I’m excited to share something I’ve been building over the last month: a new project dedicated to building a community of AI enthusiasts, at any skill level, who want a peer group to learn from and grow with. The idea is simple: surround yourself with people who can support your ongoing AI skill development, and help you do the same for them. You can read all about it below.

Since we’re on the topic, this month’s event strategy section is also AI-focused. I’m sharing the top 10 AI event tech tools I’d recommend, so keep them in mind next time you need a solution for one of the use cases covered in this newsletter.

Hope you enjoy this issue. As always, I’d love to hear your feedback, or any recommendations for what you’d like to see in future newsletters.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

10 AI Event Technology Tools You Need to Know

Anyone who has ever put on their own event, or invested in one as a sponsor, knows all too well how much has to happen to make it successful: multiple tasks, multiple operations, content creation, team member preparation, and event performance tracking that can be confusing enough on its own, on top of countless other moving pieces across the full event lifecycle. With the right technology, AI can finally take some of that off your plate. It speeds up parts of the process, automates the repetitive pieces, helps you be more efficient at targeting the right people, and puts that time back in your favour. Done well, it cuts down on administrative tasks and improves the efficiency and accuracy of the work you’re already doing.

I spoke at a Grip webinar earlier this month on the top AI event technology tools I’d recommend to organisers, so I wanted to share the full list with you here too.

Before we get into the specifics, it’s worth making a distinction between an AI-native tool and a legacy tool with an AI layer added on top.

An AI-native tool is built around the model from the start. The AI is the product, and the whole workflow was designed around what it makes possible. A legacy tool with an AI layer took an existing workflow and added AI to one part of it: a content-generation feature bolted onto an old form, a chatbot added to an old support flow.

The difference is visible in how each one behaves. With an AI-native tool, the AI does the work and you supervise it. It builds a knowledge base as you use it, so it remembers what you’re creating and gets better at helping you over time. With a legacy tool, you tend to use the technology largely as you did before, but you get an added benefit: its generative AI layer now lets you complete certain tasks more quickly, such as generating content or designing campaign elements, so you don’t have to source images yourself anymore.

That doesn’t mean native is always the better choice. It depends on what you actually need from the technology. Be clear on that before you decide, so you end up picking the tool that’s right for the job rather than the one with the flashiest AI label.

It can also be hard to tell which is which from the outside. A lot of companies have recently updated their websites to sound fully AI-operated, even when the underlying product hasn’t changed much. The best way to find out is to get on a call with the technology provider you’re considering and ask directly how the AI works and what it’s built on, rather than taking the website at its word.

For event professionals and GTM leaders, the native versus legacy distinction shows up in three concrete places:

• The data flywheel. Native tools learn from every interaction, so they keep improving their output over time. Legacy tools usually just call an external API to deliver a specific task, but they don’t learn from it, so you get the same generic output as everyone else using that API.

• Product development. AI is the whole roadmap for a native tool, so it improves constantly. For a legacy vendor, the AI feature competes with fifteen other priorities.

• Pricing. Legacy technology tends to charge AI as a premium add-on, while native tools price it in.

Now let’s move on to the tools I’d recommend, organised by the specific use case each one solves for.

Planning & operations

Piper: An AI-native budget builder. Handles rate cards, estimates, versioning, and client approvals in one place, and learns from every event you run, so estimates get sharper over time.

eBrain: Turns a single prompt into a full event registration page with as much level of complexity as you like including multiple ticket options, and add-ons like accommodation.

SponsorFlo: Sales intelligence for sponsorship. Finds sponsors that match your target audience, generates custom proposal decks, and manages the relationship through to close.

Matchmaking & engagement

Grip: Matchmaking and sponsorship opportunities built on behavioural data, based on what attendees actually do at the event.

Pirida: Matches sponsors, delegates, and topics for roundtable discussions or as an enabler for one to one meetings.

Message Matrix: Messaging technology that feeds off the event knowledge base via WhatsApp, letting any event stakeholder get the information they need simply by asking for it. It also enables meeting recommendations between sponsors and delegates: delegates can ask for any useful information about sponsors, and get all the practical details they need, from booth setup times to lead scanner info, without having to chase anyone from the organising team.

Content & marketing

PreMagic: Helps event stakeholders, from speakers to delegates, get professional-looking content they can share on social media pre- and post-event, tailored to them and their presence at the event. That encourages the wider event community to promote their own presence at the event, and in turn, the event itself.

Rozie Synopsis: The technology enables content to be captured and summarised instantly, so no information is missed and the content lives longer. This applies to conversations with prospects at the booth, and to stage content, which is instantly translated and summarised. Social posts and reports can then be created off the back of that content, extending the life of on-stage material.

Voxo: Specifically focused on making content delivered at an event perform for longer, instantly recreating it into blog posts, social content, reports, podcasts, and more. It also tracks content performance over time, enabling event organisers to offer sponsors extra opportunities by allowing their event content to be distributed well beyond when it was first delivered.

Sponsor value

Captello: Sponsor and lead management, from contact matching against your ideal customer profile to lead scanning and CRM matching. While Captello is a legacy technology, its new AI capabilities let you pull event performance reporting data instantly with a prompt, instead of building the complex dashboards that have typically taken a long time to build.

Bonus tool: Boardy

Boardy didn’t make the list of 10 above for a good reason: it works differently to everything else on this page. It’s an open-data technology, not something built specifically for one event.

Here’s how it works. You have a phone conversation with Boardy, where you talk through what you do, who you’re looking to meet, and your goals. From that conversation, it generates a match and sends you the recommended person’s LinkedIn profile, so you can see who they are before anything happens. If you both agree you’d like to meet, that’s when it makes the introduction.

For events, that creates an interesting use case. You can keep it closed to your delegate list for the duration of the event, so attendees can matchmake and book meetings with each other on-site. Once the event ends, though, that data becomes part of Boardy’s wider database, open to be searched and matched by anyone else in the world. That’s the trade-off worth understanding before you roll it out: it’s a genuinely useful matchmaking tool during your event, but your delegate data doesn’t stay contained to your event once it’s over. So if you’d prefer to keep your event data private, one of the other matchmaking tools listed above will be more appropriate.

I’ve been using Boardy myself for the past year, and it’s been a genuinely useful way to meet the right people.

Prioritise before you buy

One last thing before you go shopping for AI tools: I wouldn’t recommend going out and picking up everything on this list at once.

Implementation needs to match your most pressing internal needs. And every tool you bring in needs full adoption from your team to actually pay off. The worst outcome is spending on tools to look up to date, then never using them properly. That’s money and time spent figuring out new software, while your team falls back on the same old processes because nobody had time to properly learn the new ones.

Start with where you need the most help. Pick a specific challenge you’re facing and find the tool that solves for it. Get your team fully using it, so it becomes part of how everyone works day to day. Then move on to the next one.

Need help prioritising, selecting and implementing the right event technology for your business? We can help! Book a call with The Hook Studio today.

New Project Announcement

The AI Floor

I’m excited to share that, together with Ozan Dagdeviren, the founder of AISA, and Alex Dziri, the co-founder of Metamind AI, we are launching a new project and in-person event series dedicated to helping professionals upskill in AI: understanding how fluent they currently are in their careers, and how to improve from there. We’re calling it The AI Floor.

The first event will take place in London on the morning of 24 September, at the Corgi Cafe, a new 24-hour cafe and co-working space in Shoreditch.

Here’s what to expect from The AI Floor.

Each event centres on three things: improving, showcasing, and connecting. You’ll get hands-on training on what it means to be AI fluent in your type of role, and leave with a practical roadmap for what to work on next to keep improving your skills. There’s also space to showcase what you’ve built with AI yourself, with the chance to pitch it to the room and get direct feedback from the audience. And there’s also facilitated networking, designed so you actually meet and learn from people building and learning alongside you. The events are free, so they’re accessible to anyone looking to build their skills.

The idea for The AI Floor came from a conversation between the three of us. We kept coming back to the same pattern we notice in people across different industries: everyone wants to learn how to build with AI and use it to do their job better. But most people say they’ve found it hard to make the time, with a full-time job or their own business and a dozen other priorities pulling at them. And it’s hard to know where to even start, or what to prioritise.

So we decided to create a space that brings people together: helping them understand what matters most for their own career when it comes to AI, and letting them learn alongside others working toward the same thing. Some people in the room will already have done what someone else there is trying to figure out, so everyone can help each other and learn from each other’s progress. Everyone in the room will be there with the same intention: sharing skills they’ve picked up, and learning the ones they haven’t, whether that’s building AI agents, using tools like Claude skills, or whatever’s useful for the work they do.

Registrations are now open, and we expect the limited spaces at the cafe to fill up quickly. Learn more and register here.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Ideas Fest - I attended Ideas Fest last year, on my own, and I have such found memories of the two days I spent there that I’m going back this year. I’ve organised a WhatsApp group with others who are also attending the event (most of them don’t know each other) so our crew we can meet at times during the event. If you would like to get added to the group just let me know.

• The AI Floor - A new event series dedicated to professionals looking to continuously improve their AI skills. The first event is taking place in the morning of the 24th September in London. Register here.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Unexpected clashes happen often, and other situations can significantly affect attendance too: extreme heat has been one of them recently; tube strikes are another we’re very well accustomed to in London; even another company’s event that has nothing to do with your business but attracts exactly the same target audience as yours — and you just didn’t see it coming until the last minute. So what do you do when these clashes happen? I dig into how to think about the different options in this newsletter.

Summer is also a time for outdoor events, and usually a favourite for company gatherings — summer parties where colleagues get together in their not-so-regular office attire, showcasing a mix of floral dresses, slightly inappropriate see-through linen shirts and summer loafers looking straight out of a ‘Made in Chelsea’ show. So this time I thought the event review to take my attention should be a company summer party.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, I would really appreciate it if you shared it with your colleagues or anyone you think will find it useful.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

What to Do When Your Event Clashes with Another Major Event

On the 15th July, England played Argentina in the World Cup semi-final with a kick-off at 8pm.

I had bought a ticket to an event that evening. But that would stop me from watching a major England game with my friends, or at least miss a big part of it. And if I decided to go just to the first hour of the other event, I would likely find the event to have a lot less people for that same reason, which also takes away the point of going to a networking event in the first place. So you guessed it. I didn’t go. And I’d bet most of that event’s audience did the same.

I was thinking what I would do if I was the organiser in those circumstances. A lot of planning and organisation, and suddenly this other event out of our control takes over and affects the attendance of my delegates. And situations like these happen more often that one may think. A tube strike, the extreme heat, a storm prediction — many event organisers will face a version of this at some point. Something outside your control gets between your audience and your venue, and you have to decide what to do about it.

Here’s how I’d think it through.

First, read the signs

The worst thing you can do is nothing, and hope. The second worst is panicking before you have data.

You usually have more warning than you think. World Cup semi-final dates are known weeks ahead. Strikes are announced. Weather gives you a few days. Use that window to check:

• Advance cancellations and refund requests. This is your clearest sign. A few cancellations are normal, but there is a wave of them coming through, that should alert you of the upcoming low attendance problem.

• Registration pace. If registrations slow down considerably the moment the fixture is confirmed, your audience is telling you something.

• Ask directly. A one-question email — “still coming?” — costs nothing and gives you real numbers to decide with.

If cancellations are low, your audience may not overlap with the clash at all. A creative meetup and a football semi-final can have two very different audiences which won’t necessarily affect your event. In that case: carry on, and don’t create a problem where there isn’t one.

But if a meaningful chunk of your audience is cancelling in advance, you have four options.

Option 1: Go ahead as planned

When the overlap of days is small, it can be nearly impossible to postpone the event without incurring major costs. Speakers may have booked travel, the venue and other suppliers have already been paid for, and it is just too late to make the date swap. So you decide to go ahead, and record the event so you can still share out learnings and findings with the full audience post event. But you have to be careful about the experience, with an excepted considerably smaller number of delegates in the room. Sixty people in a room set for two hundred feels like a failure to everyone in it, including the people who did show up. So if you go ahead, rearrange furniture and the space to better fit the number of people still expected to attend.

Option 2: Embrace the clash

This is my favourite, but it only works for the football kind of clash — not the strike kind. Put the game on. Move your programme earlier, finish the formal content before kick-off, then roll into a screening with the bar open.

You’ve turned your biggest threat into your best marketing. “Join us — we’re showing the game at 8” is a stronger message than pretending the game isn’t happening. People get the event and the match, which beats watching alone on the sofa. Some of your best networking can happen during half-time.

This combination may not work for all types of events, but if your audience are clearly one that cares about watching the football, then this is a good option to consider.

Option 3: Postpone

If you can realistically find a new date and work things out with the suppliers and speakers to make it happen a few days later, it can be worth the swap. And don’t worry about the perception that might give because delegates can be very thankful about the postponement overall. Everyone prefers not travelling in sweaty transportation across a city when it’s 30°C outside, neither they want to risk not having a way to travel back home. Postponing is just telling your audience that you’d rather do this properly than do it on schedule.

There are however, two important rules to follow if you do decide to postpone. Do it early — a postponement five days out is professional, but one on the morning of the event is chaos. And announce the new date in the same communication as the postponement, so it reads as a plan, and people can adjust their calendar for it.

