answers they want to hear! Don’t underestimate the intelligence of your audience – they might have some useful points and insights!
4. Invite other specialists to tweet throughout your presentation for that added credibility – delegates will appreciate the extra expertise and professional opinions! (Also invite delegates that could not physically be in the room to participate)
5. Make a pdf of the twitterstream – ensure your audience that everything is recorded and that you will respond to any questions/tweets you missed after the presentation. It’s also a great way to capture leads and for the audience to receive everyone’s combined notes/thoughts/questions from the presentation!

It appears that twitter can enable an audience to engage with the content and possibly focus more at conferences. Yet others argue it is nothing more than a mere distraction and people are only doing it because it’s the latest trend…What are your thoughts?? We’d love to hear your comments.