Next week, The PPAI Expo will draw together promotional products professionals from across the globe in Las Vegas. They will be there for the latest products, ideas and best practices, but also to meet with friends and colleagues and forge new connections with their peers, clients and vendors.

The in-person experience is one of the most powerful aspects of The PPAI Expo, and as the world adapts to the new ways of working brought about by the pandemic, it has only grown more important.

Person To Person

Hybrid and work-from-home lifestyles have changed people’s relationships with in-person events. Businesses attitudes toward them have evolved as well, investing more to bring together often physically distant employees.

“The pandemic made people long to gather again in-person, personally and professionally,” says Doug Binder, corporate event management expert and author. “We learned, maybe for the first time, how human connection affected us on a visceral and emotional level. I think we’re seeing a bounce right now back to in-person events. People are craving it.”

Event organizers are recognizing the role their programs can play in bringing oftentimes remote employees and event attendees together. They fill a void created by closed or infrequently visited offices and the lack of time together, face-to-face.

“At the risk of sounding arrogant, technology cannot replicate a handshake, real eye contact and visual cues, and other triggers like smell and touch,” says Binder. “All of those things bolster human connection that leads to friendship, partnerships and collaboration. But, as technology always does, it finds a way to come close.

“The virtual experience might just be more effective in delivering messaging and information without the distractions of business travel: noise, distance and new surroundings, not to mention, predictable inconveniences.”

Face-To-Face Today

For a sizable percentage of the workforce, working from home is expected to continue after the pandemic. With signs that remote work isn’t growing professional networks as much as in-person employment, conference and trade show organizers will continue to have a new need to fulfill.

“Just a few years ago, almost any business event was considered an in-person event,” says Binder. “Being in-person was central to its purpose, even if there was a hybrid/virtual option. These days, an in-person event feels like a big deal: ‘I’m going to hug people and eat nice meals and collect samples hear from smart leaders and visionaries – all very human and multi-sensory.’

“Even though I believe hybrid will be the norm for forever, attending ‘in-person’ might confer status, either through exclusivity or as an incentive.”

A recent trend in conference design has been creating events that are “more than a conference.” Organizers are adding more social and experiential elements. PPAI events, including The PPAI Expo, have, for a long time, incorporated experiential aspects. Examples include:

  • In Las Vegas, there’s the annual Power Of Two event and pop-ups on the show floor.
  • The North American Leadership Conference has taken attendees to places like Alcatraz and AT&T Stadium.
  • The Product Responsibility Summit provides tours of the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s testing laboratories and the Port of Long Beach.

“There are so many sensorial triggers that fire during a few days travelling to an event,” says Binder. “Technology has come a long way, but it has not come close to replicating how it feels to be in a crowd or an intimate one-on-one with a colleague or leader. I think we’ll always have a hybrid option for virtual attendees, but I don’t see how it will match the in-person experience.”