Option 4: Cancel

The last resort, for when there’s no viable new date and going ahead would be worse than not as your speakers or whoever are essential to the event may not be able to come either. In this situation it is also important to communicate as early as possible and refund as fast as you can to help protect the relationship with your audience. An audience treated well through a cancellation will come back. One that finds out about the cancellation via a small website notification will probably not appreciate the lack of appropriate direct communication.

The key to whatever choice you make

Whatever you choose, the decision is only half the job. Communication is the other half. Say what’s happening, why, and what it means for ticket holders — before they have to ask. Silence is what people don’t forgive.

The organiser of the event I skipped got this wrong. I asked to swap my ticket for a future event and got no reply beyond a privacy notice pointing to their no-refund policy. No email acknowledging the game, no short programme showing people they could come for the first couple of hours and still catch the football after. Just an automated Eventbrite reminder — the only sign the event was going ahead at all. I’d bet a single email saying “all content wrapped up by 7:30” would have considerably increased their attendance.

Need help programming your yearly events aligned to your business objectives? Book a call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights!

Office Summer Party

A different kind of GGBU this month as I’m reviewing an internal event. My husband’s company threw its annual summer party at the Natural History Museum this year. The event was black tie and plus-ones were invited.

I haven’t reviewed an internal event before but I think they certainly deserve the attention. How a company throws a party for its own people can be really positive or detrimental to how valued staff feel. The party itself doesn’t need to be expensive for it to be perceived positively by employees, but the thought that goes into it around preparing it, the experience it gives employees, and the level of involvement (or lack of) by senior management will have a big role to play in how staff perceives that the company cares about looking after them, and not simply be a tick box exercise of a party just because all the competitors do one too. Get it right and employees feel seen for the work they’ve put in all year. Here’s how this one came across.

The Great:

• The venue. A private party in the main entrance hall of the Natural History Museum, with access to some of the actual museum rooms. Drinks among dinosaur skeletons. A venue like that does half the work of making an event feel special before anything else happens.

• Plus-ones included. We all spend most of our lives at work, so letting partners in occasionally strengthens the relationship between employees, their partners, and the company. This company does it once a year, at the summer party, and it’s a lovely thing to experience, and to be able to put faces to the names of colleagues who get regularly mentioned.

• The CEO showed up — and kept it short. One speech, high level, brief. Long enough to feel like a real thank-you for the year’s work, short enough that nobody’s eyes glazed over. He’s based abroad, and flying in matters: particularly in a large company when the executives are not seen a lot more beyond the company All-hands meetings, people need to feel valued by the executive team in person, not by email.

The Good:

• Booked well in advance. The date was in everyone’s calendar early, so people could actually save the evening for the occasion.

• Outside space, with welcome drinks on the terrace. It was one of the hottest evenings of the summer so far, and nobody wanted to go inside until about eight so it was definitely beneficial to have the large outdoor space to enjoy.

• Buffet tables spread across different areas of the venue, so it helped spread the crowd a bit.

• A big band playing sing-along music. It got a lot of people on the dance floor, which is the only metric that matters on that front.

• Clear communication to employees — everyone knew where to be and when, and overall the whole event felt very well organised.

The Bad:

• The food communication gap. Everyone gets hungry at the same time, so queues formed fast. But actually, there was plenty of food, and staff kept circulating with trays all night — but nobody knew that was planned, so people stood in queues far longer than they needed to. One line in the invite (”food will be served throughout the evening”) could have fixed it.

• Black tie on the hottest day of the summer. I do enjoy getting dressed up for a black tie event, but the men were visibly suffering in full suits. With the forecast of 30°C+ known days ahead, a last-minute relaxation — linen suits, jackets optional — would have cost nothing and made half the room a lot more comfortable.

The Ugly:

• Nobody checked the tickets. Everyone arrived with a ticket, but no one asked to see them. Unlikely that someone would put on black tie to crash a corporate party? Yes — but entirely possible. All it takes is an employee chatting about the upcoming party with a friend at the pub, an opportunist overhearing, and a room full of guests a few drinks past noticing their pockets being picked.

There's a reason companies tend to do internal events twice a year. A year feels too long between Christmas parties — even if those remain the most common internal event companies do — and a mid-year gathering gives everyone a nice break to look forward to. This matters more than ever now that so many teams work remotely. Since COVID reshaped our working-from-home habits, creating opportunities for people to get together in person has become really valuable — and the more of those you can create throughout the year, the better. They don't always need to be a full-blown event. A gathering at the pub after work, a game in the office at lunch, breakfast for everyone on a Friday — little activities that get people chatting outside the usual work mode. It's incredibly beneficial for keeping team relationships strong. People work much better together when they feel a connection with their colleagues — a friendship, or at least a positive relationship that goes beyond the "how was your weekend?" type of chat.

What Else is On My Mind?

• The AI toolkit for event organisers: the tools you need and how to use them - I’ll be joining the panel at this Grip webinar next Wednesday the 29th, together with Ellen McCormack, Head of EMEA Sales at Clay, and Robyn Duda, Co-founder and CEO at RacquetX and we will be talking through some practical AI tools specifically for the events industry and the power to deploy them Register here.

• Ideas Fest - I attended Ideas Fest last year, on my own, and I have such found memories of the two days I spent there that I really want to go back. I’m organising a little group of founders who want to go (some of us don’t know each other) so if you want to join our little crew so we can meet at times during the event, just let me know.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Sitting on the judging panel was a genuinely rewarding experience. Most entrants had put a lot of effort into the detail of their submissions, so I made sure to bring the same level of thoroughness to my analysis and feedback during the judging period. Each entry had to be read carefully, considered on its own merits, and then weighed against others that were often equally compelling. When you’re comparing strong submissions, all with genuinely good use cases, the decisions are rarely straightforward.

But spending time on that side of the process made me reflect on the strategic value of awards themselves — not just for those who enter them, but for the companies who create them. It’s a topic I think can offer real value to businesses well beyond the events industry. So in this newsletter, that’s exactly what I want to explore.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

The Strategic Case for Creating Your Own Awards

Awards are everywhere. Industry bodies run them. Media titles run them. Conferences run them as a fringe feature. And increasingly, product companies themselves are running them — for their clients, their communities, or their wider industries.

But not all awards are created equal. Some are genuinely celebrated while others fade away after a year or two, having generated little more than a few LinkedIn posts.

The difference almost always comes down to strategy.

So if you’re considering launching your own awards programme — whether you’re a technology company looking to recognise your best clients, or a business wanting to make your mark on your industry — here’s what you need to think about.

Why Companies Create Awards

On the surface, awards exist to celebrate excellence. But the most successful awards programmes are built on a much richer set of objectives.

For technology companies in particular, but this also applies for a lot of other industries, a client awards programme can serve as one of the most elegant pieces of marketing infrastructure you’ll ever build, because it creates value for everyone involved simultaneously.

For your clients: Being recognised for the work they’ve done with your product is both logical and meaningful. It validates their investment, celebrates their team, and gives them something concrete to share internally and externally. Clients who win awards become advocates. And clients who enter, even if they don’t win, have articulated why they value what you offer — which is a powerful thing in itself.

For your account management teams: The awards process gives client-facing teams a structured, positive reason to go deeper with their accounts. Helping a client shape their entry it’s not only good service but an opportunity to understand how they’re using your product, what results they’re seeing, and where there might be room to do even more. It transforms a routine check-in into a more consultative conversation.

For your go-to-market teams: The entries you receive are a goldmine of use cases, outcomes and creative applications of your product that your internal teams may never have discovered otherwise. Every strong entry is a window into how real customers are solving real problems — and that intelligence feeds directly into product marketing, sales conversations, and content strategy.

For your case study pipeline: This is perhaps the most underappreciated benefit of all. Getting case studies from clients is notoriously difficult. They’re busy. Legal or PR approval takes time. And asking someone to write up their own success story rarely feels like a priority. But an awards entry changes the dynamic entirely. Clients are motivated to document their work. They’ve already invested time in crafting their story. And if they’re entering a public awards programme, they are far more likely to give permission for that story to be shared — especially if they win. One awards cycle can generate more case studies than an entire year of ad hoc requests.

Awards as an Industry Strategy

Client awards are one model. But awards programmes can also be designed with a broader ambition: to recognise excellence across an entire industry, sector or community.

This approach carries a different kind of strategic value. By positioning your company as the organisation that celebrates others, you earn a form of credibility and visibility that advertising simply cannot buy. You become the host of an important conversation. The convener of a community. The business that’s invested enough in its industry to shine a light on the people doing exceptional work within it.

For companies looking to establish thought leadership, build brand authority, or deepen their presence in a particular market, industry-wide awards can be a remarkably efficient vehicle — particularly when paired with an event, a media partnership, or a content programme built around the entries and winners.

The key is alignment. The awards you create should reflect the values and vision of your company. If your brand stands for innovation, your awards should celebrate the most innovative thinking in your space. If you stand for sustainability, human connection, or performance — the same principle applies. The awards become an expression of what you believe matters, and over time, they attract the people and organisations that share that belief.

The Risks — and How to Avoid Them

For all their potential, awards programmes can go wrong. And when they do, the reputational cost can outweigh the benefit.

Low entry numbers are the most common risk, and the most damaging. An awards programme with few entrants signals a lack of credibility and interest. Before you launch, be honest about whether your network and platform are large enough to generate the volume of entries needed to make the awards feel meaningful. If you’re not sure, start smaller — a focused programme with five strong categories will always outperform a sprawling one with twenty underpopulated ones.

Insufficient promotion can often be the cause for low entry numbers. Awards don’t fill themselves. You need a clear promotional plan that reaches your target audience multiple times, across multiple channels, with a compelling reason to enter. This means building in enough lead time — launching entries six to eight weeks before the deadline, at minimum — and using every channel available to you, from email to social to partner networks.

Poor judging processes will undermine trust. If winners appear arbitrary, if the criteria are vague, or if the same companies win every year, people stop entering. Invest in a robust judging framework. Bring in independent judges where possible. Be transparent about how entries are assessed. The integrity of the process is the integrity of the awards.

Neglecting the non-winners is a missed opportunity that many organisers overlook entirely. Everyone who takes the time to enter deserves acknowledgement. A personalised note, a piece of feedback, or simply a public thank-you for participating goes a long way. And it makes them more likely to enter again next year.

Treating awards as a one-off rather than building them into a longer-term programme is another common mistake. The first year is always the hardest. Credibility accumulates over time. Commit to at least three years before evaluating whether the programme is working because the compounding value of an established awards programme is considerably greater than the sum of its individual editions.

Getting It Right From the Start

If you’re seriously considering launching an awards programme, here are the questions worth answering before you begin:

• What are we actually trying to achieve — and for whom? Client recognition, lead generation, case studies, brand authority, community building? Be specific, because your objectives will shape every decision that follows.

• Do we have the audience to make this credible? An awards programme needs a critical mass of potential entrants. If you don’t have that yet, build it first.

• Who will judge, and how? Independent judges add credibility. A clear, well-documented scoring framework adds fairness. Both are worth investing in.

• How will you announce the winners? Options range from a prestigious black tie dinner to a live online broadcast to a simple social media announcement. Larger, more involved events naturally drive greater visibility, conversation and press coverage — but they also come with significant costs. Whichever route you choose, the format should reflect your goals and audience, and be planned carefully enough to get the most out of the moment.

• What happens after the awards? How will you use the stories, the content, the relationships — and how will you bring people back next year?

• Can we sustain this? Awards that run once and disappear do more harm than good. Only launch if you’re committed to the long game.

The Bigger Picture

Done well, awards are one of the few marketing initiatives that create genuine value for everyone involved — the organiser, the entrants, the winners, and the wider industry that gets to see excellence recognised and celebrated.

They build community, instigate insight, generate content, deepen relationships. And they give the awards audience a reason to recognise and remember your brand, which is ultimately one of the stronger benefits from creating awards in the first place.

Need help designing an awards programme or event strategy for your business? Book a call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights!

Event Technology Awards: AI Edition

The awards ceremony was hosted by Event Tech Live organisers in London, on the 24th June 2026

The Great:

• A rigorous process from start to finish. Having been part of the judging panel, I can speak to the quality of the process. The entry requirements were thorough, and judges were given a clear and detailed framework for reviewing submissions and providing feedback, which gives credibility to the winners.

• Ceremony timing. Despite a substantial number of award categories to present, the ceremony itself started on time and moved at a good pace.

The Good:

• A relaxed, social format. The buffet-style food and standing format — rather than a traditional sit-down awards dinner — created a more informal atmosphere that blended award ceremony with networking event. It worked well for the audience.

• A great venue for mingling. The Ministry provided an open, well-suited space for an event of this size. The standing format encouraged people to move around and connect, and it was a nice opportunity for the event tech community to come together.

The Bad:

• Limited press coverage beyond the immediate community. Searching for coverage after the event, I didn’t find a great deal beyond posts from the organisers, a handful of winners and a few of the judges. For an awards programme of this nature, wider media involvement could significantly amplify the results — both for the brand behind the awards and for the winners themselves, who deserve broader recognition for their achievements.

The Ugly:

• Nothing in particular to report for this one.

The Event Technology Awards: AI Edition is a solid and credible programme, and the evening itself struck a good balance between celebration and connection. The rigour of the judging process gives the awards validation, and the informal format made for a more relaxed night than the typical gala dinner. The one area worth reflecting on is reach — because the work being recognised deserves to be seen by more than just those already in the room. With a stronger media and PR strategy around the announcement, this could drive a lot more visibility for the awards organisers and the winners.

