Ventla

200 people give you a day of their working lives. A year later, nobody remembers the lunch. What they remember, if the event worked, is what they understood when they left that they did not understand when they arrived. That difference is the purpose of the event. Most events never write it down. "A kick-off for the sales organization" is a booking. A purpose describes a person afterwards: "After the event, every participant can explain our three priorities for next year, and knows what they mean for their own team." The test: could you ask participants one question, before and after, that shows whether it happened? If yes, you have a purpose. If not, you have a theme. Then actually ask it. 1. A week before: "How well could you explain next year's strategy to a colleague?" 2. During the day: polls in the sessions, so the room works with the idea instead of just hearing it. 3. On the way out: the same question, word for word. The gap between the two answers is your result, in one number a management team understands. Three questions that map to the purpose beat a twenty-question evaluation about the coffee. What is the one sentence for your next event?

You were asked to organise the kick-off. It is not your job title, but it is your job this month. The registrations are in. The event is three weeks away. For most events, those three weeks are silence. Then two hundred people walk in cold: unsure where to park, without the app, and meeting the topic for the first time when the first speaker starts talking. The first hour goes to warming up the room. There’s a useful idea from psychology for using that gap: priming. What people encounter beforehand can influence how prepared they are for what comes next. For an event, it means people arrive: ✅ Prepared. They know the practical things. ✅ Curious. They know what is coming and want it. ✅ Already thinking. The topic is not new to them. You do not need an event background to do this. You need four short messages, each with one job (see the picture): 📅 Three weeks before: the app invitation, with the program published. ❓ One week before: one question in the app. “What do you most want an answer to?” 📍 Two days before: the practical email (and push). Times, address, parking. ☕ The morning: one push notification. “Doors open at 8.30. Coffee is on.” Schedule all four on the same afternoon and forget them. Two things I would steal first: 1. Hand the answers from that one question to your speakers. Opening with “forty of you asked about this” tells the room the day was built for them. 2. Resist the one enormous email with everything in it. Nobody reads it to the end. One message, one job. Little and often beats long and once. Curious how Ventla can help you prime your next event? DM me! #events #internalcommunication #kickoff #eventplanning