You don’t have to be a science fiction nerd to enjoy the event that is the movie Avatar.  If you haven’t seen it you soon will be one of the only ones. It is a movie event not to be missed.  What can we learn from this Movie event?   In our economy, obviously companies and associations don’t have 500 million laying around for their next event.  Now, more than ever we are in a mode of showing return on investment for attending or putting on meetings and events.

We are in a time of low attendance at movie theatres just like we are experiencing at events/meetings.   Avatar made going to the movies, a must see. It is a memorable event which engaged the audience for the whole experience.   Avatar took some risks on how it’s “always done” and it paid off big.  How can you take some strategic risks to engage your audiences? Use new innovative concepts or break the mold with new event technology?

Here are some ideas I put together about James Cameron and his team who designed the whole Avatar event.  I hope it might spark some dialogue for you and your meeting professional friends & teams.

1) Story

The movie Avatars actual story is pretty typical:  heroes and villains.  But it has a solid theme and engages you for the full 2.5 hours of the movie. This comes from storytelling, planning and pacing. Avatar left no stone unturned and the presentation was really well thought out.  Event organizers and speakers can learn from this.  Put yourself in the shoes of your attendees and tell them a story.  Make them comfortable and deliver the story in the most engaging and impactful way possible.  What is the theme of your event as a whole? How can you make a story out of it to engage attendees?  You might feel uneasy too bring it up in the planning meeting, but someone needs to step forward and start the creative conversation.   What sort of action are you looking from your audience when they walk out the door at the end of the conference? Are you presenting problems and then solutions for your audience?

One awesome thing I saw with the marketing of Avatar is the big story behind the story.  Not about the movie itself, but how it was made.   The story surrounding the making of this epic movie took on a life of its own. This was the talk of many articles in all sorts of magazines and the web.  Building excitement and drama.  Would the high cost be a bomb?  The side story of the brash James Cameron taking his Titanic money and doing it his own way, giving mainstream Hollywood a run for its money really build the buzz.  This moved the Avatar brand much faster, got the media and people talking about it before anyone saw the first Pandora resident.  (Pandora is where the movie takes place) Of course the movie had to deliver and it did.  Great use of stories to build buzz. Think about drama or story you can put around an event or meeting.  What will get your attendees excitied.

2) Environment

James Cameron broke the old mold of bringing a new type of movie to the theatres. Not many theatres can show the film in 3-D so he made different versions of the digital prints for all types of theatres. The movie is beautiful. Plus ask anyone and they will say if you haven’t seen it in 3-d then you really haven’t experienced it.  Then the next person will say if you haven’t seen it in  3-D IMAX giant screen you are missing out.  So this means people will see it once or twice before the dvds come out.   As Maartin Vanneste talks in his book Meeting Architecture you must have an architect for the content and experience of the attendees.  Someone has to lead the event.  All the wonderful food and comfortable venues is really important but what do you want your audience to see and feel? Most ballrooms are built for weddings. Those giant Chandlers are testament to the fact. How can you make the room reflect your story?   How can you immerse them in an environment to help them absorb the messages or content?  What innovative concepts can you infuse?  Spend an equal or more time developing the story and environment of the event or meeting.  Can you make sure the look and feel of the event is impactful and special?  James Cameron used 3-d and rich visuals to transport us to another place where we learned all about this strange world of Pandora. Think about your next presentation or stage; build and environments around your content. Play off the environmental design; Make it rich in visuals not text.  Use video, audio and images to cement ideas and points. Use technology to engage and inform and get your attendees talking and setting the stage about the environment you are presenting. When I saw Avatar it was a total event.  The large IMAX screen at the Metron in San Francisco the full audience and that exciting buzz.  It was a total experience.

3) Experience

Today just leaving the house for any reason has to be event based. With blue ray players, the internet, cable, everything can been seen, bought from home. James Cameron designed something that made people go to the theatre in droves.  Event professionals need to keep this in mind. Make every event an experience by knowing what your audience wants and listen to them. Be creative.  What do you want attendees to walk away with? This is where listening comes in and the internet has many free and paid listening tools for this. You can build a dedicated audience using these tools.  Listen in to your audiences with easy to set up tools like Google Alerts,

Twitter search, Twendz.  Use the free Google Analytics tools to see where your audience is coming from and go there and listen. I did a tutorial with Radian6 a while back and it was a simple listening tool and gave me more information about my industry and events then I could ever use.  But was fantastic! Listen and build the experience.

4) Technology

You can’t escape the technology these days. It is not going away and will become more prevalent in events and meetings to extend the content of events before and after and during the face to face meeting. Embrace it.  James Cameron’s team utilized some unbelievable technology to design and produce Avatar.  You are dropped into a 3-D world of amazing visuals and excitement.  But Cameron’s team also utilized the web to build community and buzz around the event before it was even released.  Are you dipping your toes in Social Media and the web for your events or conferences?  Are you keeping up to date on the new technology to educate and engage in your sessions?  What about taking audience polls, using video and animations to provide for all types of learning? Always searching for new technologies is so important. Especially to engage younger audiences. The are rapidly going to be your audiences soon. So start experimenting.