What Else is On My Mind?

• SXSW London - I managed to attend one of the days for SXSW London this year. Overall I felt it was a little weaker and emptier than last year, possibly connected with the high prices to attend this event, but the organisers already announced open entries to their 2027 edition and are selling their Platinum Pass for about half the price for a limited time period. Currently available from their website here.

• Cannes Lions - It took place last week, and while I couldn’t find any article that fully reviewed the event in a way that would be particularly relevant for brands investing in having a presence at Cannes Lions and their outcomes, this article by Variety at least is broad enough to give us all a little bit of context into how the week went. Perhaps I should attend next year again to be able to write the review I wish I could find right now ;-)

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

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But, as with most things in events, there is a balance. Earlier this month, I registered for an event where the organisers had gone far beyond sensible overbooking and continued promoting the event long after they should have stopped. Can you guess what happened?

It made me think about how little attention organisers sometimes give to event capacity, despite the huge impact it has on attendee experience. So in this week’s newsletter, I want to explore how to think about event capacity strategically, from choosing the right venue size to calculating realistic no-show rates and avoiding the pitfalls of both overcrowded and under-attended events.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

The Event Capacity Balancing Act

One of the quickest ways to damage the atmosphere of an event is to get the capacity wrong.

Most event organisers spend a lot of time thinking about content, speakers, catering and logistics. But capacity planning often becomes little more than a calculation of how many people can physically fit into a room.

In reality, capacity has a significant influence on how attendees experience an event.

Too many people and the event feels crowded, uncomfortable and poorly organised. Too few people and the room can feel empty, awkward and lacking energy.

The sweet spot sits somewhere in between.

When an Event Feels Too Full

We’ve all been there.

You arrive at an event and every seat is already taken. People are standing at the back. Some attendees are sitting on the floor. And people spent half of the networking break queuing for coffee, instead of actually doing any networking.

While organisers often celebrate a “sold out” event, there is a point where popularity starts working against the attendee experience.

Overcrowded events create physical and mental discomfort. Attendees become more aware of the lack of space than they are of the content being delivered and people are more likely to leave early.

What might look like success from the organiser’s perspective can feel quite different from the attendee’s.

When an Event Feels Too Empty

The opposite problem can be just as damaging.

Imagine hosting a 40-person event in a room designed for 200 people.

Even if every attendee who registered turns up, the event can still feel underwhelming. Large gaps between people reduce energy levels. Speakers can feel as though they’re presenting to an empty room and its harder for people to network when they are naturally scattered around the space.

If a room feels empty, attendees may subconsciously assume the event wasn’t particularly popular or important, regardless of how good the content actually is.

This is why venue selection and capacity planning should always be considered together.

How Does Venue Size Affect Event Attendance and Experience?

The space in the venue will inevitably influence the perception of how full an event will feel, but event organisers don’t always have complete control. Sometimes the venue available is larger than you’d ideally like.

The good news is that there are ways to make a larger space feel more intimate.

Furniture can be used to create smaller zones. Lounge seating, high tables and soft furnishings naturally encourage people to gather in specific areas. Decorative elements such as plants, draping and signage can help define the footprint of the event and reduce the amount of unused visible space.

Rather than allowing attendees to disperse throughout an oversized room, the goal should be to intentionally design where people spend their time. So you certainly can make an event still feel right from a capacity perspective when the venue is too large, as long as you plan the room design accordingly. There isn’t much you can do if the venue is not big enough for your desired audience size, so the solution will be to stop registrations once you’ve oversubscribed the event to a reasonable amount, based on the expected attendance rate for the type of event you are running.

So By How Much Should You Overbook an Event?

One of the biggest challenges in capacity planning is predicting attendance.

Just because someone registers doesn’t mean they’ll show up.

In fact, no-show rates can vary significantly depending on the type of event and audience.

For many B2B events, I often plan on the assumption that around 40% of registrants won’t attend a free event. For paid events, that figure typically drops closer to 20%, with attendance rates increasing further as ticket prices rise.

But ticket price is only one factor.

Attendance rates can also be influenced by:

• How relevant and compelling the content is to the audience

• Whether the format is genuinely worth leaving the office or home for

• The ease of travel to the venue

• The attractiveness of the venue itself

• The location in which the event is taking place

• Cultural attitudes towards event attendance

A highly relevant event hosted in a desirable venue can significantly outperform average attendance benchmarks.

Likewise, a generic networking event in a difficult-to-reach location may struggle to convert registrations into actual attendees.

How Location Can Influence Event Attendance

One of the most interesting aspects of event attendance is how much it can vary by location.

In cities such as London or New York, professionals are constantly being invited to events. Missing one often doesn’t feel particularly consequential because another opportunity will come along next week.

In smaller cities, where relevant industry events happen less frequently, attendees may place greater value on each opportunity and therefore be more likely to attend once registered.

Cultural differences can also play a role.

In my experience, events in countries such as Germany and across the Nordic countries tend to have higher attendance rates than those in the UK or France. I guess one can assume that what they say about people from Germany and the Nordics is true - they are just more reliable, and that is seen in event attendance too. So you can feel more comfortable oversubscribing a free event in the UK by 40%, but, on average, it is wise to keep the registrations open to no more than 30% in countries like Germany and I would go even lower to about 20% oversubscription in the Nordics.

Of course, every audience is different, which is why historical event data is one of the most valuable tools an organiser can have.

Capacity Planning Is Really About Experience Design

Ultimately, event capacity isn’t just an operational consideration.

It’s an experience design decision.

The number of people in a room influences everything from energy levels and networking quality to attendee comfort and perceptions of value.

The best event organisers don’t simply ask how many people they can fit into a venue.

They ask how many people should be there to create the experience they want attendees to have.

Because when capacity feels right, attendees rarely notice it.

When it feels wrong, it’s often all they remember.

Need help defining the right event strategy for your business? Book a call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

AI Agent & OpenClaw Workshop: Uses for Investors & Founders

This official London Venture Capital Summit fringe event, organised by ETA Technologies, took place on May 11th in London. I was invited to the event only a few days before the event. At that time it already had close to 400 registrants, but my assumption was that they had a large venue and were still hoping to fill the remaining seats. On the day, I made sure I finished work early to trek across London to get to the venue on time. I managed to arrive 15 minutes early, only to find out that the venue had already reached its 100-seat capacity and they couldn’t allow anyone else in. Can you imagine my sense of anger and disappointment?

As I couldn’t actually attend the event myself, my review comes from the limited knowledge of what I experience.

The Great:

• The title and description: It definitely attracted a crowd — 567 registrations in total, which says something. AI is inevitably the hot topic of the year, and there is huge interest in understanding how to build AI agents, particularly with OpenClaw.

• The marketing: By promoting it alongside the London Venture Capital Summit and positioning it as a workshop specifically for investors and founders, the event was clearly targeted at the core conference audience and beyond. It sounded specific, clear, and like it would deliver tangible outcomes.

• The practical element: Attendees were asked to bring their laptops and offered the chance to build their own agent during the session. It was clear this would be a hands-on session delivering real value. The kind that you would normally pay good money for.

The Good:

• They shared the event materials on the Luma page after the session, giving all registrants access, including those who were turned away at the door.

The Bad:

• The communication: They did share a message about the oversubscription and limited capacity — but only on the day of the event, a few hours before it was due to start. Inevitably, many of those 567 registrants were unaware of the situation, and even those who were, would likely still want to try and attend if the topic was of real relevance to them.

The Ugly:

• Not capping the event: The event was way over capacity, and that is simply not acceptable. It is absolutely fine — even recommended — to oversubscribe an event, because we all know that not everyone will show up on the day. But there is a limit. Failing to stop registrations at a reasonable number is unprofessional and disrespectful of people’s time. Worse still, the fact they continued promoting the event when it was already at four times its capacity suggests this was being used as a lead generation funnel — prioritising database growth over the delegate experience.

When planning to cap your event registrations, overbook it based on the average attendance rate from your similar past events. If you don’t have that, use industry benchmarks like the ones mentioned in the article above in this newsletter. If your event is free and your audience is London-based, planning for a 40% no-show rate is a reasonable starting point, which for a 100-seat venue means capping registrations at around 160 to 170 — not letting registrations continue to 567 like in the case of this workshop. If demand exceeds that cap, celebrate it, build a waitlist, and communicate clearly and early with everyone who registered. What you should never do is keep promoting an event that has already blown past a sensible limit, because at that point you are no longer running an event — you are building a database at your attendees’ expense. And they will notice.

What Else is On My Mind?

• SXSW London - A year has passed already since SXSW’s first London iteration and since I wrote my review about it in my 3rd Hooked newsletter here. Last year the ‘bads’ and ‘uglies’ of SXSW London included the queues for delegates to access sessions, communication of sessions, bad acoustics at certain venues, pricing and political backlash. The pricing is still high this year so I continue hearing a lot of complaints around it but let’s see how everything else goes. I know their team was very much aware of they key areas needed for improvement so hopefully most of those will be sorted, or at least significantly improved this year. If you are planning to attend, feel free to reach out as I would love to meet. Register here.

  Renaissance Summit - This is an intimate 2 day retreat style event at a Manor House in the German countryside taking place on the 11th-13th June. It brings together family business leaders, venture capitalists, technology pioneers and culture shapers, to debate the future of Europe, forge alliances, deploy capital and build the coalitions that will define the decade. If this seems like the type of audience and conversation you want to be part of, you can still benefit from the early bird price compliments of my client Pathfounders, when applying to attend from this link.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

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Networking has a reputation problem. It’s one of those things we all know we should be doing more of, but rarely feels as natural or enjoyable as it should.

So this edition is dedicated to changing that. My goal is to leave you looking at networking differently, and maybe even looking forward to the next event you walk into.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpoose

Are You Networking Wrong? Here's How to Make It Work For You

Last week I delivered a talk to professionals in the security industry on how to network better. At the end of the session, several people came up to me with a comment I wasn’t expecting.

They’d been working in sales for years. Networking was something they did day in, day out to grow their client base. And yet not one of them had ever actually been taught how to do it.

There is this inherent assumption that networking is something you just know how to do. For sales professionals especially, everyone assumes they’re natural networkers — that you can throw them into any social environment and they’ll effortlessly meet everyone, build lasting connections and turn them into sales in no time.

And I’d argue that assumption is largely wrong. Yes, some people are natural ‘social butterflies’ who make friends for life wherever they go. But most of us aren’t those people.

So even for professionals in Go-to-Market functions, learning how to network is a skill that one can learn and develop over time, but if you don’t get taught how to do it, you will inevitably keep making similar mistakes and need to meet a lot more people to obtain even just a couple of relevant contacts.

And then there is the frustration that comes with networking, particularly from networking events. Just ask most people what comes to mind when they hear the word ‘networking’ and you’ll get one of two responses. Either a kind of low-level dread at the thought of making small talk with strangers, or an eye-roll at the transactional, card-collecting version of it that feels more like a sales exercise than a genuine human interaction.

The awkward small talk. The surface-level questions. The feeling that someone is talking at you rather than with you. And then — nothing. No follow-up, no real connection, no real outcome. Sometimes people feel like they are just wasting their time from attending those types of events.

It’s no wonder so many people go through the motions without ever getting much out of it but the problem isn’t networking itself. It’s the way most people approach it. And this is part of what I covered during last week’s session, because once people can reframe how they approach networking, their comfort level with doing it, and the results they get will be absolute game changers.

The mindset shift that changes everything

The reframe I wanted to bring into that room — and the one I want to share here — is this: stop thinking about networking as something you do to people, and start thinking about it as something you build with them.

Networking, at its core, is simply about building relationships that create opportunities. Access to people. Access to information. Access to opportunities you wouldn’t have found on your own. And when you look at it that way, it becomes less about performing and more about connecting.

Thinking about it from a career growth perspective, study after study consistently shows that the majority of professionals find their next role through their personal or professional network. Not through job boards. Not through recruiters. But through people they know, or people those people know. Your network can shape your career in ways your CV never will, and that holds true whether you’re looking for your next job, trying to hire the right person, or building a business. Because if you are the one hiring, you know it will be a very costly affair if you hire the wrong person, so you will also prefer to get someone in your team that has been ‘tried and tested’ by someone else.

So the question isn’t whether networking matters. It very clearly does. The question is how to do it in a way that actually works, and that doesn’t make you or anyone else feel uncomfortable in the process, and ideally becomes more of an enjoyable experience than anything else.

Build connections with purpose: the STAY framework

When I work with people on this, I talk them though a simple framework developed by The Hook Studio that I call STAY — because the goal of any good networking interaction is for you to STAY just that little bit longer at the event to have the chance to meet someone new, to give someone a reason to want to stay in conversation with you, and to want to stay in touch long after the event is over.

And this is how the STAY framework guides you:

S — Share. Share your knowledge generously. Not as a pitch but because people genuinely appreciate learning something new and feeling like their time talking to you was well spent. When you give something in a conversation, people remember it.

T — Take. Take in new perspectives. Ask questions and listen with real curiosity — not just waiting for your turn to speak. When you make someone feel genuinely heard and valued for what they know, they walk away from that conversation feeling good. And they’ll associate that feeling with you.

A — Align. Find common ground. Industry challenges, shared interests, even hobbies — these are the moments where a conversation changes from polite exchange to something that actually goes somewhere. Look for the thread that connects you and pull on it.

