Considerable opportunities abound for event organizers skilled in the ability to satisfy people’s increasingly insatiable appetite for connection.
In this article, I combine years of global event-design experience with the latest academic design-research and insights from a wide-ranging mix of event organizers, strategists, and practitioners to break down the nature of the opportunity and outline how you can make the most of it.
An opportunity long in the making and open for the taking
The world is craving connection.
Feeling let down by the broken promises of social media, witnessing increased polarization in practically every public domain, and living lives or working in jobs that are becoming increasingly isolated and remote, people’s appetites for authentic, in-person, human connections with new kinds of people has never been stronger.
Looking to satisfy what is ultimately a fundamental human need—the need for connection—people are (re)turning, in millions, to events.
“It’s the biggest factor,” explains Gabby Aludo, co-founder of Vibes in the Park. “It’s what people are coming for. It’s filling a void.”
The events people seek, however, are not necessarily those that were in-demand before the pandemic. The make-it-different-and-they-will-come philosophy that was undoubtedly effective in the 2010s is no longer enough.
Sure, eventgoers still crave novelty and spectacle. They want to feel special. They want to capture and share what they experience as a reflection of their identity.
But increasingly, they also want more.
“Some people try so hard to create unique, once-in-a-lifetime, bespoke experiences that they often fall short,” explains Maggie Spicer, experience strategist and founder at WHISK, a brand strategy and hospitality design agency. “Because there ends up being so much attention on the ‘umbrella’ of the experience, that connectivity is lacking.”
Event organizers who thrive in this new age will be those who are intentional about designing and delivering experiences where experiential novelty is not an end in itself, but a means to a greater end. The winners will be those who shift their perspective from seeing human connections as a by-product of a unique event experience, to recognizing human connectivity as the primary factor that drives the event concept, design process, and value proposition.
“For me, connectivity is the principal purpose for having an event,” explains Colin Campbell, innovation ecosystems architect at Nectis, a UK-based agency specializing in network optimization for innovation. Larissa May—founder of Half the Story, a leading digital wellbeing movement for the next generation—shares this sentiment.
“If there’s no connection, there’s no event!”
Larissa May, founder of Half the Story
While this shift represents a huge opportunity for event organizers willing to think and act differently, it’s not as easy as it first appears. Just as the factors outlined above fuel the demand for connection-centric events, other factors are simultaneously challenging event-goer’s abilities to make and maintain the connections they seek.
If you, as an event organizer, can understand and either amplify or mitigate these factors, you will be perfectly positioned to consistently deliver value to your newly motivated attendees.
We gather to connect
Humans—as the saying goes—are a social species. Feeling a sense of connection to others is a fundamental human need. This need drives an important human behavior that underpins the entire existence of the events industry. Humans are gatherers, and I don’t mean gathering in the sense of foraging. I mean gathering in the sense of getting together. We refer to such gatherings as “events.”
The reason events are so powerful at connecting people is that they create shared experiences. Shared experiences, in turn, create common ground. And it is on common ground that people find each other, literally and metaphorically, despite their differences.
When completely different people share an experience, they then have something in common. Having things in common is a powerful connecting force. Numerous studies have shown that even trivial commonalities, like sharing the same birthday or being told someone else likes the same type of abstract art, lead to people behaving more favorably towards each other.
“I think that is where the biggest value for human connection comes from. When you create an environment where people that would otherwise not meet organically get to know each other.”
Kitty Leering – experience designer and programme curator at DutchBlend
Humans have been gathering since the dawn of time. Our very early ancestors gathered mostly for reasons of safety and access to food. Today, with safety risks greatly diminished and food easily accessible from a local market or online retailer rather than a community hunting exercise, we gather at events for other reasons. What has not changed since those early days? Regardless of the practical intention of getting together, we still gather to connect.
The lives of early humans were social by design. They lived in small, close-knit social groups. There was less of a need to seek out connection as a separate activity. Fast-forward to today, and many people live in partial isolation. Proportionally few people live in the neighborhoods where they grew up. People are increasingly transient, moving to other parts of the country or the world in search of opportunity. And those opportunities, especially in the context of work, are themselves increasingly isolated, with more companies embracing hybrid or even completely remote work models.
“In their daily lives, many people just aren’t making the connections they need,” explains Marquita René, founder of Black Velveteen Yoga.
Your guests’ motivations to connect at your events can be explicit—with a specific person or goal in mind—or implicit, where it’s more about being part of a group.
