CHICAGO — Activations, marketing efforts that engage participants with memorable experiences, are becoming even more popular in the events industry. They excite attendees and draw attention to sponsors and key parts of an exhibition.
IMEX — which organizes events for meetings professionals — is no stranger to activations. IMEX America 2025, set for Oct. 7-9 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, will include a virtual baseball opportunity, an immersive mirror dome, a hologram experience and more cutting-edge activations.
Trade Show Executive’s (TSE) Young Professionals Corner connected with Oliver Bailey, Interaction Design at IMEX, to get activations tips for organizers.
“Events are an active medium and the kind of touchpoints that you get are very unique,” Bailey explained. “A well-thought-out strategy would think about all of those types of interactions — and every single touchpoint is an opportunity to either give a sense of feeling about your brand or try and influence the attendee in some way to enhance your other goals.”
How to Create a Powerful Activation
- Make Clear Goals
“Sit down and think from an experiential level: What do you want to achieve?” Bailey advised. “Then, if you are selling sponsorship against it, how can you do it in such a way that it helps you achieve and meet those goals?”
- Think About Who You Are Designing an Experience For — and its Context in Your Event
When planning an activation, Bailey encouraged organizers to think about energy levels at specific points of an event’s schedule, what style of clothing the average attendee will be wearing and what will likely interest them.
For example, a highly physical activation, such as a pickleball game, might fall flat if it is planned for a formal gala at the end of a busy day.
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- Develop Success Criteria
“First and foremost, how do you know if it’s worked? If you don’t have that in place, it’s worth stopping and thinking about it,” Bailey said.
IMEX America uses Bluetooth beacons, placed across the event, to make its show app location-aware. This helps them determine when attendees visit activations and how they are impacted by them, such as being inspired to visit specific booths or make appointments.
Also, it uses facial analysis technology — not to be confused with facial recognition technology — to try and determine how attendees respond to activations and more elements of the show.
- Make Activations Interesting for Everyone Involved, Not Just Their Participants
“A virtual-reality headset might be amazing for the person that’s got the headset on, but that’s going to be one person out of about 3,000,” Bailey said. “How do you do it in such a way that it’s still interesting to see another person interacting with that thing without necessarily wanting to do that? Because chances are you’ve got thousands of people coming to your event … For example, everybody at the sponsored activation by Major League Baseball at IMEX America will want to swing a bat, but lots of people will have fun watching others have a go.”
Activations Are Key in the Changing Consumer Landscape
According to Bailey, activations are growing more important in the events industry as consumer preferences shift more towards experiences instead of commodities.
“To stay healthy, current and relevant, the events industry will have to grow with that and embrace it,” Bailey said. “It’s great, because it’s going to make more exciting events and make events stronger. In a world where many tasks are going to become automated, there’s one thing that can’t be: basic human interactions … It’s a great time to jump on board because we’re still at quite an early stage of making our events truly interactive and experiential.”
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Photo Credit: IMEX