Y — Your Why. This one is perhaps the most important, and the most overlooked. Before you walk into any networking event, reconnect with your reason for being there. Are you looking to find a mentor? Represent your company? Explore a career move? Build business opportunities? When you’re clear on your purpose, you stop aimlessly circulating and start having conversations that actually serve you.

The questions that open doors (and the ones that close them)

Beyond the framework, one of the most practical things you can do to improve your networking immediately is to retire certain questions and replace them with better ones.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of the dead-end questions. “What do you do? Where do you work? How long have you been in the industry?...” The problem with those is that they’re stuck in the same default mode most of us fall into when we’re not quite sure what else to say.

But compare those to questions like: “What were you hoping to get out of today’s event?” or “What’s something exciting you’re working on right now?” or “What’s been the best connection you’ve made at one of these events — and why?”

Suddenly you’re in a real conversation instead of the usual networking chitchat. One where both people are actually engaged, where you are learning something, and far more likely to remember each other by the end of the event.

The rule of thumb I always come back to is this: be curious, not impressive. The most memorable people in any room are rarely the loudest or the most polished. They’re the ones who made you feel like what you had to say genuinely mattered. And that starts with asking the right questions and actually listening to the answers.

One last thing: never underestimate the person in front of you

This might be the most important mindset shift of all. It can be tempting — especially at industry events — to mentally sort people by seniority or perceived usefulness before a conversation has even begun. To drift towards the most senior person in the room, or to cut a conversation short because someone doesn’t seem immediately relevant to where you are right now.

Don’t.

Some of the most valuable professional relationships are ones that didn’t look that way on the surface. The person you almost didn’t approach. The conversation you nearly wrapped up early. Careers and businesses are long, and the person who seems tangential today might be exactly the right connection in two years’ time.

Go in with an open mind. Learn about the new connections you make and stay in touch with them afterwards. And trust that the right connections, made in the right spirit, have a quiet way of shaping things you can’t yet see.

Want your team to walk out of every event with connections that actually lead somewhere? Book a Networking Workshop with The Hook Studio. Contact us.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Live Podcast Event - The founder and CEO of Complyance, Richa Kaul, in conversation with Pathfounders founder and editor, Mike Butcher, will be discussing the AI vs SaaS dilemma and how Complyance successfully raised $20M. The podcast recording is taking place in London this coming Wednesday the 6th. Register here.

• Un/Scene Festival - I recently found out about Un/Scene festival, a creative and marketing festival that is looking to showcase new voices and feature unusual talks and activations. It got my curiosity and hope to be able to attend when it comes around in September.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

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I know some people who give a side eye to formalising networking at events too — but I’d argue that when done right, the ick factor of bringing strangers together in a pre-defined way can be far outweighed by the value those connections create. Because if you don’t nudge people towards networking, most simply won’t do it, and everyone leaves having got less out of the event than they could have.

So in this newsletter, I want to talk through exactly that — and more importantly, how to do it so well that people in the room don’t even register it as ‘organised networking’, but experience it as a natural part of the event itself.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

The Art of Organised Networking: How to Make It Feel Natural

If you’ve been following The Hook Studio for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I facilitate several startup events — including pitch and networking events where startups seeking funding come together to pitch to investors, exchange ideas, challenge each other, and build new business opportunities.

Because these events are run by a company that operates them globally with a consistent format, I’ve largely stuck to their structure. It works well and it’s part of their brand. But at the last event I hosted, I wanted to try something different. I wanted to test how delegates would respond to a more structured form of networking — one that would intentionally get everyone in the room engaging with each other, without feeling forced or awkward the way speed networking often does.

And oh my, did it work.

By the end of the session, all delegates knew each other, had learned from one another, and felt comfortable enough to stay well beyond the scheduled finish. A few of them — people who had only just met that evening — arranged to go out for dinner afterwards. And then I received this message on LinkedIn:

“Hi Ana, thanks for the great event yesterday. I loved how you got us into groups with a moderator at the beginning — the discussions we had were super insightful. It was one of the best organised networking events I’ve been to so far (and I’ve been to many 😭)!”

So, what did this organised networking actually involve?

My goal was simple: bring delegates together in small groups to discuss topics relevant to them, so they could go deeper into conversations instead of spending the entire event repeatedly explaining what they do to each new person they met.

Here’s exactly how I did it — so you can try it at your next event.

1. Prepare the room

Before delegates arrive, set up the spaces where group discussions will happen. Place roughly the same number of seats around each table, and prepare as many groups as you expect delegates — while accounting for no-shows. It’s always better to have fewer seats and add more if needed, than to have too many empty chairs. An empty room feels deflating; a full one feels like a success.

2. Read the room — and identify your moderators

For group discussions to work, each table needs a moderator: someone who can get the conversation going and keep it flowing. The key is recruiting these people on the fly, as guests arrive.

As delegates introduced themselves to me, I got a feel for their personality and confidence. Anyone who seemed junior or shy I wouldn’t approach — I didn’t want the ask to feel uncomfortable or overwhelming. Instead, I approached those who seemed most at ease, explained that I was planning some group discussions, and asked if they’d be happy to moderate one.

3. Make the ask feel easy

I was deliberate about keeping the request light. I framed the moderator role as simply being the first to introduce themselves to the group, prompting everyone else to do the same, and then throwing out one opening question to get the conversation started. No preparation, no pressure, and just a gentle nudge to get things moving.

4. Give moderators a reason to say yes

To sweeten the ask, I gave moderators the first pick of discussion topics. While the final themes would be chosen by delegate vote, it would be the moderators’ suggestions that went up for voting — so they had a genuine stake in the outcome. When someone wasn’t sure what topic to suggest, I offered a few ideas to help them choose.

5. Introduce the discussions to the room

Once most delegates had arrived, I introduced the group discussion format, shared the proposed topics, and opened it up to a vote. I asked people to raise their hands (though you could also use a free tool like Slido to run a quick poll). Based on the results, I assigned topics to tables, announced the moderators, and invited everyone to head to whichever table matched their preferred topic.

6. Manage the overflow

Some topics will always attract more interest than others. Your job as host is to keep the groups roughly balanced so people get a genuine mix of perspectives. Let everyone know upfront that each group discussion will run for a set amount of time (around 20 minutes works well), after which they’re free to swap to another table. This keeps things moving and ensures no single group becomes overwhelming while another sits half-empty.

7. Stay flexible — give people what they actually want

If none of the topics seem to get a lot of interest, don’t be afraid to swap them out on the spot. Acknowledge openly that there doesn’t seem to be enough interest, invite the room to suggest something they’d genuinely like to discuss, and put it to a vote. People will appreciate they have the final say, and talking through a topic they actually care about will always deliver more value than one they’ve been herded into.

Taken together, replacing some of the usual open networking time with structured group discussions gave delegates a chance to genuinely get to know each other, explore topics that mattered to them, and start forming real relationships — which they could then develop further during the open networking at the end.

It’s a surprisingly simple way to formalise networking while keeping the atmosphere relaxed. Done well, people leave feeling like their time was genuinely well spent — and that’s exactly what brings them back to the next one.

Looking for help designing an event that delivers on your networking goals? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio.

What Else is On My Mind?

• 2026 Event Technology Awards - If you run a technology company that supports the events industry, these awards are a great way to gain visibility with the events industry. I am proud to be one of the judges for the Event Technology Awards: AI edition — submissions for that are closing very soon, but the wider event tech awards have just opened, so you’re still very much in time to apply.

• Pirida - I just met the founder of this AI-powered event technology platform — and it felt almost too well-timed not to share, given that Pirida does at scale what I’ve been describing in this newsletter, but for large events and conferences. Their technology comes to solve one of the biggest challenges for event organisers which is how to bring the right people together at their events so that delegates and sponsors get the most value from the conference through the people they meet. Learn about their use cases and how to access it on Pirida’s website.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

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I was reminded of this recently when I attended two events back to back, both promoted as gatherings for connection, that delivered the exact opposite of what I expected — in completely different directions. One promised more than it delivered. The other delivered far more than it promised. And the gap between expectation and reality in both cases came down to one thing: the words chosen to describe the event.

It felt too good an example not to dig into, so I’ve dedicated this issue of Hooked to a detailed analysis of both — what the descriptions set up, what the reality looked like, and what event hosts can take away from the contrast.

If there are other aspects of event strategy you’d like me to geek out on, drop a comment or get in touch with your suggestion. And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe so the next issue lands straight in your inbox.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

The Promise vs. The Delivery: What Two Very Different Events Taught Me About Expectation Setting

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve attended two events that were both promoted as gatherings for connection — but one overpromised on what it delivered, while the other clearly underpromised. Needless to say, the second left a far more positive impression, precisely because expectations hadn’t been set as high going in.

This made me think that the gap between what an event promises and what it actually delivers is one of the most underestimated strategic decisions an event host makes.

So let me walk you through both, because the contrast between them is about as clean an example of this as I’ve come across.

Event One: Member Connect by a members club

Here’s how this event was described in the invite:

“Come and meet fellow house members from various industries and hone in on your unique way of networking so you can connect intentionally. Stay into the evening and enjoy the musical musings of our DJ. Facilitated by (your host), join us for a fun, no pressure evening in the bar.

Networking is often framed as something that happens at formal events or through strategic introductions. In reality, most meaningful opportunities come through the everyday relationships we build in the spaces we already occupy. In this interactive workshop, (your host) explores the concept of social capital; the networks of trust, familiarity and shared experience that influence how opportunities move. Through guided reflection and interactive exercises, participants will explore their natural relationship-building style, uncover the social environments where their networks already exist, and learn how to approach networking with greater confidence and intention.

Rather than teaching people how to ‘network’, this session reframes networking as a human behaviour we engage in daily — helping attendees recognise and unlock the value of the relationships they are already building.”

As you can see, the language here is workshop-forward, participation-heavy, and sounds genuinely exciting. It spoke of “guided reflection and interactive exercises,” promised that participants would “explore their natural relationship-building style,” and framed the facilitator as a career strategist with a clear methodology. Walking in, I expected to leave having met most people in the room. I expected multiple exercises, structured interaction, and a format designed around getting people to engage with each other deeply and repeatedly.

What actually happened was one short exercise — five minutes, in a cluster of three people who happened to be seated nearby — followed by a presentation, and then open networking at the end. The presentation itself was interesting. The host was knowledgeable, and the concept of social capital came to mind, but it was still mainly a presentation. And an “interesting presentation” was not what the description sold.

The core problem here isn’t the quality of the content but the misalignment between the format that was promised and the format that was delivered. When attendees have been primed to expect an interactive workshop and they receive a largely passive experience instead, the disappointment isn’t really about the event itself. It’s about the gap. And that gap is entirely avoidable.

Event Two: Female Founders IWD Breakfast

Here’s how this one was described:

“The hosts invite you to a special event to celebrate IWD 2026 and connect with other female founders. On this year’s topic ‘Give To Gain’ there will be a live strategy session, a chance to network with others and a light breakfast at a gorgeous female-founded venue.”

That was more or less it. The description was quite vague, and to be honest I wasn’t entirely sure what I was about to experience beyond a pleasant morning with other female founders. The bar had been set low and maybe even a little too low, as people are busy running their businesses. So to take a few hours out of their morning they would normally want to know more about what they will get back from their time attending the event.

However, what I found was one of the most intentionally designed networking experiences I’ve had at a networking event. After an open networking breakfast during arrivals, the hosts brought the room together and asked every single person — in a room of around 40 — to introduce themselves: their name, their business, and who they were hoping to meet. That alone is rare. Then we were paired with someone we hadn’t yet spoken to and asked to discuss our biggest current business challenge. A handful of those challenges were then opened up to the whole room for collective input and problem-solving. The event closed with open networking, but with a deliberate push to go and find someone you hadn’t yet spoken to. And because we'd already been introduced to everyone in the room, we had an idea of who we wanted to speak with.

By the time I left, I knew exactly who was in that room. I knew who was relevant to me and why, and I left with a clear list of people to follow up with. That is good event design working exactly as it should. Only, if that format had been made clearer from the description, I believe the event would have got much higher attendance than it did.

What This Means for You as an Event Host

The contrast between these two events is a masterclass in one of the most important — and most overlooked — decisions in event strategy: where do you set the expectation bar, and does your programme actually clear it?

Your event description is a contract. Every word you use creates a picture in the mind of your attendee before they even walk through the door. If you use words like “interactive exercises,” “guided reflection,” or “workshop,” you are making a commitment to a certain type of experience. If the format you then deliver doesn’t match that language, the disappointment your attendees feel isn’t about the event being bad but about the promise being broken. That’s a much harder thing to recover from, because it’s a trust issue rather than a quality one.

Underpromising can be a legitimate strategic choice but only when the execution is strong. The Female Founders breakfast got away with a minimal description because what sat behind it was genuinely exceptional, however, I feel they could have benefited from sharing a little more around the format. Nevertheless, the surprise people felt from the event was entirely positive, and that kind of experience is what gets talked about, shared, and remembered. Ultimately, people become advocates for events that exceed their expectations.

So one important thing to note here is that, if connection is the purpose, it has to be designed. This is where I see so many events lack, and it’s the most important structural point I’ll make. Open networking is not a connection strategy. It’s a framework that rewards the extroverts, leaves the introverts stranded, and results in most people spending the evening talking to the three people they already knew when they arrived. If your event is supposed to bring people together meaningfully, you need to build the mechanisms for that into the programme itself — structured introductions, paired conversations, facilitated group moments — and you need to give them enough time to actually do their job.