When the connectivity-related motive is explicit, guests are typically seeking to fill a gap or solve a problem. For example, networking and dating events are generally designed to help participants find a specific type of person, from a co-founder or investor to a romantic partner.
When implicit, guests may not have a specific problem or type of person in mind. This implicit motivation is described beautifully by Gabby Aludo as, “looking to be around people who represent themselves, in order to feel seen and to feel like ‘they get me and are welcoming me into this space’.”
The better you’re able to help your guests satisfy their need for connection, the more value you’ll deliver and the better their experience will be. They’ll be more likely to come back. Perhaps more importantly, they’ll be more likely to share their experience and tell others about what you do. This is also true when a person’s intentions are transactional.
“Even in the most commercial events, you still have this. You have to connect first with people at a personal level before you can do so at a business level.”
Kitty Leering
A common misconception is that it’s the content—the entertainment, keynote or activity—that is of most value to your guests, when it’s often the connections they make while engaging in that content that prove most valuable. A good way to reframe your thinking is that content provides immediate sensory value, whereas connections can provide multiple forms of value for weeks, months, or even years into the future.
If it’s so important, why is it so dificult?
A central paradox of human connectivity is that although people recognize connections to others as fundamentally important for both practical and social reasons, most people struggle to connect with others, at least in certain situations.
In an events context, your guests are prone to behave in counterintuitive and counterproductive ways.
“People need a road map to connection. Because, unfortunately, it’s more second nature as opposed to human nature nowadays.”
Larissa May
Counterintuitively, even though eventgoers say they participate in events to make new connections, studies have found that many people tend to seek out those they already know. And counter productively, other research has shown that in certain situations people believe they would have a better time keeping to themselves, but when nudged to engage with others, they report a more positive experience.
The primary reason people struggle to connect with others at your events—or in almost any other context, for that matter—has to do with a deep-seated fear of rejection. In early human times, being rejected by a group had dire consequences, including predation or starvation. While being rejected by a group today generally doesn’t lead to those same outcomes, our primal brain still thinks it might.
In other words, when it comes to connecting with new people, eventgoers have the odds stacked against them. Signals from their primal brains warn them of potential harm. And unfortunately, those signals seem to be getting stronger due to ongoing geo-cultural trends like continued globalization, so participants at your events are increasingly likely to be different from each other, culturally or professionally. This is critical because humans are known to be cautious of others who appear different from themselves.
This sense of caution is greatest for those who aren’t naturally social, which is a larger percentage of your guests than you may anticipate.
“Many events are still designed for extroverts. And as a result, introverts and ambiverts can feel left behind.”
Maggie Spicer, founder at WHISK
Here lies the central challenge for you as an event organizer.
You design events that may attract all kinds of people. Even if your guests don’t realize it, part of their motivation for attending your event is to connect or share an experience with others. At the same time, because the potential for rejection—which is immediate and painful—is more salient than the potential long-term value of connection, your guests may gravitate towards the safety of people they already know, or avoid connecting altogether. Eventgoers need support in connecting. That’s where you come in.
A mindset shift: from intuitive to intentional
Supporting connections between eventgoers at events has historically been an afterthought, or at least a lower priority than delivering a unique experience. This is understandable.
Throughout the so-called “experience age,” there was an almost insatiable hunger for all things weird, wild, and wonderful. Fueled by the exponential growth of social media platforms and the proliferation of smartphones—when everyone had a camera in their pocket—people demanded sensational over social, preferring Instagrammability over interactivity.
Since the end of the last decade, and particularly since emerging from the pandemic, the general mood has changed. As highlighted in Eventbrite’s 2024 Trend Report, while eventgoers still seek quality, unique experiences that make them feel special, demand has grown for authentic experiences that allow people to show up as themselves. People seek out events where they can connect with others who are different to them, but still share their interests and values. To be effective in satisfying this growing need, event organizers need to adopt a connection-centric mindset.
Adopting this new mindset comes naturally for some, but not all. Most event organizers don’t have formal training in sociology, psychology, or even in experience design. Instead, you’re more likely someone who is passionate about a topic, activity, or place.
Alongside your day job, you started gathering people to share in your passion and, as the saying goes, you put the cart before the horse. Your idea began leading a life of its own. Your contacts started telling their contacts, so your community grew. Soon, you were seeing more new faces than familiar ones. Connecting people wasn’t a priority. You focused on your passion, while the connections sort-of happened by themselves.
