Customization for the Masses – How to

For a planner, customizing for the masses is ensuring that the created meeting experience is customized to fit the individual meeting attendee’s preferences and needs from identifying dietary restrictions at meals, ensuring that the offsite events are desirable for the majority and accommodating various interests and learning styles for educational breakouts. There is simply no way to make everyone happy but there are few things that can be controlled.

Surveys at registration are great for dietary restrictions and preference to ensure that the right meals are available – this is a no brainer. Besides make preparations for the identified dietary restrictions, we are living in a time that health conscious individuals are within the masses! To customize meals for large groups, make small adjustments. For example, leave the nuts, sauces and dressings on the side as an optional add-on.

While many conferences can be places for heavier than normal drinking behavior for some, plenty of meeting attendees do not fall into that category and could therefore miss out on some of the festivities. While the evening events can be a great time, after a full day of learning, they can be exhausting. Are there any opportunities for events to be offered during the day or early in the morning? Perhaps an option could be to offer a morning meditation session, or an afternoon bike ride with an educational or conference themed focus to spark enriching conversation.

Conferences are extremely educational and can provide tremendous opportunity for networking. A great conference offers breakout sessions led by exciting and knowledgeable individuals. How can you accommodate for different learning styles? Instead of only offering lectures, are there hand’s on workshops that will allow for more interactive learning? It’s not only about a good variety of topics, it’s also important to consider learning styles and preferences to encourage audience participation and collaboration.  When using an example, maybe the audience can be guided to get on their feet and act out a certain part!

Besides these three opportunities to customize, planners must always keep in mind brand loyalty when customizing for large groups. Once loyal to an airline and hotel brand, frequent travelers that attendee the meeting may find they are extremely uncomfortable if being forced to subscribe to other brands. The reality is that in this day in age, complementary water bottles, extra minutes to store baggage in the room, the possibility of an upgrade and free checked bags are alluring amenities. As a planner negotiating for decent rates in the host hotels is nullified when attendees are booking outside of the room block in an effort to secure their accustomed amenities.

Customizing for the masses seems like a nearly impossible task for groups large and small, but consider everything and make accommodations to fit as  many preferences and personalities. It is a crucial piece in promoting increased meeting attendance and participation.