Strategies to Create a Theme for Meetings and Events

Creating a theme for a meeting or event might sound like an easy job, but it actually requires a lot of professionalism and accuracy. As a Meeting/Event Planning Engineer of Exceptional Occasions, this was an early “reality check” for me. A meeting or event is your first means of communication with your audience. Proper care should to be taken to ensure the meeting or event carries the right message.

MEETING THEMES

Unlike when creating themes for events, themes for meetings are created more formally especially if it is a business meeting.

First and foremost when creating a theme for your meetings, you must have a unified storyline. It should not be ambiguous, you don’t want your attendees confused or get mixed messages about your theme. The theme should contain all the design elements. It should present the meeting in the form of an experience. It should also communicate a unified storyline that will completely intrigue the attendees.

The next step is to choose your theme’s tagline.  It must reinforce the key messages of the event that will be the clear call to action when everyone leaves. It is a challenge to continually come up with great meeting themes. But by following these basic concepts, every meeting theme created will be a perfect one. Another important point is the length and precision of theme. Make the theme as precise as possible by using few words that will communicate all the ideas needed to be known.

Another very important concept in creating a theme for meetings is to stay updated. Read the newspaper to see what the local news is saying about activities around, this might influence the choice of words for the theme.

EVENT THEMES

Event themes are less formal and so can be a little bit more dynamic. While choosing a theme for your event, try to be as neutral as possible by not to picking a theme that promote a religious, polarizing or political agenda. Just like in theme for meetings, avoid using phrases or words that are so broad that they lose all sense of meaning. Here are a few tips that will help make the event theme a successful one:

• Remember your goal and let your attendees know the importance of this event by making a clear statements.
• Always remember to add a descriptor as this will give your attendees some idea about the event you are calling them to attend. The descriptor will state if the event is a luncheon, silent auction, dance party, black tie dinner, and so on.
• Make sure your event’s theme is as broad and as abstract as possible. This prevents focusing on a particular group of people thereby attracting diverse group of people from different backgrounds.

If you’re still having difficulties creating a theme for your event, do a little community survey to check what people in your vicinity find intriguing. Themes created from such surveys are very likely to attract people.

Are You Ready…Kool? Partner with Exceptional Occasions, a seasoned professional meeting and event planning firm, to be sure that every aspect of your event goes off without a hitch!

Exceptional Occasions LLC, a full-service meeting and event planning firm.  We provide meeting and event concept development and design, financial management, site selection, venue/vendor selection and contract negotiation, marketing support.