Now you’re at a point where you want to take your events to the next level. Maybe you even want to quit your job or go part-time to focus on your event concept. You’ve seen the positive impact your events have had on people, and you want to do more.
People seek out events where they can connect with others who are different to them, but still share their interests and values. To be effective in satisfying this growing need, event organizers need to adopt a connection-centric mindset.
Achieving success in this next phase of your concept’s growth requires a mindset shift from the intuitive approach that has served you well up to now, to a more intentional approach that will help you make the right decisions and focus on the right things.
It means being intentional about understanding the connectivity-based needs of your growing community, and ensuring the events you create are satisfying those needs in the best way possible. It means defining success in the eyes of your guests, and intentionally seeking feedback in more organized ways to know how you’re doing.
This intentional approach to human connectivity will do more than just deliver value to your guests. It will create a kind of stickiness that keeps them coming back. It will transform them from eventgoers into evangelists.
Your role as Creator, Conductor and Connector
As a first step in being intentional about human connectivity, you should consider the different role(s) you play in the context of your events. Think about how each role brings with it a different set of connectivity-related objectives. Most event organizers assume a combination of three distinct roles, namely: Creator, Conductor, and Connector.
Creator
In your Creator role, you are focused on your overall event concept and the value it delivers to your participants at the highest level.
“I think about what the total experience is going to be, in order to make a real impact.”
Vanessa Flowers, creator of Flower Girls Meet
What you create and how it’s communicated will affect the types of guests you attract and the mindset they arrive with. This means being thoughtful and intentional. It means blending the operational aspects of organizing events with the creative aspects of designing experiences, what Maggie Spicer refers to as the “nitty-gritty of architecting the experience.”
It means being clear about what you’re creating and who you’re creating it for, acknowledging biases, and removing pain points or sources of friction to ensure all your guests feel comfortable, included, and welcome.
Conductor
In your Conductor role, you decide how all the different components of your event will come together. If creating is about establishing the concept and setting the right stage, conducting is about intentionally facilitating (inter)action between the various components of your event.
“I look to orchestrate an evening where all the details are thought through in advance, similar to the concept of the Japanese philosophy of omotenashi,” explains Maggie Spicer. Omotenashi is about going above and beyond, anticipating guests’ needs before they do.
Conducting involves the design of the space itself and how people are able to flow through it. When I was running my global social experiment, Wok+Wine, I sought to “maximize collisions and minimize bottlenecks.” I ensured guests moved through the space so they would naturally bump into each other, but never get stuck in any one place.
Conducting can also include the activities you design into the experience which prompt, nudge, or otherwise provide people with opportunities to connect.
Connector
In your Connector role, you are hands on, literally connecting eventgoers with one another. As the host, your guests look to you as the source of connections, believing you probably know everyone. Depending on the size of your event, it may not be possible to spend time with more than 20 or 30 people over the course of an event. That said, your actions will be noticed, and your guests will follow your lead.
Being effective in your connector role requires taking a genuine interest in who attends your events and thinking of ways you can add value to them by personally supporting them in making the connections they seek.
Real success is achieved when you begin sharing your roles or even delegating them to others.
“We always have cheerleaders, like fun people at the front, and then we have people walking around doing the same thing that we would do – just meeting people and starting conversations.”
Tiffany Taylor-Ross, co-founder at Vibes in the Park
The more you can involve your guests, the more powerful this becomes. Not only does it give them a greater sense of ownership over the experience, but it also helps demonstrate your intentionality. You lead by example, and then so do they.
Zooming out: Events as journeys, not moments
Another important mindset shift you should make to maximize the connectivity potential of your events is to see them as journeys, not moments. Thinking (and acting) in this way can deliver ongoing benefits to yourself, your organization, and the people you do it all for—your guests.
In broad terms, events can be thought of in three phases: pre-event, the event itself, and post-event. It is the cumulative effect of all three phases working together that translates into maximum connectivity-related value for your guests.
Pre-Event
In the pre-event phase, there are multiple things you can be thinking about to support your guests’ connections.
This sentiment is shared by Colin Campbell. “Connectivity begins well before the event. It has to do with who you’re involving in order to organize the event, where the space is and how it feels, the architectural setup of it, and how you’re enabling individuals to engage more effectively.”
You need to be clear on your overall event concept and how you design, market, and communicate it. What expectations do you want to set?
“I often like to say that the connections begin before you even make it through the door. Giving people context for connections is really critical.”