Design the outcome first, then write the description. This is the reframe I’d encourage every event host to make. Before you sit down to write your event copy, ask yourself: what do I want my attendees to feel, know, and be able to do when they walk out of the door? Then work backwards:

• Does your programme actually deliver that?

• Does your description accurately reflect it?

If the answer to either of those questions is no, something needs to change. The description and the delivery have to be in dialogue with each other, not written in isolation.

The best events I’ve attended don’t just deliver a good experience on the day. They set the right expectation before it, and then they honour it — or even better, they exceed it. That’s the standard worth designing towards.

Looking for help designing an event that helps meet your goals? Get expert help to ensure your executive experiences are designed and promoted in the right way. Book a call with The Hook Studio.

What Else is On My Mind?

• 2026 Events Calendar for the Events Industry - I have been looking for a comprehensive list of events for event industry professionals and found this to be the most comprehensive thus far, so sharing for others who may be looking for a similar list.

• World Summit AI Startup Competition - The Hook Studio is working with The World Summit AI and Pathfounders to bring the Pathfounders Startup Stage to live. As part of that event, AI startup founders will compete to be recognised as the most innovative, with the best business strategy and the one AI business to watch for 2026. If you have an AI business, apply here.

• Women are harnessing AI and ignoring the tech-brosculinity - I found this podcast with the Female Foundry founder, Agata Nowicka, really interesting where it addresses the report that proves that tech female founders are on the rise but they are still not showing up to tech events like Hackatons. There is a lot of conversation on this topic in this LinkedIn post, so get involved and share your thoughts.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Having people to bounce ideas off, sense-check decisions with, or just remind you that you’re not the only one figuring things out has been incredibly helpful. Building that circle of support has been one of the most valuable parts of this journey so far — and a reminder that entrepreneurship may be a solo path on paper, but it rarely feels that way when the right people are around you. So I just wanted to share a thank you to all the women who have been part of that journey. You know who you are :)

From a work perspective, recently I’ve been giving some extra thought to fringe events. As we approach the spring conference season, I’ve been speaking with several organisers about hosting side events alongside their main programmes. Those conversations made me take a deeper look at what makes a fringe event stand out among the many competing options during a conference week.

I’m sharing my key learnings below.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Beyond the Main Stage: Why Fringe Events Matter — and How to Make Them Work

Fringe events are side events hosted alongside a main conference. They are typically organised by sponsors, partners, or community groups looking to seize the opportunity that their audience is already in town for the main event to bring them together for a smaller, more focused experience.

While fringe events usually feed off the momentum of the main conference, depending on the conference strategy they can also be critical to its success.

London Tech Week is a good example. The organisers actively encourage third parties to host side events across the city during the week as a way to attract even more delegates to London and reinforce the city’s status as a global tech hub. Last year they published a full calendar featuring more than 60 fringe events, and the call for organisers to submit events for this year is already open.In my opinion, the fringe events were actually what made London Tech Week most valuable. (You can read my GGBU review of last year’s edition here.)

Cannes Lions, the festival of Creativity, is another great example. The tickets to the main event are so expensive that many people attend the week only for the side events. Agencies and suppliers take over hotels, villas, yachts, gardens and any venue they can get their hands on to host dinners, talks and parties. These are the small gatherings everyone wants to be at — and often hard to get into. So much so that some companies have built a database growth strategy simply by compiling and publishing the Cannes Lions fringe events list.

Depending on the industry, you can even have the type of fringe events that, although hosted by a third party, are very much controlled by the main event organiser to be published in the official side events list, such is the case for the United Nations Climate Change conference.

How to Decide Which Type of Fringe Event to Host?

The type of fringe event you host should always be aligned to your strategic goals. So let’s start by reviewing the most appropriate formats based on the most common strategic goals for such events:

Key Outcomes for Every Fringe Event Host

The Fringe Event Strategy Matrix will help you choose which type of event format will be most relevant to support your business goals, but regardless of the format, there are two main outcomes every successful fringe event needs to achieve:

1. Fill the room with the right audience

2. Ensure attendees leave feeling it was worth their time

These two outcomes can be harder to achieve with a fringe event because you’re often competing with several other gatherings at a time when delegates are already tired from the main conference. As the host, you need to make your event feel special enough for people to choose yours over the many other options available.

Think of the scenario from the mind of the delegate: you’ve spent eight hours on a trade show floor. Your feet ache, your social battery is at 10%, and your inbox is screaming. At that moment, the “side events” you registered for start feeling more like a chore than an enjoyable experience, so the likelihood you will not leave the hotel room after you get back to change is becoming more likely.

So what can fringe event hosts do about it?

You need to set your strategy in a way that will counteract the risks associated with high drop outs at fringe events.

Here are some ideas:

1. Get into the “Co-opetition” Mindset

There is often a quiet tension between main conference organisers and “rogue” fringe hosts. Organisers fear the fringe will dilute the main stage crowd; hosts worry about being overshadowed by the main event’s noise.

But when you stop competing and start collaborating, you create a “Co-opetition” model that strengthens the entire ecosystem. Here is how that looks in practice:

• Solve the “Hotel Room Huddle”: If you are a tech vendor hosting a VIP dinner for retail decision-makers, the “danger zone” is the two-hour gap between the show closing and dinner starting. This is when tired delegates retreat to their hotel rooms—and often never come back out.

  • The Collaboration: Partner with the conference organiser to host an official meeting point and provide group transportation directly from the venue. You ensure your guests actually show up, and the organiser ensures their VIPs stay on-site until the very last minute of the conference day.

• The “Event-within-an-Event” Model: Imagine an industry association hosting an AGM on the morning of a major trade show. Traditionally, they’d book a separate hotel meeting room.

  • The Collaboration: The conference organiser provides a room within the expo center (often at a discount or even free). For the association, it’s a value-add as their members have two reasons to travel. For the organiser, it’s a win as they’ve just guaranteed that 50 high-value senior leaders are already inside the building before the show floor even opens.

2. The Psychology of exclusive “access”

This is where the location and activity you choose is critical to make people want to come to your event even if they are tired, and even if all their colleagues go somewhere else. Keeping it simple, if your fringe event takes place in a generic hotel lounge or restaurant, that will make your event feel very replaceable for anything better that comes along. But if you think about the venue or activity you host as a privilege for delegates they wouldn’t normally have access to, it will make it way more attractive for them to join. One example I learned about when I recently attended Confex, was the opportunity to host a dinner inside the Chelsea FC dressing rooms the night before a match. A delegate simply would not get into that room any other way so even those who are not football fans would have a sense of curiosity around attending. But while a dinner at a football club may not be relevant to every conference audience, the same principle can apply for many other type of venues or experiences:

• At a local artist’s private studio

• A hidden speakeasy that requires a physical token from your booth

• A behind-the-scenes tour of a landmark.

This way you are not only hosting an event that will allow delegates to meet interesting people or discuss a particular topic, but you are also giving them a privilege and a story to tell others.

3. Deliver the fringe experience through storytelling

If you have a particular theme to your fringe event, make sure that theme comes across through the entire event experience from the event invitations, to the registration and reminders along the way, to the actual experience in the room so everything feels part of the same story and creates a certain level of curiosity as to what will happen.

Example:

Imagine you’re an HR vendor hosting a half-day “Analog Retreat” the morning after a conference on AI and the Future of Work. Instead of another digital follow-up, your storytelling begins with a physical, hand-addressed letter inviting senior leaders to a “digital detox” to process the conference’s tech-heavy insights.

The narrative is cemented the moment they arrive at a historic, wood-panneled library and are asked to trade their devices for a branded notebook and a fountain pen. By stripping away the screens and moving the conversation into a sensory, analog environment, you aren’t just talking about human-centric leadership but also providing a high-value “memory anchor” that makes your brand literally bring the calm after the noise of the main event and help attendees process what they learned with their peers in a comfortable environment.

The Hooked Takeaway

We need to stop treating fringe events as an afterthought or a “sponsor extra visibility play.”

These can be the memory anchors. They are the filter that turns a crowd of 5,000 into a room of 50 people who actually matter to each other. But they need to be done right to really stand out as key events the delegates really want to attend.

The next time you’re planning a side event, don’t ask “How do we add this to the schedule?” Ask: “How do we design a moment that makes the main event feel incomplete without it?”

Looking to create a successful fringe event? Get expert help to ensure your executive experiences are designed and promoted in the right way. Book a call with The Hook Studio.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

FFinc x HSBC | An Exclusive Evening with Holly Tucker MBE

Last week I attended an event hosted by FFinc in partnership with HSBC Wealth, where HSBC interviewed Holly Tucker MBE, founder of Not On The High Street and most recently Holly & Co.

The event took place at HSBC’s offices in St James on the 3rd of March.

Here’s my take on the great, the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Great:

• Hybrid approach: The interview was recorded and live streamed as part of the HSBC Wealth webinar series. This created a great balance between the wide reach of a webinar and the opportunity for in-person delegates to meet and mingle.

• Production: Given the live stream element, organisers were keen to start and finish the interview on time (6–7pm), leaving around 15 minutes at the end for questions. Both virtual and in-person attendees could submit questions silently through Slido, making it easier for the host to review and select the most relevant ones directly from the iPad they had on stage. Overall, the production felt very streamlined.

• Content relevance to the audience: FFINC, a female founders network, was the community partner for the event and shared invitations with their audience. Having a successful female founder interviewed about her entrepreneurial journey therefore felt highly relevant to the room. Holly shared both successes and struggles, alongside practical advice that clearly resonated with the founders attending, and likely with the virtual audience as well.

The Good:

• Intimate space: Hosted in HSBC Wealth’s offices in St James, the space was small but perfectly suited to the format, hosting around 30 people. The size helped create a comfortable atmosphere and likely worked well for the live streaming setup too.

• Elevated hospitality: Being welcomed with champagne felt like a deliberate “brand-aligned” upgrade—fitting for a Wealth Management office. For the catering, they chose to offer a selection from Pure. While sandwiches are a simple choice, selecting a brand known for high-quality, and healthy ingredients showed a certain level of care that was appreciated.

The Bad:

• Post content networking: There was no particular effort to encourage guests to stay after the interview finished. Although some people did continue chatting, the format didn’t really signal that networking should continue, so many attendees left shortly after the interview finished.

The Ugly:

No particular ‘uglies’ to note for this one.

Overall, the content was clearly the main focus. The opportunity to network existed, but people were largely left to their own devices. That said, the alignment between the audience and the speaker was strong, so choosing FFinc as the community partner was definitely the right call.

The Hooked Takeaways:

For brands hosting thought leadership events, this is a good reminder that great content will always be a strong driver for obtaining attendance. HSBC and FFinc nailed the audience–speaker fit, which made the conversation genuinely meaningful for the founders in the room. That partner alignment is critical to make an event feel worth attending in the first place.

Another important thing to consider, is that if you are hosting an in-person element for a hybrid event, the live stream is for the “many,” but the networking is for the “few” in the room. When the cameras turn off and the host doesn’t give a clear instruction on what to do next, you lose the most valuable part of the evening which is that the peer-to-peer connection. So to get the maximum return from your event investment don’t miss out on the opportunity to get the maximum engagement with the people who are present in the room.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Yotewo Startup competition - I had the pleasure of being a judge for Yotewo’s startup competition that offered prominent startups with the possibility to win 180 hours of senior Development time to support their businesses. The finalists have been announced. Check them out.

• The Power of Storytelling - Following on from the importance of storytelling in event design, I came across an interview published by Event Industry News last week that shares some good examples of how organisers can build narrative into their events. You can read it here.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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So in this edition, I want to focus on that gap — how to define a clear executive event strategy, and the dos and don’ts that ensure brands take the right approach.

If you’ve seen executive events done particularly well (or not so well), I’d love to hear your examples.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Event Strategy That Drives Results

The Strategy of Exclusivity: How to Promote Senior Executive Events Without Diluting Their Value

Exclusivity has become one of the most overused words in event marketing.

“Invite-only.”
“Closed-door.”
“Executive-only.”
“Limited seats.”

Yet, in many cases, these same events are promoted widely across social media, supported by paid ads, or accompanied by open registration links.

Think about it - if you receive an invitation to a mastermind dinner where the host says they specifically are asking you to attend as they value your input to the discussion, but days later you find that same event being promoted on Meetup. com and Eventbrite,... Doesn’t really feel that exclusive now, does it?

And I’m not suggesting that for senior executive audiences, exclusivity is about ego or elitism, but it is mainly about time protection. Leaders operating at board or C-level are highly selective about where they invest their attention. The perception of curation often matters as much as the content itself. They understand the importance of meeting the right people, and that smaller executive gatherings can be powerful catalysts for introductions they would not easily access elsewhere.

So, when brands decide to host senior-level events, they must think carefully about the strategic role exclusivity plays, and how promotion either reinforces or undermines it.

Start with the Strategy

There are many reasons a brand may choose to create a smaller, curated executive gathering. Unlike large-scale events that optimise for reach, these more intimate experiences tend to support:

• Higher-quality conversations

• Faster trust-building

• More relevant introductions

• Stronger post-event follow-up

• Shorter deal cycles

And for brands seeking meaningful commercial outcomes or long-term ecosystem authority, exclusivity — when executed strategically — can outperform scale. But before thinking about messaging or visibility, the first question is: What is the primary objective of this event?

