The Attendee Bill of Rights: Are your events delivering the best delegate experiences, or do they fall short?

Do event organisers understand attendees’ needs, wants and desires? Liz Lathan, CMP, CMO, and a co-founder of Haute Companies, took it upon herself to identify attendees’ pet peeves to create The Attendee Bill of Rights: A Guide to Creating Attendee-First Experiences, As Told by Attendees. theplanner.guru learns more.

While there is a clear push for attendees to be together in-person, certified meeting professional, Liz Lathan, also the co-founder of Haute Companies, took exception to some of the experiences she was having at face-to-face events as a post-pandemic delegate. Through her company’s LinkedIn group, she asked for the worst personal gripes and experiences from event attendees to give planners and organisers insights from the other side. This led to the birth of The Attendee Bill of Rights: A Guide to Creating Attendee-First Experiences, As Told by Attendees.

“My biggest surprise from the responses has been that it confirms what I’ve been experiencing at the events I’m attending: People all want the same thing – to be around each other. They want to talk, they want to commiserate, they want to share, and they want to help each other. And yet the agendas are lots of keynote presentations trying to inspire them into action or addressing burnout. And while many of these events have expanded their coffee break to 30 minutes instead of 15, they are not helping to facilitate the conversations that the attendees want,” Liz notes in an interview with SkiftMeetings.

Her motivation for putting together the guide came from observing how the return of physical events was taking shape, and that many event professionals currently appear to be thinly stretched.

“Colleagues are quitting; our inputs come from at least seven different channels — SMS, email, WhatsApp, video conferences, phone calls, LinkedIn messages, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram DMs. To further complicate the job, we’re not just planning in-person events; we’re planning hybrid strategies, digital experiences, full-funnel audience acquisition, and follow-up. We’ve become copywriters, digital marketing experts, and contract negotiation gurus… I think we all understand how stressed everyone is, yet collectively, we know that we can’t just phone it in,” says Liz.

So, what is it that attendees need?

Here is a summary of our delegates’ expectations, according to The Attendee Bill of Rights: A Guide to Creating Attendee-First Experiences, As Told by Attendees:

Content

• Attendees have a right to know if the session will be (or include) a sales pitch.
• Attendees have a right to presenters who have worked in the industry and speak with clear examples and from experience.
• Attendees have a right to hear the content that was promised in the agenda.
• Attendees have a right to have speakers who will present, not read, their presentations.
• Attendees have a right to walk out of any session that doesn’t suit their needs.
• Attendees (and panellists) have a right to panel discussions with a manageable number of panellists (3 at max), so all voices can be heard.
• Attendees have a right to a variety of content, and not be in the same room in listen-only mode for more than 90 minutes.

F&B

• Attendees have a right to healthy and indulgent treats.
• Attendees have a right to have protein at breakfast.
• Attendees have a right to bring their own water bottles and fill them up at no cost.
• Attendees have a right to access the food and drinks (i.e. planners must order enough for everyone).

Experience

• Attendees have a right to access charging stations for devices (and not sit on the floor for it).
• Attendees have a right to useful swag, not landfill junk.
• Attendees have a right to spread out from their neighbours in the sessions and not have to sit hip-to-hip with others.
• Attendees have a right to be treated like people and not herded like cows.
• Attendees have a right to have their feedback used in the planning, not asked on a survey and ignored.
• Attendees have a right to access surface areas during networking to set plates and drinks on, shake hands and exchange cards.
• Attendees have a right to later session start times after the conference’s late-night party.
• Attendees have a right to available, clean, and stocked restrooms.
• Attendees have a right to complimentary WiFi.
• Attendees have a right to reasonable temperatures in the session rooms.

For the full interview with Liz and more information on The Attendee Bill of Rights: A Guide to Creating Attendee-First Experiences, As Told by Attendees, click here.