Larissa May
When the Vibes in the Park team are planning their events, they share openly with their community. “As we’re making decisions, we’re also putting out little fillers on Instagram,” explains Tiffany Taylor-Ross. “So, when you’re at home, you can think, ‘Okay, this is the tone they’re setting’.”
Involving your audience early will influence the types of people you attract to your events. It will ensure they arrive in the right state of mind, and it will deepen their collective sense of ownership of the experience. You can also be thinking about the potential of pre-connecting participants, either for promotional purposes (e.g. “invite a friend”) or to set people up with a buddy to arrive with. The pre-event phase is your moment to capture relevant data about participants’ needs and expectations, to facilitate omotenashi, and ensure everyone feels equally included.
“At one of our events we went so far as to ask people in advance how they took their coffee. Our goal was to have people feel welcome and at ease when they arrived, so they wouldn’t feel anxious or awkward entering a room where they didn’t know anyone.”
Maggie Spicer
The Event Itself
How you support guest-connectivity during the event itself will largely depend on the scale and nature of your event. Remember, you have been living and breathing your concept for weeks, months, or even years… but for your guests it may be a completely new experience. What’s obvious to you won’t necessarily be obvious to them. They’ll be looking to you for cues regarding how things work and what’s expected of them. They may even be looking for more hands-on support, such as introductions to others.
“I go around and try to say hello to everyone for the first 30 minutes of the event, Because I find that I am the tie to the community.”
Tiffany Taylor-Ross, co-founder at Vibes in the Park
Remember that your guests will want to connect, but left to their own devices, their behavior will likely be counterproductive and counterintuitive. Provide them with the permission they need to connect and the support to do so.
“Personalization at an event is really important,” says Larissa May. “So people feel like they’re part of something bigger, but they can still find something that’s for them.”
Communicate clear expectations and be creative about the activities, props, and other tools you may use to facilitate connectivity. Involve your guests by sharing your connector role, so you have more people actively connecting others.
Post-Event
The post-event phase is a critical but largely overlooked part of the event journey. You’ve done the clean-up, packed away your gear, and the lights have dimmed.
There can be a tendency to breathe a sigh of relief and unplug. You had a great time but you’re glad it’s over and done with. This is when you need to be fully switched on, since this is where the biggest gains in human connection can often be made.
Your guests are primed. They are grateful for the experience you created for them. They didn’t want it to end, and they’d do anything to make it last a little longer. They want to give back to you. Don’t miss this opportunity.
“We let people give us feedback and we feed off of that. We’re not going to change our complete image, but what are people saying? What are they wanting? What are we hearing? So the next time we bring them into another environment, we’ve listened, and they can feel that,”
Tiffany Taylor-Ross, co-founder at Vibes in the Park
If you’re intentional about human connectivity, as long as your approach is authentic, you can create a perfect win: one where your guests are able to prolong their experience, and do you a huge favor at the same time.
Supporting your guests with ways to become and remain connected will transform them from eventgoers to evangelists, motivating them to introduce your concept to new people in their own networks. People who in turn will become your future guests… and your existing guests’ future connections.
10 key takeaways for event organisers
Huge opportunities await event organizers who create experiences which help guests connect effectively and authentically. Achieving success in this new era of event creation requires a deep understanding of changing guest needs and increased intentionality in event design. It requires shifting your perspective from seeing the experiential aspect of what you create not as the end, but as the means to a greater end—human connection. Here are ten key takeaways to support forward-thinking event organizers looking to amplify your impact and grow your business in this new era of event creation:
- Prioritize human connectivity as a core objective of event design.
- Be clear about connectivity-related objectives. Start with those of your guests and make sure they align with your own.
- Your participants have likely never been more diverse. Be wary of biases and assumptions, and help them to find commonalities despite their differences.
- Consider your unique and distinct roles in the context of your event. Think about how you might include or delegate certain roles to others to amplify your efforts.
- Your participants won’t always behave in their own best interests. An intentionally designed experience can help them get over their apprehension and connect naturally.
- If you’re using technology, see it as a way to enhance, not replace, human connections.
- Use content as a stimulant, not a safety-net. People are fantastic entertainment, so long as you create the conditions for them to be themselves.
- Your participants will help you connect with others, providing you include them and give them something worth sharing.
- Think in terms of journeys, not moments, and don’t forget to design for the moments-in-between.
- Quantity is a short game. To win the long game, focus on quality.
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