When you look at the schedule for a conference, what is the first thing you see and think “Yeah, I’ll skip that session”. Or “Ugg, not that again?!”.
Roundtable discussions.
But the truth is, round tables can lead to good discussions, if they are moderated correctly. They lead to the discussion and networking that attendees crave.
But roundtables are met with hesitation because we all get anxious when we know we are going to have to talk about a particular idea or topic. So for our Unique Venues Annual Marketing Conference, we took the round table discussions to the next level.
We combined our roundtables with speed dating and equal parts musical chairs. Attendees were given 9 tables to choose from with only 4 topics to select. They were given 18 minutes at each table and were then told to switch when the buzzer went off. The musical chairs component came in the fact that when the chairs at a table were all taken, you had to move to the next table. It made people engage quickly in conversations, facilitate discussions on the topic, and gain take aways from multiple topics so that they could connect after the round tables were over.
These musical chair style roundtables left attendees saying "I loved the roundtables and would have loved to have more time for this session".
Now THAT is the kind of feedback any event planner wants to hear about a session, especially round tables. How are you mixing up your sessions to keep attendees engaged?