In my experience, exclusive executive events typically fall into two categories:

1. Pipeline and Relationship Acceleration

These events are designed to deepen existing relationships, accelerate deals, or facilitate high-value introductions. They are commercially focused, even if the format is conversational.

Careful audience composition in this setting, including seniority, sector alignment, and buyer/supplier balance, will directly influence ROI, and promotion outside the core group of invites is not as relevant.

2. Brand Positioning and Authority Building

These events aim to elevate brand perception by demonstrating the company’s ability to convene senior leaders and experts around meaningful discussions.

In this case the event becomes a signal of influence and ecosystem relevance, so the event promotion will be important but you need to have the right approach to ensure you are not diluting its relevance to the audience.

Once you have defined your strategic intent for this type of event, you then need to consider how to approach the four pillars that support an exclusive event.

The Four Pillars of Strategic Exclusivity

1. Audience Control

Audience qualification is key here, so you must think through and define the following

• What level of seniority is required?

• What industries or functional roles are relevant?

• What decision-making authority should attendees hold?
  

Your strategic objective will shape these decisions.

For example, imagine your company provides technology solutions to enterprise marketing teams.

If your goal is pipeline acceleration, you may prioritise Director-level and above attendees, as they are often closely aligned with operational budgets and implementation needs.

However, if your objective is to explore forward-looking AI priorities within enterprise marketing departments — and to generate authoritative post-event content — inviting VP-level and above may be more appropriate. Their perspectives will carry different weight externally, and the content produced will position your brand as aligned with strategic enterprise priorities, rather than simply promoting a current solution.

The seniority mix is not just an attendance decision, but a positioning decision.

2. Access Control

How invitations are distributed significantly impacts perception.

Personal outreach, referrals, introductions through trusted partners, and private community channels all reinforce exclusivity.

Open registration pages and broad public promotion can dilute perceived selectivity unless managed through clear approval processes.

The more senior the audience, the more personal the invitation should feel.

3. Content Control

An important consideration, particularly if you want to create content from the event discussions, is that senior leaders value psychological safety. This means that you need clarity around how private or public the discussions will be.

Some executives will not agree to public attribution without PR approval. Others may welcome visibility as part of their thought leadership positioning.

Clear parameters — whether full confidentiality under Chatham House Rule, partial attribution, or pre-approved summaries — will influence both the depth of conversation and how you prepare the room.

It is also worth noting that heavy filming, excessive social capture, or over-documentation can undermine the sense of discretion that makes executive gatherings valuable.

4. Visibility Control

Visibility supports brand awareness and ecosystem credibility, but this is where most brands struggle as they want the market to know they are hosting influential gatherings, but are worried on how sharing that information may negatively impact their ability of getting the right people in the room.

The balance lies in promoting the standard of conversation after the event rather than promoting seats availability ahead of time. Post-event visibility might include:

• Sharing the core topic discussed

• Describing the calibre of attendees without naming individuals

• Publishing approved insights or summary articles

• Sharing a carefully curated image of the gathering
  

As long as expectations are clearly set in advance, senior audiences are often open to different levels of visibility. The key is alignment between what you promise the room and what you publish externally, if anything.

The Promotion Approach

In terms of event promotion, one important thing to consider is that you cannot drive exclusivity by promoting scarcity in a way that feels transactional. For example:

• Public countdowns to “limited seats”

• Broad paid campaigns calling something “invite-only”

• Frequent tagging of executives before the event

• Publishing full guest lists in advance
  

These tactics can easily shift the perception of a curated event into a commercial event.

A more strategic approach includes:

• Communicating that attendance is by invitation or application

• Sharing the theme and purpose, not ticket links

• Highlighting the calibre of discussion without oversharing individual attendees

• Publishing key insights after the event rather than broadcasting in real time
  

It’s the type of approach leveraged by members’ clubs, luxury brands, high level forums, that has been tried and tested and just works. In this model, the brand and event remain visible, while the integrity of the room is preserved.

Final Considerations for Brands

When planning senior executive events, ask:

• Are we clear on the strategic objective?

• Does our promotional model align with that objective?

• Does our visibility approach reinforce or undermine selectivity?

• Would a senior leader feel chosen?
  

When managed well, an exclusive event strengthens brand authority, protects room quality, and enhances commercial impact.

In executive event strategy, perception is part of the product, and that perception is shaped long before the first guest arrives.

Looking to create a successful executive event strategy? Get expert help to ensure your executive experiences are designed and promoted in the right way. Book a call with The Hook Studio.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

How to Get Funding for Your Business: An Entrepreneurs Practical Guide [Yes, this was the Event Name]

On 27th January, AllBright hosted an event in London in partnership with Tide focused on supporting startups with practical knowledge around how to secure funding for their business. Here’s my perspective on the event.

The Great:

• The speaker lineup: The two guest speakers in the panel were strong. Both had scaled their companies over recent years and had navigated the realities of fundraising themselves. That lived experience translated into honest storytelling, sharing what worked, and what didn’t and the audience clearly resonated with the practical insights and candid reflections.
  

• The venue: Hosted at the former Albright Lounge at Old Sessions House in Farringdon, the space was beautiful and felt intimate. It suited the largely female audience and created a comfortable environment that encouraged people to stay on afterwards to continue conversations. The atmosphere felt warm rather than corporate, which worked well for the topic and audience profile.

The Good:

• Timing: Hosted during an evening in the week, starting at 6pm and with the main content finished by 7pm, it didn’t feel neither too long or too late. It was just enough to allow people to gain some insights, make some connections, while still allowing guests to be back home at a reasonable hour. That balance is often underestimated, particularly for weekday evening events.

• Sponsor expertise in the room: The sponsor, Tide, had four representatives of different areas of expertise in the room. They were introduced at the end of the panel and invited attendees to approach them with specific questions during networking.

The Bad:

• Lack of sponsor interaction: While allowing delegates to choose whether to engage with the sponsor is a respectful approach, it felt like a missed opportunity. I couldn’t see many attendees proactively approaching the Tide representatives during networking. As a result, the sponsor’s involvement leaned more towards brand visibility than meaningful interaction.

  A simple structural intervention could have changed that dynamic. For example, small moderated roundtable discussions immediately after the panel, hosted by a Tide representative, could have facilitated focused conversations around fundraising challenges. This would have created natural engagement between the audience, another opportunity for delegates to gain more information around the topic they wanted to learn about, and the sponsor would have been embedded into the value of the discussion rather than waiting on the side.

  Inevitably, when sponsors are present but not actively integrated into the experience, ROI becomes more passive
  
  

• Drinks options: Drinks were available throughout the event, which is always appreciated. However, the selection felt limited,particularly in January, when many people choose to avoid alcohol, and the only alternatives were sugary drinks. Event organisers should have non-drinkers more into consideration these days (and not just during dry January) as people tend to drink less at events but still want to have nice alternatives that aren’t filled with sugar or plain water. It’s a small detail, but it contributes to the overall perception of care and inclusivity.

The Ugly:

• Event Naming: It was called a “practical guide” and promoted as a “workshop”, but it was neither of those. The format was a panel discussion followed by open networking. A practical guide is usually associated with something more structured and instructional (often even a written framework), and a workshop tends to feel more interactive and hands-on. While the content itself was valuable, the naming didn’t quite match the format, which made it feel like a slightly strange choice.

Nevertheless, overall, it was a pleasant, insightful evening that delivered value to its audience.

Takeaways:

This event is a good example of how topic-focused gatherings can successfully attract the right audience and create a positive environment for learning and networking. However, it also highlights an important strategic point for brands - that visibility alone is not the same as engagement.

Sponsors often invest in events to access conversations, build relationships, and generate commercial opportunities. But without structured interaction points, even a well-attended event can limit deeper sponsor ROI.

For brands hosting or sponsoring events, the questions to ask are:

• How are we actively integrating sponsors into the experience?

• Are we creating intentional moments for meaningful interaction?

• Are small details — like timing and hospitality — reinforcing or detracting from the overall experience?

• Is our event design aligned with the outcomes we want to generate?
  
  

Great event strategy ensures every design decision supports a commercial or positioning objective.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Pathfounders Mixer London: AI, Power & The Road to 2026 - Taking place on Thursday 26 February, this event — dedicated to tech startup founders, investors, and senior industry operators — will explore the major forces shaping tech and venture in 2026, including AI’s next phase, what’s next for deep tech, geopolitics, and the future of sovereign technologies. With speakers representing venture capital firms and the European Innovation Council, and supported by partners Orrick and Nebius, this is set to be a great evening. Find out more.

• Confex: Coming up on the 25-26th of February in London, Confex is recognised as a key meeting point for the event industry and one I’m keen to explore this year for the first time. If you are attending, please get in touch as I would love to meet there.

• Allbright Step Forward - Taking place on the 6th of March in London, this event, curated by the Allbright membership community is designed for women who want more from their careers, their lives, and their impact.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

Share

As you read this, it may feel a little late for New Year wishes. However, as this is the first Hooked of the year, I think there’s still a perfectly valid window to address it. We do, after all, still have a whole 11 months ahead of us.

January may now have passed, but this month always feels a bit different to the rest of the year. It’s the month when everyone reflects on upcoming trends, what to look out for, and what this year is going to be about.

And inevitably, many of those trends and expectations are shaped by some of the year’s biggest anchor events. CES and NRF, for example, have already set the tone around AI innovation — particularly its move beyond screens and into more prominent, experience-led use cases — which feels like a real game-changer for the year ahead particularly for the events industry. Then there’s Davos, which has kept us all firmly on the edge of our seats as to what else might emerge on the geopolitical front (don’t even get me started).

From my side, it’s been an incredibly busy start to the year. As a result, something had to give. I’m afraid that something was Hooked, hence writing it a bit later than I would have liked. That said, as I’m currently on a plane en route to a well-deserved ski break, it felt like the right moment to finally write the first newsletter of the year, and share my own expectations of what lies ahead for the events world.

This year, I’m also planning to make Hooked a little different. I won’t always stick rigidly to three set sections. Instead, I want the flexibility to dive deeper into one or two topics when it makes sense, or to focus more on themes that feel timely in the moment. The aim is to write more fluidly, and ultimately to share more value with you. And as always, if there’s anything you’d like to read more (or less) about, I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts — feel free to get in touch with ideas.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

2026 Expectations: Why Connection Is Moving From Platforms to Communities

As the year started, my LinkedIn feed got inundated with three types of posts:

• “Year in review” posts — some incredibly positive and filled with achievements, others leaning on the ‘real year filled with struggles’ approach. Whichever side they landed on, they definitely seemed to be driving a lot of engagement over the start of the year.

• “Pleased to announce my new role” posts.

• And “breaking up with social media” posts — from people disenchanted with the effort they’ve put in that hasn’t yet delivered, or simply tired of the AI-sludge they keep reading, and who just want to regain control of their professional lives without feeling like their success depends on social media.

And while this last type of post might suggest we’re heading towards the fall of social media, I don’t actually expect that a full social media break is coming so soon. As a society, we’ve engrained it into our culture. We’re far too dependent on it to be entertained, communicate with others, meet new people, and sell the products and services we put out into the world.

What I do think will happen, though, is a continued diversification of social channels into smaller, interest-based apps, WhatsApp groups, and “Circle”-type communities. We’re already seeing more of these appear. People want to be part of them because they realise it’s in these smaller communities — with people who share similar interests or professional outlooks — that their voices are actually heard.

Think of it this way: LinkedIn is a city, while a theme-based online community is a village.

Naturally, people are far more likely to chat with strangers and get to know each other when they live in a village rather than a city. If a random stranger strikes up a conversation with you on the London Underground, you’ll probably feel a little suspicious about what they want — and might cut the conversation short by looking back at your phone to avoid continuing the interaction. That’s LinkedIn for you.

In a village, however, engaging with strangers is normal. It would almost feel rude not to join in when there are only a handful of you there. And that’s much closer to how small, topic-based online communities work — you actually want to engage with the few people who are there, because you already share something in common and are genuinely open to seeing how you might help each other.

You see my point.

Over the last year, I’ve engaged with several of these communities myself — a founders and freelancers community, a marketing community, an event professionals community, and even a hobby-based one. They live across WhatsApp, Slack, Circle and native apps. And while I can’t engage in every conversation all the time, I know each of them contains the people I want to connect with for specific reasons. I’ll often dip into the conversations to support what’s being discussed or to ask questions when I’m unsure about something.

Unlike larger social platforms — where questions can disappear into the void, or where people comment because they’re friends or simply “playing the LinkedIn game” to boost their own reach — in these communities, people actually listen. They respond thoughtfully and to the best of their ability. And that’s genuinely helpful.

Now add occasional live events into those communities, and something interesting happens. The people you’ve been seeing and engaging with online, suddenly become people you meet in real life. And that’s when proper relationships start to form.

And that, my friends, is the real power of community building — and where I see people drifting towards this year.

Need help defining how to create your own community? We can help. Book a call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Kickstart Your Year

One of the few events I attended in January was organised by the FFinc, which aligns with the type of communities referenced in the previous article. FFinc describes itself as a growth accelerator and impact network that supports women in progressing their careers.

For their first event of the year, held on 21 January, they brought together members and non-members for an evening of networking, learning and sharing. Here’s my take.

The Great:

• The speaker lineup: There were some true powerhouses in the room. Energising, inspiring speakers shared stories that spanned a wide range of topics relevant to the audience — from building businesses and driving change, to health, finance, fashion and travel.
  

