The 2017 Experiential Marketing Summit

ATN Event Staffing at the 2017 Experiential Marketing Summit

Recently I represented ATN Event Staffing at the Experiential Marketing Summit in Chicago.  It was my first time in attendance and somewhat of a dream come true having always heard about during my road days as a Tour Manager. It was a whirlwind of an event with many highlights!

ATN Event Staffing had the honor of sponsoring the opening reception on Wednesday evening, which took place before the Ex Awards.  

We chose to engage attendees with our bread and butter, the best Brand Ambassadors Chicago has to offer, expertly sourced by ATN’s and Chicago’s own Jessica Torres. We entertained guests with a classic game of bags, which was a huge hit. We gave away several gifts including a gigantic branded tin of Chicago’s famous Garrett’s Popcorn, Chicago Cubs Tickets and an exclusive quarterly wine membership from one of California’s best wineries. 24 bottles of wine for one lucky duck and their office team! Oh, and we also made it rain free staffing credits as a nice incentive to try us out because we’re so confident (not cocky) in our abilities.

ATN sends special congrats to partners Pop2Life  for winning “Best Use of Guerilla Marketing Street Team”…yup, we staffed those Yetis!  

Congratulations to the many Ex Awards winners that you can check out here. http://www.eventmarketer.com/ex-awards-winners/

The exhibit hall (solutions center) was cozy and well laid out. Most of the time it was less than busy when attendees were buzzing around between learning sessions. When the coffee or drinks were flowing, it was jammed like an activation during a t-shirt toss. There were a ton of technology vendors, event furniture, build and design partners and of course, staffing partners like ATN! You can see much of the action from the Highmark display (photo).

The learning sessions were happening at a rapid pace throughout the day. Do you know what a chatbot is? I sure didn’t, but now I know that I’ve interacted with one and they sure are convincing! During his session about Chatbots, Scott Sheppard of Mozeus referenced BA’s during his presentation, saying “we all know how hard it is to get people to download an app on their phone on the spot, free or not.”

The IBM keynote was amazingly well executed by Colleen Bisconti, VP-Global Events at IBM. Almost as cool as diamond teams and ROI was that ATN had the pleasure of staffing several of the programs highlighted in Colleen’s keynote (World of Watson and SXSW). IBM runs about 6,000 events each year, WOAH!

Check out the full Keynote here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XDozwY3qSw

Overall, the Experiential Marketing Summit was an awesome experience. It was great to see many old friends and make new ones and of course spread the news about ATN Event Staffing’s awesome full-service capabilities and team. One thing is for sure, the experiential marketing industry is alive and well, which should mean good things for all. We’re looking forward to next year in San Francisco!