The Future of Events is More Human - Deanna Vollmer, Questex

Josiah: What's going on in the world of events and what is one of the people who's on the forefront of event experience thinking about events today? Deanna Vollmer is the director of events and customer experience at Questex, the company behind some of the biggest events in the hospitality industry and beyond. They run the International Hotel Investment Forum and, as of next year, will be hosting the NYU Hospitality Conference. In this episode, we're going to go through Deanna's journey so far What makes events great, where she gets inspiration, and more.

Josiah: One of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you is how do you breathe some life into this space? I was talking to David Eisen, the editor-in-chief at Hotels Magazine, and he was talking a little bit about a lot of people saying the same thing every time - everybody acts the same and you get exhausted after those. How do you mix up an event? How do you do something special and creative? I think it was really cool to see you acquire the NYU Investment Conference and I'm excited to see next year what you'll do there. But it seemed like you have this track record of mixing it up a little bit.

Deanna: 1:19

One thing I love about my role here is that it gives me the opportunity to be creative. So, because I don't plan anymore, I focus more on the customer experience at our events. So what can we do to elevate the overall experience at our events? Yes, we're going to be disseminating killer content with keynotes and all that stuff and there will be networking, but what can we do to make it stand out? 

Josiah: 1:39

Maybe we could spend a couple of minutes talking about your career journey to your role today. Can you tell me about your role today and then we'll rewind the clock?

Deanna: 1:46

We're going to go back

Josiah: 1:48

Yeah! So today, what are you looking after here?

Deanna: 1:51

So I'm the director of events at Questex and I started here in July of 2021. It's been awesome. So my main focuses are the overall experience of our events, as an attending and as a partner. What are you looking to get out of attending one of our events? So what can we do to elevate and improve the experience? What new technologies can we implement? What activations can we add? Things like that, and what I love most about it is the ability to get creative and like really think outside of the box and bring new ideas to the table.

Josiah: 2:19

Awesome. Let's rewind the clock, and I'm always interested in people's journey to their role today. You said you had an interesting path to get to your role today.

Deanna: 2:26

Yeah. So actually when I was a junior in high school I was hell bent on going to SUNY Albany to the criminal justice school. I wanted to be a crime scene investigator, a forensic psychologist. I took psychology. I loved it. I took business law, i thought it was great. I sat in an FBLA conference in I think it was 11th grade. The guidance counselor's daughter was there and was talking about her experience in the hospitality industry, which I did not know what that was, and she did the Walt Disney World internship And I was like, wow, what's that? One thing I knew from a very young age was that I never wanted to be a Monday to Friday, nine to five, number crunching kind of girl. Just wasn't me, it wasn't my personality. I was working at a restaurant. I loved talking to people and interacting with people and I just knew it. So I've got cold feet. Right before I was supposed to go away to school and I decided to stay home for the first year And I went to CW Post on Long Island. And then I woke up one day after my first year and I said to my parents I said I'm changing schools, i'm declaring a major in hospitality And I went and I applied to New York Tech, which was right next to CW Post. I applied and got accepted, made a schedule all in one day. And then that's how I began in hospitality. That's a big day? Oh yeah, it definitely was. And then how I ended up my first job. Actually, my great-uncle, jerry, god rest his soul had a cousin who worked for McGraw Hill and she was a meeting planner and I knew nothing about what that was. So he God had to have been 80 years old was like oh, let me connect you with Mona, just talked to her. So when I was in college I had a conversation with her and she was telling me about what she did and I thought it was really appealing because she got to travel all over the world and I had always had that free spirit. So I had a conversation with her I was still in school and she was like just send me a resume. And I really didn't have much of a resume because I was in school and I was working at a restaurant for a couple of years. So I sent her my resume and then, when I ended up graduating school, i remember getting a phone call from someone saying we received your resume, we'd like for you to come in for an interview. I never heard of the company. Nothing never heard of the company. I never sent my resume off because I just it wasn't there. Yet It turns out that she had sent my resume across to someone at McVay Associates, which is now, I believe, mcvay Global Meetings and Events, and they wanted me to come in for an interview and I interviewed and I got the job and that's how I started in the industry. That's wild.

Josiah: 4:53

That's such a wild story. Just to pick up on one thing there, I think you know sometimes hospitality doesn't really communicate what a career in hospitality can look like, and so it's interesting you were in 11th grade. You said I was in 11th grade and here's somebody talk about hospitality and you think, okay, this is maybe if I think about what I want out of life, there might be a fit here.