Are you thinking about a mobile application for smart phones? Games for mobile devices?  How about a game for all the gaming consoles homes these days? Getting the budget to produce these types of media for your event might be out of reach but it will get cheaper.  Good thing about many of these new tools is they are updatable.  Maybe you could use it year round. Ramp up before the next meeting with updates to the technological tools. Might be a great way to engage audiences. Think about included twitter feeds, audio, video podcasts, streaming and community forums.  My friend Gary Rosenzweig  has been making games for all sorts of companies.  What a great way to have your attendees learn your content.  Build a game around it! Embrace technology.

5) Social Media and the Internet-

Avatar utilized social media and the web to build a community and buzz about the event like seasoned gorilla marketers.  Avatar made these tools focusing on the opening of the movie Avatar to be a can’t miss event.  You can use these same tools below for your event or conference and most are free.  Your costs will be the time build strategy, the community and keeping them alive by being there engaging and listening to your event or meetings community.  I know it will pay dividends for you.  Most of all, experiment with different strategies. Many new companies are becoming specialists in this area for events. I heard some very cool things from a company called Velvet Chainsaw (Jeff Hurts new employer)

this week that are moving in the direction of providing solutions for events and conferences in this new area.

What did Avatar exactly do via Social Media?

Facebook page: Facebook is rapidly changing to fit your business needs. They have new updated features making it very easy for your attendees to engage and interact around your event.  Plus unlike most other web tools everybody seems to be on Facebook from your grandma to your 12 year old.  Avatar has 700k members that James Cameron’s team engages with.  Last year David Merman Scott had an excellent post about a conference that utilized Facebook to increase attendance. 

 Twitter page:  Is a newly adopted event technology and a great way to connect with your audience to get them spreading your message.  Make sure you have a conference hashtag and is it available on all web and printed materials so your audience can start the conversation as soon as possible.

 Webcasts: James Cameron teamed up with MTV/Facebook to use a webcast where questions were submitted by a virtual audience and James Cameron and some of the stars were interviewed.   Are you doing pre conference webcasts, podcasts, videocasts to start engagement with your audience?  Build the community this way. Have a few webcasts to build awareness and engagement. They are a great way to listen to your audience and have a two-way communications channel to start testing your events story, and make sure you are on the right path.

 Live Streaming: One very cool thing is utilizing free streaming technology.  Avatar used the free service UStream for the red carpet premiere of the movie so fans could feel the excitement live.  Think about streaming your event to attendees who cannot attend.  This will build your attendance if it is a good event because people will want to be there in person. Trust me, nobody would like to sit in front of a computer for a whole event instead of actually attending. So build use it to build awareness and community.  Many have chat rooms attached to the service so make sure you interact with the virtual audience. Some live streaming methods: iphone, Quik, Justintv, livestream, vivu.tv. Ask your production company about ways you can do this to get the quality you are looking for. Many paid options are out there also which buys you more quality and piece of mind.

6) Avatars are blue but green people are also needed-

One of Avatars messages is environmental destruction.  I don’t want to write any spoilers in case you haven’t seen the movie but just don’t take from the city you are visiting. Or in Avatars case, the planet you are visiting for your event or meeting.  Don’t fly in with your big carbon footprint, extra large shoes and trash the city you are holding your conference or meeting in.  Be as green as possible. Community service is always a great way to give back. In the movie Avatar character played by Sigourney Weaver is trying to do this with the Navi people.  You already know to reduce your carbon footprint, recycle, use local foods, turn off air conditioning in ballrooms at night. (and your hotel room when you leave it) Water stations instead of plastic bottles etc. If you want some tips on this contact Johanna Walsh or Midori Connolly who are my green people friends. I am constantly learning from them both. And they both live here on earth.

Some other ideas (not Avatar related) 

If your meeting or event is corporate having a Linkedin group is a good idea. Flickr which is an image based community is also a great way drive traffic to your event.  Plus a great place for your attendees to find pictures from past events and current ones.  Make sure you have a YouTube channel— YouTube is the second most popular search engine on the internet.  I heard recently from Brett Bumeter that Google search is reading the titles in videos now.  So think about putting as much content on your free channel on Youtube as you can.  A great way for your community to find more information and get educated and informed about your event.  Remember use the conference #hashtag. Hav it on everything print collatoral to email signatures.  Another huge add is community based software that can be attached to your site.  MPI uses Pathable.com and a conference I recently attended PCMA in Dallas Crowdvine was fully utilized.  They are great ways to engage your audience. You can make direct connections to other attendees, start conversations, and work out your schedule.

So in closing this out hopefully you will take some of these tools and build on ideas to infuse story, emotion, environmental experiences, event technology, social media to build community, education  and engagement in your upcoming events.   Maybe take some risks like James Cameron did with technology and story. It seems to be paying off for him.  He spent 500 million to make the Avatar movie.  He had a 232 Million dollar opening weekend and it made one billion dollars by the end of 2009.  I think it is the highest grossing film of all time at the time of this posting.

What if you were able to have a 500 million budget for your next meeting? (or 500 Thousand?)  What risks would you take?  Iove to hear if you have used any of these tools at your event or meeting?

Maybe come tell me in person next week at EventCamp Feb 6th in New York City at the Roger Smith Hotel?

Should be an awesome time learn, share and converse about social media, event technology and the innovative concepts we all want our events and meetings to utilize!

Also, go see Avatar. If you need someone to go with you call me. I would love to see it again.

Cheers!

Mike