• The audience: Almost everyone I spoke to was working on something interesting or within a field relevant to me. It genuinely felt like a room full of people I wanted to meet — always a strong indicator of a well-curated audience.

The Good:

• Relevant product showcases: A couple of sponsors had product showcases in the room, including Peachaus, an underwear and knitwear brand, and Sisterly, a nutrient supplements brand. These added an experiential layer to the event and worked well because the products were relevant to the audience and aligned with the various types of content discussed on stage.

The Bad:

• Not enough networking time: Despite being surrounded by interesting women, I only had the opportunity to meet a handful. Networking time was limited, and there was no structured way to help attendees meet more people, which meant conversations stayed within small clusters.
  

• Too many sessions: While the sessions themselves were strong, there were simply too many of them — at least two too many. With the event running from 5:30pm to 9:30pm, it felt long for an evening format. Combined with limited networking time, engagement noticeably dropped towards the end. By then, around a third of the audience had already left, and those remaining were visibly less engaged.
  

• Sponsors as speakers: Although all speakers were relevant and interesting, a couple were also sponsors and focused heavily on their businesses. This can leave delegates wondering whether speaking slots were paid for, rather than earned through expertise — which can slightly undermine perceived credibility.

The Ugly:

• The catering: The event description mentioned “plentiful drinks and canapés,” which set a clear expectation — especially given the early start time and the likelihood that most attendees came straight from work. In reality, there was a small table of snacks that was almost empty by 6pm and never refilled. As a result, many attendees spent the evening hungry, which inevitably affects energy levels and engagement.

Takeaways:

As an event organised by a community-based group, I was expecting to spend more time meeting others in the room — which, in reality, wasn’t quite the case. That makes this event a good reminder that audience quality alone isn’t enough. Even with strong speakers and a highly relevant crowd, impact can be lost if the experience design doesn’t fully support the core purpose of the event — in this case, driving connection.

A few takeaways:

• If networking is part of the value exchange, it needs to be designed, not left to chance.

• Content should support the flow of the event, and getting the right amount of it matters to avoid overwhelm.

• Basics like food, timing and pacing are never “small details” — they directly influence how people feel, behave and remember the brand associated with the event.

For brands investing in events this year, the challenge — and the opportunity — is to design experiences that genuinely honour the creation of a community dynamic. Getting the balance right between enabling meaningful guest interaction and delivering a strong overall experience will be the difference between events that simply happen, and those that truly strengthen a community.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Confex: Coming up on the 25-26th of February in London, Confex is recognised as a key meeting point for the event industry and one I’m keen to explore this year for the first time. If you are attending, please get in touch as I would love to meet there.

• Allbright Step Forward - Taking place on the 6th of March in London, this event, curated by the Allbright membership community is designed for women who want more from their careers, their lives, and their impact.

• Pathfounders Podcast - Mike Butcher’s new media brand, Pathfounders, launched their new podcast last week, and its already expected to become one of the most prominent podcasts for the tech startup and venture ecosystem. Take a listen to their first two episodes on YouTube, Spotify, or your favourite podcast platform.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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I hope you’re well into the festive spirit, taking the chance to reconnect with colleagues and partners you’ve worked with this year—and making time for friends and family too.

I always find this time of the year particularly interesting from a human-connection perspective. During the rest of the year, it can feel a bit awkward to reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while. But somehow, in December, the barriers feel lower. It suddenly becomes completely normal to hear from that supplier you worked with years ago or that partner from a previous company, wishing you happy holidays.

From an event perspective, however, companies get the most value when they use this season to nurture the relationships they’ve been building all year. And it’s exactly that kind of event that I’ll be reviewing in this issue.

This is the final Hooked of 2025. Launching this newsletter earlier this year has been an absolute joy, and seeing so many of you join and read along each month means the world. So to all of you: a massive, heartfelt THANK YOU.

Have a wonderful, restful break—and see you in 2026!

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

Tis The Season to Reconnect

At some point in the middle of the year I was approached on LinkedIn with something like this…

Them: “Hey Ana. As I was going through my contacts, I spotted your name and it reminded me of that campaign we worked on 10 years ago! I’m now at Company X and wondered if I could help you with your upcoming campaigns?”

Me, thinking (my actual reply was much more polite): “I remember the campaign, but I don’t remember you. And you’re reaching out after a decade… to sell me something straight away? At least warm me up with a conversation that’s relevant to where I am now.”

You get the point — this is not the kind of approach anyone wants to receive.

But imagine they had reached out around this time of year and did a few tweaks to their messaging:

Them: “Hi Ana. I’m reaching out to wish you a happy holiday season. As I was going through my contacts, I spotted your name and it reminded me of that campaign we worked on 10 years ago! I see you’ve now started your own company — how exciting! How have you been finding it so far?”

This second approach:

• Starts warm and human

• References how we met

• Shows they’ve genuinely looked at where I am now

• Invites a conversation

Boom. Suddenly, I want to reply.

Even if there’s eventually a sales angle, that’s fine. We all want to win more business — but connection comes first.

Does this mean you should only reach out to old contacts during the holidays? Definitely not. But it is a great moment to reconnect — people are more open, more positive, and more willing to engage. Just make sure your approach feels warm and genuine.

Give it a try. You can thank me later.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

This Season, Host Like a Friend - Not Like a Vendor

The holiday season is all about getting together with friends and family. And if you apply the same mindset to your business, you’ll unlock the most value from any events you host at this time of year. Inviting the people you’ve worked with into a warm, relaxed setting — sharing food, drinks, maybe even a small social activity — makes a real difference. People appreciate it. It moves relationships away from purely transactional and helps you build long-term, stable connections.

But first, you need to define who the “friends of your business” actually are. These are the people who’ve been part of your world over the past year or who you may be wanting to connect with soon.

Start with your customers
They’re the obvious ones. You’ve worked closely with them, and no doubt you’ll want to continue working with them in the future as nothing compounds as much business value as long term customer relationships.

Also your open opportunity prospects

You’ll likely have engaged with them a lot over the last few weeks or months. So nothing better than inviting them in so they can meet you and the team in a social environment and step away from the recent service led conversations. Don’t forget, people buy from people. Getting to know you and the rest of the team better may just be what seals the deal.

Then think about your partners
Not only the partners who actively brought you business, but also the ones you’ve been nurturing. The ones where the synergy is there, even if it hasn’t turned into anything concrete yet. They’re in the right space, they know the right people, and maintaining that relationship matters.

Don’t forget your suppliers
Yes, you’re the one paying them — but strong supplier relationships are invaluable. These are the people who deliver on time, help out when you are rushing through a project, or adapt their service when you need something a bit different. Even if you never need a last-minute favour, finally meeting the humans behind those email chains can strengthen the partnership for years ahead.

And finally, think of your community
Maybe you share a co-working space with people you see every day but have never properly spoken to. Maybe you’re part of an industry group or association, know journalists in your media vertical, or are connected to a local incubator supporting companies in your space. These are all relationships worth nurturing — and a festive gathering is the perfect excuse to start building them.

Now — once you’ve defined your “friends,” choose the right event format.

If your audience is diverse, a simple social gathering works perfectly: after work, with drinks and nibbles, some Christmas music, and maybe a game or two to help people mingle beyond their usual circles.

If your audience is more homogenous, like a group of your customers, you might layer in a little content: your predictions for the year ahead, a preview of upcoming products or improvements, or a short reflection on the industry. Nothing heavy — just valuable and relevant.

Whatever format you choose, keep it light and warm.

That’s how relationships grow and people are particularly open to it during this time of the year. The business results follow naturally.

Need help defining the best type of events to align with your goals? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Event Tech Christmas Party

Given the theme of this newsletter, I had to choose an event that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the season. Organised by Event Engine in early December — in collaboration with Event Tech Live, Electric Cat, FFair, gleanin and Premagic — this Christmas party was designed specifically for the event tech ecosystem. And it beautifully followed the recommendations in the article above: they identified their “business friends” (a mix of customers, prospects, suppliers, and partners across event tech) and brought them together for a relaxed evening where everyone genuinely had a good time.

The Great:

• The Event Landing Page — Festive, inviting, and with a feature I hadn’t seen before but absolutely loved: it displayed everyone who had already registered for the party (and approved the showcase). For a social networking environment, this is a great feature to have. Seeing familiar faces — or people you’d like to meet — can nudge potential attendees to sign up. It won’t work for every event type, but it worked great in this case.

• The Professional Photos - Premagic, one of the sponsors, handled photography throughout the evening. Their face-recognition AI identifies every photo an attendee appears in and shares them directly with that person after the event. Very clever and a wonderful way for delegates to access professional photos from events they attend.

Use your event assets to create anticipation before the event and extend value after it. Pre-event, consider showing who’s attending (when context-appropriate), and post-event, give guests personalised content — photos, summaries, or curated highlights.
These small touches can make a significant difference on perceived event quality.

The Good:

• The venue: A well-known riverside pub with gorgeous views over London. The main space felt relaxed and social — exactly right for a Christmas gathering. The atmosphere encouraged easy conversation and made people feel comfortable.

Choose a venue that feels right for both the type of event and your brand. Think about the energy and atmosphere you want to create, while still giving guests the feeling that they’re somewhere special. That “special” touch can come from the décor, the venue’s history, the view — whatever elevates the experience without compromising the vibe you’re aiming for.

The Bad:

• The food and dining area: The buffet was mostly beige (we’ve all been there), but the bigger issue was the layout. It was served in a separate, less inviting room, which unintentionally broke up the event and pulled people away from the main atmosphere.

Try and keep the event in one place as much as possible. Food and drink are natural gathering points, so position them where you want people to stay, talk, and connect. Avoid layouts that disperse energy or send guests into less engaging spaces.

The Ugly:

• No door check-in - The relaxed vibe was lovely, and if check-in didn’t feel important to organisers that is totally fine, but the absence of someone at the entrance didn’t feel ideal from a security standpoint.

Always maintain basic guest management if you are in a venue open to anyone to come in as it adds a small but important layer of security.

This felt like a warm, welcoming event — thoughtfully designed to bring together the “friends” of the event tech industry. A few small tweaks would elevate it even further, but as a Christmas social, it delivered exactly what it needed to: for people to connect and bring a sense of community to the room.

What Else is On My Mind?

• SXSW London: SXSW London has opened public voting for this year’s speaking submissions, and my wonderful friend, and founder of The Detail, a London studio specialising in sensory-led brand experiences and spatial storytelling for events, has applied to speak on the topic of ‘Re-Enchanting the Real World: Awe, Atmosphere & the Return of Human Magic’. If this topic resonates or sparks your curiosity, please support Laura Sawyer by casting a vote to help bring this session to the stage.

• Overdrive Digital events - This digital marketing agency has been hosting regular intimate breakfasts for marketers on topical discussions, and they’ve become incredibly popular. I attended one just this week on 2026 planning and found it super valuable. Make sure to follow them on socials if you want to find out how to get an invite for the next one.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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And since we’re firmly in “planning season”, I also want to highlight one of the most common statements I hear — especially from sales teams — when sponsorship discussions begin: “We just have to be there to be seen.”
If anyone brings that line to you this year, feel free to shut it down. It’s not a reason. It’s not a strategy. And it’s certainly not something you can present to leadership as justification for a six-figure spend.

Finally, remember when I mentioned a few weeks ago that I hoped I’d make it to IBTM?
Well… I made it in.
And you can read all about how it went below.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

Bridging the Speaker-Delegate Connection

Building connections at an event isn’t just about bringing delegates together that are relevant to each other. It’s also how speakers connect with their audience in a way that feels meaningful, relevant, or surprising.

That connection can happen in many ways:

• A theme the audience can learn from.

• A point of view that challenges assumptions.

• A story that surprises, entertains, or brings joy.

• A moment that pulls people in and makes them think differently.

There’s no single, linear way for a speaker to build connection with their audience.

But one thing is absolutely essential: the message has to be understood.

A speaker can deliver the most insightful, entertaining, or thought-provoking address — but if delegates can’t understand them, the impact is lost.

You may be wondering what I mean about being understood. This came up recently when a friend told me about an event she attended in Madrid.
There was a panel advertised as being delivered in English. Turns out only one panelist actually spoke English. The others spoke in Spanish.

You’d think this would be an obvious problem, but it shouldn’t be an issue at all in 2025. There are currently several AI technologies, such as Interprefy, LiveVoice, or others, that allow for real-time translation displayed on a stage screen or a mobile app; or can offer instant audio translation through headsets from providers like Silent Conference.

For multilingual panels, the technology goes a step further: speakers can wear headsets that translate their fellow panelists’ contributions instantly, allowing each person to participate in their own language without interrupting the flow of discussion. The progress in this area over the last few years has been remarkable, and what once required complex equipment or dedicated interpreters is now accessible to almost any event organiser. This opens up the possibility of bringing truly diverse expertise to a stage, regardless of the language a speaker feels most confident using.

In the case of the event my friend attended, however, none of this technology was implemented. Instead, the moderator found themselves acting largely as an interpreter, moving back and forth between English and Spanish and leaving little room for actual moderation. One of the Spanish panelists barely contributed at all, and the audience struggled to follow the conversation. The end result was a panel discussion in which the intended message was lost, and the opportunity for meaningful connection between speakers and delegates simply never materialised — a situation that could have been entirely avoided with the right tools in place.

