Comment by jf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jf | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has organized many dozens of events, and attended hundreds, my core thesis for running a good event is: "Make events attendees want"

The only good events are those made specifically to benefit the attendees of the event, not for the sponsors, not for the organizers.

There are many different formats for having a good event, there are lots of basic things that are important to get right. All of those things can seem intimidating, for good reason. It takes a special type of person to get all of the details of an event right.

That said, the events that I have enjoyed the most are the ones that I know were built solely for the benefit of the attendees.

This has been a tricky insight for me to get. Every event starts out as one to benefit the attendees. The issue is that at some point as an organizer, you need money: Finding a space to host the event, providing food, providing infrastructure. All of these things require money and once money is involved, you have to make a compromise somewhere to get that money.

The typical compromise that an event will make to get money is to get sponsors. Sadly, the traditional model for sponsorship is one that will insidiously shift the focus of the event from one that is built to benefit the attendees, to one that is built to benefit the sponsors.

To run an event that doesn't suck, you have to make the event for the benefit of the attendees.

I mean you could literally go and just consult Maslow's pyramid and ensure the needs are somewhat sufficiently met in this order:

1. Physological needs: warmth, water, food, rest, toilets, hygiene, accessability, shelter

2. Safety needs: security, safety (both in the practical and the psychological sense)

3. Belongingness & Love needs: while this is something we cannot control, making space and time for actual contact between people might be a good idea. Can be combined with the things in point 1

4. Esteem needs: Feeling of accomplishment (the actual content of the event needs to give the audience something new and valuable)

5. Self-actualization: Again something we cannot easily control, but there might be ways of having the attendees actually do something themselves in a creative and/or productive sense. But my guess would be that if you rocked the first 4 points, this one is a nice extra.

Too many events focus mostly on point 4 and forget the importance of the first 3.

> 3. Belongingness & Love needs: while this is something we cannot control, making space and time for actual contact between people might be a good idea. Can be combined with the things in point 1

This is part of what ensuring that panels are representative and do not just consist of the first four or five white males you can think of. Ensure your speakers come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, and even consider people to keynote who can provide lessons from entirely different professions and walks of life.

I’m the author. I never thought about the Maslow connection, but now that you’ve made it, it is TOTALLY on point. Thank you!

There’s one aspect of all this I didn’t mention in my post but it’s germane here: this is a group of men and women whom I LOVE in a way you’d have to be another veteran or maybe a cop or a fireman to appreciate.

We’ve bled together. We’ve buried the same friends. So I don’t have to work very hard to muster up the emo stuff at the very top of Maslow’s pyramid. I FEEL it. And so the audience does too.

That’s probably pretty hard to fabricate if it isn’t already there. But if it IS there, it’s a pretty powerful foundation for a host relationship.

Every event starts out as one to benefit the attendees

Not so sure. Events like Dreamforce and other company-branded and sponsored events seem to have started with the goal of making more money/selling more stuff, and then had to go figure out how to make it look appealing enough that people would attend. (Though I still don't really know why anyone would attend Dreamforce.)

> "Make events attendees want"

If that was the only goal of event organizers, they would set up a gigantic party with nothing else in it, as that is what attendees “want”. However, this might not be appropriate if the event is, for instance, a programming conference. The goal of a programming conference could be expressed as building professional contacts (i.e. contacts based on the other person’s professional capabilities), and spreading knowledge and advancements in the programming field. However, if you ask attendees, almost nobody actually asks for this, and instead only ask for fun parties with lots to drink. If the organizers only listen to this kind of feedback, the result would not fulfill the purpose of a programming conference.

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