Deanna: 5:11

And I had a great experience When I was in school. I got to study abroad for two summers. I was in Europe, Australia and Fiji. You can't really learn this industry out of a textbook. Like a lot of what I learned was hands-on experience. You know, I focused on food and beverage and travel tourism. I was going to wineries and breweries and doing food pairings, but that's part of the culture.

Josiah: 5:29

Yeah.

Deanna: 5:30

And then it opens your eyes to see this world is. It's so big and there's so many different cultures and there's, and that's what just makes this industry and this world, yeah, yeah.

Josiah: 5:41

Those are some pretty awesome destinations. If you think back to the roles that you've held in your career, how have some of those early experiences when you're in these destinations, when you're studying hospitality, how has that informed how you've thought about events, as you've kind of worked in these different events, roles in your career?

Deanna: 5:58

It really kind of. you just have to keep an open mind. So I've noticed that I used to plan an event in Shenzhen, China, every year. Planning an event in China is very different than planning an event in Germany, or planning an event in Mexico City, where we've done some work, or Canada or even the US. So you have to just keep an open mind to what are these people looking to achieve. Is there anything cultural that you have to take into consideration, like when you're thinking about menus and all that stuff? Do you need to offer translation? Is it going to be simultaneous? You're going to offer it in two languages? Are you going to have an app? Is the app going to be in both languages? It's like these things that you don't think about, but you have to.

Josiah: 6:34

It seems difficult when you're running a global operation like that You talk about, to whether it's an event in China, or one in Germany. How do you understand what's important to these customers, these guests, at these events, because the cultural differences are so different?

Deanna: 6:50

I think the most important thing at any event, wherever you are in the world, is bringing people together. It's the power of networking, the power of conversation, the power of communicating and the power of being in a room with like-minded individuals that you can connect with.

Josiah: 7:02

Has that become more important as time has gone on, especially coming out of the pandemic? Do you feel?

Deanna: 7:07

My personal opinion is 1,000%.

Josiah: 7:09

Yeah, Are you seeing this in your day-to-day work? You're getting a sense from people, My day-to-day yeah. You mentioned this focus on customer experience and that's really interesting to me because there are a lot of editorial considerations, you have to think about who's going to be speaking, But that experience is a feeling, right It seems. but you're the expert in this. How would you define customer experience in the context of events?

Deanna: 7:30

Looking back at it, what stood out? You're going to have the content, but was there something at the event that you attended that made it stand out from the rest, even if it was just what type of food was served? did they take into consideration the location? they were in? So wearing Philadelphia in September and will maybe offer some Philadelphia cheese steaks or something like that to really hone in on that experience.

Josiah: 7:56

It feels like a constant challenge especially in business events, to fight boredom. I think we've all been to so many conferences where it just feels like a snooze fest And you can't wait to get out of there.

Deanna: 8:06

And I know there are some people that they're there to learn and they're there to listen and I totally get that. But I feel like the days of PowerPoint presentations and 45 minutes to an hour discussions are the thing of the past And people want short, ted-style talks or fireside chat or things that are just more interesting and intriguing.

Josiah: 8:27

How do you stay inspired in terms of what's possible and what could be done? Because it feels like the sky's the limit in terms of designing these, whether it's a fireside chat. But how do you stay down into how is customer evolving?

Deanna: 8:39

So I love to attend events, even if it's just a networking event here in New York. I'm a firm believer in networking and the power of conversation and asking questions, so it's going to these events and it's hearing what other people are doing, hearing what cool ideas have they implemented, and also staying up to date on social media. Linkedin is a powerful tool and Instagram. I'm not a TikToker, even though they say that I should be, but yeah, I haven't gone down the TikTok rabbit hole and I'm trying to hold off as long as possible, but yeah, it's really just. It's attending events. It's reading articles in different blogs and stuff like that, just to see what people are doing And then bringing them back to the table and be like hey, listen, I saw this cool idea. If we can't do this, can we? how can we change it to make it fit into the scope of our events?

Josiah: 9:28

Yeah, and it feels like this is part of leadership in this kind of context. right Is being this sponge for the best ideas, but I feel back to what you were saying about the power of networking too. It also feels like some of these ideas and, I imagine, inspiration comes through conversations and comes through people, and sometimes that's digitally, but oftentimes it's gatherings in person where we're sharing this.

Deanna: 9:47

And sometimes for me, the best ideas that I come up with are when I'm not thinking about them. I could be, you know, walking down the street in the city and something will pop into my head And I have a brain dump section in my notes and my phone and I'll just jot it down And then when I get back to the office, I'm like, okay, what did I see? And I go back to that and I'm like, okay, can we do anything with that? But that's what makes it cool is that the world is your oyster.

