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all in the family
 We are looking for ways to grow the attendance at our annual user conference and to entice attendees to spend more time at the event. One of the ideas we’re exploring is to make the event family friendly. But we’re just not sure if explicitly welcoming or incorporating families is worth the effort it will require. Plus, we’re struggling to identify potential conference and event programs that will integrate families into the proceedings more seamlessly than the usual “Bring Your Spouse” add-on dinner. Whatever we try, we want it to blend well with the overall program and not detract in any way from the conference’s business focus and objectives.
Have other event managers done this successfully? If so, what kinds of activities have they planned? And have their efforts paid off?
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shared experiences build connections
Incorporating family into a corporate event is not only an effective way to increase attendance, it also provides a fantastic platform for building meaningful, shared experiences with clients that lead to deeper professional connections. If your company has a family-friendly culture, including families at your corporate events clearly promotes those professional values, too.
When I was the corporate events manager at Arthur Andersen in Chicago several years ago, I developed family-oriented appreciation events for the firm’s clients and prospects. For one such event we rented the Field Museum of Natural History and built a theme around the children’s book, “Gods, Men, and Monsters from The Greek Myths.” Every element — from the invitations and entertainment to the food and décor — was united around this overarching theme.
The success of the approach (attendance nearly doubled at the next year’s event) was so profound that when I launched my own event company in 2002, I made a point to specialize, in part, on crafting corporate events with a family theme. Here are some of the lessons I have learned along the way:
 Be creative. Adults and children appreciate a well-crafted experience that engages the imagination. When planning a family event, we scour bookstores, the Internet, and our own childhood memories for concepts to adapt into family-inspired experiences.
Family-friendly doesn’t mean childlike. Many attendees will not have children with them. Present a level of sophistication that will appeal to both children and adults, and be sure to design key elements (such as the thematic presentation, menu, and entertainment) with adults in mind, too.
Respect attendees’ intelligence. Strive to create something more thought-provoking than a typical picnic or carnival-style family event. Hosting the event at a cultural center or museum injects an educational element, while events inspired by children’s literature promote an appreciation for books. Parents respect any effort to promote learning and cultural understanding for their children.
 Karen Hansen,
president, Karen Hansen
Event Group, Chicago
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building support on the homefront
When planning events for Tastefully Simple’s more than 22,000 independent consultants, we find that welcoming consultants’ families helps them (and spouses, in particular) gain a better understanding of what our company is all about, and ultimately creates a stronger connection to Tastefully Simple.
At our annual Leadership Conference, where attendance is earned through incentives, consultants are encouraged to bring guests. We plan this event in attraction-packed areas — like Orlando, Las Vegas, or Puerto Rico — so family involvement and overall attendance is greater. During the event, guests are invited to participate in a number of activities, including an annual awards program and dinner, a special guest Q&A session with Tastefully Simple’s founder and CEO, and two open afternoons — one with consultants and another with fellow guests.
Providing time for guests to socialize with other guests (such as a golf outing), helps them build camaraderie as key supporters of our independent consultants. Likewise, the Q&A sessions allow guests to share ideas on ways to support their spouse’s business.
At our other two major consultant events (Tastefully Simple On Tour and the Tastefully Simple National Conference), guests are invited to participate in a consultant panel discussion and to attend an awards program and dinner. During the National Conference, we also send a full assortment of Tastefully Simple’s gourmet food products to our consultants’ families to thank them for the valuable time they are allowing their spouse or parent to spend with us.
We find that inviting family to attend Tastefully Simple events is important to both our team members and consultants. It builds greater support at home for the consultant’s business, as well as stronger bonds between the consultant and Tastefully Simple. Most important, we have always received incredible feedback from our consultants about our inclusive approach to event programming.
 Tom Eisner,
conference coordinator,
Tastefully Simple Inc.,
Alexandria, MN
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family fun means focused attendees
Every year, geographic-information systems (GIS) professionals flock to our ESRI User Conference to share their work with one another and discover new things about our mapping technology. For a decade now, families have been a welcome part of the mix.
Back in 1997, we moved our annual event from springtime in Palm Springs, CA, to summertime in San Diego. Given all that San Diego offers — beaches, the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and SeaWorld, among others — we knew attendees would be more likely to bring their families to the event. We made it our goal to make including families as easy and enjoyable for attendees as possible by providing a mix of entertainment and educational opportunities. We now offer a variety of activities, including:
A low-key reception for attendees and their families the night before the event opens to encourage networking and early registration-materials pickup.
A welcome reception on the second night, when we also open our Map Gallery and special displays to attendees and their families. (Our software is used to make maps, and our users bring their best work to put on display in the Map Gallery.)
Family hours in the exhibit hall, from 4 to 6 p.m. on one afternoon. Our attendees work in a technical profession, and tell us they often find it hard to explain their work to their families. Opening the expo to spouses and kids so they can see our mapping technology in action is a great way to help our attendees in this regard. In addition, many defense and public-safety organizations that use our software exhibit at the event, often displaying vehicles such as tanks and fire trucks, which are always a big hit with the kids.
The GIS Kids Camp, open at each conference for attendees’ children in grades K-12. The camp helps kids understand GIS, and gets them excited about geography and science. It also helps them understand what their parents do for a living. In 2007, about 230 kids attended the camp, which focused on habitats. Throughout the week, ESRI staff gave fun presentations to campers about featured animals and insects and their habitats.
While we don’t measure quantitative results of these family activities, the positive impact they have on our conference, our company, and our client relationships is clear. Word of mouth and anecdotal evidence repeatedly tell us that attendees and their families appreciate the effort, and that incorporating family into the event helps attendees to better focus on business because they don’t feel pressure to sneak away. Why? Because they know that their families are having a great time at the event, too.
Karen Hurlbut,
strategic marketing
manager, ESRI,
Redlands, CA
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