Josiah: 10:12

It is, and I guess it shows the importance of just living life and being out there. And I'm a little bit jealous because you're going to a Billy Joel concert tonight Is there anything? I guess like that's an interesting and maybe underappreciated source of inspiration in live music events. Is there anything you've experienced watching live music that you've thought, hey, there's an element here that we can think about in a B2B?

Deanna: 10:34

So actually, yes, a year ago it may even be to date I went to the Coldplay concert at MetLife and it was absolutely incredible. If you've never seen Coldplay live, please do so. And they are really big into sustainability. and they had bikes that you can charge your phones, and it was. they had them on the ground and I think that's what they were, or maybe it was powering up some of the lights in the arena, but it was really cool And I saw that idea and I came back and I was like, can we do something like this at our event, whether it be from a sustainability standpoint or not, could get people up and out to exercise a little. I saw it for phone chargers. I've also seen it for powering up smoothies at a smoothie bar. So these are bikes. are they stationary bikes? They're stationary bikes that you can brand, so there's a branding element as well. But yeah, i was like to see that at a concert and then you can transfer it over to a B2B event. Okay.

Josiah: 11:33

I like that. Is there anything else? you think back to that Coldplay concert. Was there any other element of it that really stood out to you as being different?

Deanna: 11:41

You said it was a special moment. It was the first time I'd ever seen them in concert, so the whole thing was special, but they just had these insane lighting effects that just blew my mind, and we were outside on a beautiful summer night in MetLife. What more could you ask for?

Josiah: 11:56

I'm curious if you think we could maybe be a little more theatrical as an industry.

Deanna: 12:01

I think so. Yeah, i think there's always room for improvement, There's always room for creativity And of course, with this there's dollar signs associated to it. But if there's a will, there's a way. I feel like you can have this grand idea, but you don't necessarily have to. You can scale it down and still add little elements of flair.

Josiah: 12:19

As you focus on customer experience. I imagine there are a lot of businesses, people, and organizations that you talk with. I'm curious kind of what you're hearing in terms of what they're looking for when it comes to events.

Deanna: 12:30

They're looking to be different. People come to events, they exhibit at events Cool. But what can I do to be different? What can we do to make ourselves stand out? So we had someone last year do something as simple as a coffee cart. Who doesn't love coffee, who hates coffee at a convention center, who also doesn't love an iced coffee? So they did a coffee cart and it was an absolute hit. People got their coffee, the client got the leads in the contacts that they wanted And it was a win-win for everybody.

Josiah: 13:03

It's so interesting you mentioned that because I used to oversee a marketing team that ran events. We spent a lot of money on events And we often talk about events in the context of the guests, the people that are showing up to attend. But you think about the kind of production as underwritten by sponsors in these participating companies And they want to be different just as much because it's their brand on the line.

Deanna: 13:21

We had another client last year who had a claw machine that you would have at like a carnival.

Josiah: 13:26

A B2B event Uh-huh.

Deanna: 13:28

It was a claw machine and they had some company-branded swag in there, but they also had Amazon and Starbucks gift cards. So who again doesn't love Amazon or Starbucks? I'll get behind that, and it was great. What else did we have? We had a sound bath experience last year with massage chairs.

Josiah: 13:46

That sounds like just what I need after a lot of conferences.

Deanna: 13:50

One of our clients provided us with curated sound baths. All you needed to do was plug in your headphones. They were about 10 minutes and you just sat there in a massage chair. It was a way to just disconnect and decompress for 10 minutes in between sessions.

Josiah: 14:05

That seems like it is sort of a theme of kind of a little bit of the things that we talked about, where there needs to be like a wellness element too right, because we're just if we're just sitting there in a drab conference room watching a PowerPoint for 10 straight hours we're going to be shot. But I think there's a need and maybe coming out of the pandemic, I'm curious if you've seen anything around this where people are wanting more wellness incorporated into events.

Deanna: 14:26

A thousand percent. I've seen it. I know IMEX does it. IMEX has a whole mindfulness track where they have they bring someone in who runs meditations. It was fantastic. I feel like more event organizers need to be doing that. I would love to do an entire event on wellness. I love it.

Josiah: 14:46

We're recording this sort of midway through 2023. I think as you think into the rest of the summer, into the fall season, which tends to be really busy. What are you most excited about, or kind of looking forward to, in the work that you're doing?

Deanna: 14:59

I'm looking forward to having a successful fall event season. We floored our events live last year and in 2021, in addition to 2022, my division is launching a new event this November, which is exciting. So I'm really excited to kind of you know, to surpass our numbers and exceed expectations, And I think it's going to be a really exciting time.