Are you looking for help with the message delivered on stage so you can best connect with your audience? We can help. Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Stop Sponsoring Events Just to Be Seen

If there’s one statement GTM leaders often say that I disagree with passionately, it’s this: - “we need to sponsor that event to be seen as all our competitors are there”.

Well let me break it down to you, and I know this may be hard to take, but I’m afraid it is true - “No one cares!”

Yup, you heard me.

Your prospects won’t care. They may not even know you exist.

Your customers might only care if you normally wine and dine them at that event, but it’s not because you’re not picking up the dinner bill this time that they will churn.

The only ones who might notice are your competitors. Mostly so they can delight in the internal gossip that your absence surely means a budget cut and therefore some kind of weakness. (Let them think about what they want. They are not the ones paying your bills).

If you’ve reviewed the performance of that event year after year, tried different approaches, and still can’t make it contribute meaningfully to your goals… it’s time to let it go.
And no, “we just need to be there to be seen” is not a strategic reason to pour time, money, and team capacity into an event.

Events can be one of your strongest marketing channels — when they’re chosen intentionally and approached with a clear purpose. But each event must align with at least one of your overarching business goals.

So take a good look through your 2025 event performance before deciding which ones to do for 2026 and if they don’t perform as they should, it’s time to let them go. And trust me, it will be OK!

Need help reviewing your event performance and defining the best event portfolio for the year ahead? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

IBTM World

IBTM World is one of the largest conferences servicing the meetings and events industry for over 30 years and it took place again last week in Barcelona. It was a fascinating mix of standout moments, solid improvements, and a few avoidable frustrations. Here’s my GGBU take on what IBTM World got right, what could be refined, and what brands should take away as learnings for their own events.

The Great:

• Sustainable paper badges — finally an event that doesn’t have the plastic pouches and is actually doing something about reducing unnecessary plastic waste that is still so prominent at events.

• The Welcome Party - it took place immediately after the show day, right at the venue, and it was actually good:

  • Had a live band playing as doors opened

  • Food + drinks were widely distributed → minimal queues and enough food to qualify as a proper dinner for everyone attending.

  • Indoor + outdoor flow of space.

  • DJ until 11pm → felt like a real party, not just drinks + canapés.

• Inclusion and disability was considered:

  • The event had a dedicated disability bar at the Welcome Party, placed intentionally far from the main bar so wheelchair users could get service quickly and comfortably.

  • It had two quiet areas at the show floor and completely away so people could get away from the crowds and take a moment.

  • It had a quiet room - following the same principle as the Refuel Lounge but located completely off the show floor

  • And other services available to support those with visible and invisible disabilities. Full list in IBTM’s Inclusion & Accessibility page.

• Opportunities to meet influential people and companies in the industry - From personalities on stage to fringe events outside of the main expo floor, the opportunities were numerous for delegates to make relevant connections with those they normally only see online.

• Well-run shuttle services between the airport, hotels and the venue for hosted buyers (and some other groups). Regular, reliable, and clearly communicated.

Focus on reducing friction across the attendee journey. Whether it’s accessibility, food availability, or transport, people stay longer, and therefore have more opportunities to engage between them and the event.

The Good:

• All main stages were grouped on one side of the show floor, making it easier to move between sessions without zig-zagging through the entire venue.

• A second party night on Wednesday at 10pm.

  • Late for some, but culturally aligned with Spain’s nightlife rhythm.

  • Allowed people to have dinner first.

  • Feedback suggests it was fun, well-attended, and worth staying out for.

Think about pacing your social programming. Give people the flexibility to plan around your event. When scheduling evening activations, consider the cultural context and build formats that make sense for that audience.

The Bad:

• The interactive map wasn’t fully working at the start of the event. It took about 2 hours for it to work as it was meant to, but in the meantime the following issues happened:

  • Key spaces like stages and lounges weren’t properly labelled.

  • Attendees were confused about where to go.

• The event app underperformed:

  • 5–10 seconds of loading time every time you opened it.

  • Notifications didn’t link to the relevant content. Example: “You have a message” → but no clear indication of where to find said message.

Don’t rely solely on digital tools unless they’re bulletproof. Worth providing a few analogue fallbacks—especially for way-finding. A simple large printed map in a central location at IBTM would have prevented frustration and helpdesk queues at the start, and would have been a good alternative for flat mobile phone batteries at the end of the day.

The Ugly:

• No available powerbank rentals - there were some power connections around the event, but unless you had the time to pause to charge your phone, you didn’t have much of an alternative, and as the mobile app is an essential way for delegates to find their way around the large conference, powerbanks should have been provided.

If you are making the mobile app access an essential part of the event conference experience that delegates need to use regularly at a full day event, make sure you are providing delegates with easy and widely available options to charge their phones, accounting for those who forget their powerbanks or their charging cables.

Aside from the few tech issues, and considering it is such a large undertaking of an event, I’d say IBTM World was a smoothly run event with strong logistics and attention to attendee comfort overall, so it definitely left a good impression.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Event Tech Live: The on-demand recording of the session I presented at Event Tech Live on the topic of ‘The Personalisation Payoff: Event Strategy That Proves REI’ is now available. Find it here.

• Creator Playbook Podcast - I came across this podcast recently and have to say: the host does a brilliant job of creating genuinely engaging content around content creation and entrepreneurship. If you’re looking for fresh marketing inspiration — whether for your business or your events — there are some really useful insights here.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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I’m also sending this newsletter a day later than usual, as I’ve spent the past two days at Event Tech Live, where I spoke yesterday about personalisation at events — and how a good personalisation strategy can help you improve your Return on Event Investment.

As part of that talk, I shared my scoring model for defining and calculating Return on Event Investment — a data-backed approach that helps you have clearer, more confident conversations with your leadership team when it comes to justifying changes, improvements, and budget allocations.

Continue reading below to learn how it all works and to download your own Return on Event Investment calculator template.

And since I was at Event Tech Live, this week’s GGBU event review will be all about that experience.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

Can a Virtual Christmas Party Substitute an In-Person Party?

This year I already got not one, but two invitations to a virtual Christmas Party! You heard it - virtual! That made a lot of sense during the Covid lockdown, because… that was the only type of party we could do. But in 2025?!

OK, I think I get it. They have a wide number of contacts to invite who live in a variety of locations and want to be inclusive to all. But is a virtual Christmas party going to make it more likely everyone will attend? Especially with a group that has been virtual most of the year and that still has London as its main hub?

Let’s think about this:

Why do companies host Christmas parties in the first place?

• To build relationships between employees, clients, and partners

• To bring people together in a relaxed environment

• To thank those who’ve supported the business through the year

And what do these parties normally involve?

• A few drinks. Some food. A bit of dancing. A speech or two.

• Maybe a slightly awkward moment between “John from Sales” and “Fiona from Accounts” that everyone pretends they didn’t notice.

But you get it — it’s about connection.
People relax, chat about things outside of work, and form stronger relationships (sometimes even marriages — though that’s not quite the KPI we’re tracking here!).

Now, compare that to a virtual Christmas party — we’ve all been there:

• The execs kick it off with a speech.

• There’s a presentation, a few awards, some emojis in the chat.

• A virtual game or breakout room or two, then a magician or singer in another “room.”

And before you know it, your partner’s home, the dinner’s on, and the Zoom window’s still open in the background.

So let’s be honest, most of the reasons we have Christmas parties aren’t really achieved in a virtual format. The connection, the laughter, the spontaneity, the fun… simply don’t translate through a screen.

If you still want to host something virtual — whether for budget, inclusivity, or remote-team reasons — go for it. But just don’t call it a Christmas party.

Call it a Virtual Awards Ceremony, a Festive All Hands, or a Year-End Gathering — something that reflects what it is, not what it’s trying (and failing) to be.

Basically, when you name an event the wrong way, you set the wrong expectations. It’s all about phrasing and perception. Call it something different and the expectations can align a lot better with your intention for that event.

Are you looking for ideas on how to create more meaningful connections at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Defining Your Return on Event Investment Score

At The Hook Studio, we define Return on Event Investment (REI) as the measure of success across all the key stakeholders that make an event possible:

• Organisers

• Delegates

• Sponsors (when applicable)

Even if sponsors aren’t involved, organisers and delegates always are — and both matter equally.

Because one thing you have to keep in mind is that even if your event looks great on paper from your perspective (you hit lead targets or revenue goals), but sponsors didn’t see value, they won’t come back next year.
And if delegates didn’t think it was worth their time, they won’t either.

So yes, the event may have achieved a positive ROI this time — but it doesn’t have a sustainable REI for the future.

👉 Real event success isn’t about whether it worked once. It’s about whether it created enough value for every key stakeholder to want to do it again.

Here’s how you can define the Return on Event Investment for your events:

Step 1: Define Success for Each Stakeholder

Start by identifying the goals for each group — your own, your delegates’, and your sponsors’.
Then plan how you’ll measure progress towards each one before the event takes place.

Here are just some examples of typical event goals by stakeholder and metrics you could choose to help you track towards your goal’s success 👇

Step 2: Connect Goals to Measurable Data

The key here is alignment with your leadership team. Make sure you are all in agreement on the event goals that will determine its success, and work together to define the metrics you’ll track to measure that success. This will look different for every company, and there’s no single right or wrong answer — but once you’ve aligned on the goals and metrics, you can put clear measurements in place to ensure that, by the end of the event, you’ve collected the data you need to evaluate your performance.

Step 3: Plan Your Measurement in Advance

Once you’ve defined the goals and metrics for each stakeholder, you can identify:

• What data you need to collect,

• What tools or surveys you’ll use, and

• When you’ll gather that information (before, during, and after the event).
  
  

💡 Tip: If you’ve hosted this event before, use last year’s data as a benchmark. It gives you a realistic baseline for goal-setting this time around.

Step 4: Calculate Your Return on Event Investment Score

As results come in, compare your targets with actual outcomes.
The difference between your goal and your result gives you a percentage of achievement.
You can then assign each goal a score (1–10) based on a specific scoring scale logic like the one below to help you visualise performance at a glance:

Here’s an example of what that might look like overall for a sample event 👇

Overall Event Score: 7 → Met Goal

Step 5: Use Your REI to Tell a Stronger Story

This framework gives you the language and data to have clear, confident conversations with your executive team.

It helps you:
✅ Justify your event strategy and budget
✅ Highlight wins beyond just leads or revenue
✅ Show how the event delivered value for everyone — not just the business

When you can measure what truly matters, you’re not just proving your event worked but you’re proving it’s worth doing again.

📊 Download The Hook Studio’s Return on Event Investment template Google sheet to track your own REI score - here

Need help setting up a tracking and analysis system tailored to your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Event Tech Live

Event Tech Live took place on the 12th and 13th of November at the ExCeL London, bringing together event hosts, organisers, and technology providers to explore the latest innovations in event tech.

From AI tools to engagement apps, content formats, and new networking experiences, the show aims to help organisers rethink how technology can elevate the attendee journey and achieve their overall goals. Follows the review:

The Great:

• Very focused theme + strong variety of tech suppliers: The event stayed tightly centred on event technology, and the exhibitor mix reflected that. Delegates could explore a wide range of solutions relevant to actual day-to-day event challenges.

• Real-time translation & digital Q&A tools on stage: Sessions included technology that enhanced accessibility and delegate participation, offering a smooth experience for both speakers and attendees.

• Tight organisation despite a complex format: For an event with so much happening in a relatively small space — expo floor, content stages, live interviews, podcasts, meetups, braindates, speed networking, awards, plus gamified elements — everything I experienced ran impressively on time.

Event tech live is a good example of an event that is bringing the theme of the event to live by incorporating various event technology into the experience of its own event. It reflects how its a lot more tangible to show people how something is done rather than telling someone how its done, as people get it and remember it better..

The Good:

• Gamification as part of the event experience: The gamification activities were visible, encouraged in-app, and reinforced from the main stage. Delegates could take several challenges on site and on the app, could see how they were performing in the leaderboard and got rewards along the way. The downside is that ExCeL’s inconsistent WiFi made it hard for delegates to participate smoothly.

If your engagement strategy relies on tech, always have a connectivity fallback. Otherwise the best experience can become frustrating.

The Bad:

• The event app felt overly complex: Delegates kept referencing the complexity of the app. They felt there was too much for them to absorb and therefore they nearly scratched the service of what was possible to do through the app. Too much functionality can overwhelm delegates and reduce adoption.

• Inconsistent sponsor booth quality due to shell schemes: Some stands were beautiful and custom-built, others looked plain and uninspired — creating a patchy visual experience across the floor. A cohesive booth approach would have elevated the overall look and feel for both sponsors and delegates.

Simplicity wins. Choose a few high-impact features and make them flawless rather than trying to fit too much and create confusion.

The Ugly:

Nothing in particular stood out but if I had to choose one it has to be the poor wifi connection. We absolutely need strong wifi at events as this seems to be a consistent problem across venues.

Overall these were two well spent days that enabled delegates to have a variety of interactions, experience a lot of the technology on showcase, and make a lot of new contacts. The formalised meetups and braindates (roundtable discussions) were incredibly helpful to bring people together, that they may have found difficult otherwise simply through the app networking tool. And hats off to the organisers for showcasing so much of what it’s possible to do with event technology at their own event.

What Else is On My Mind?

• IBTM - One of the largest conferences for the MICE industry is taking place in Barcelona next week, and I’ll be there. If you are planning to be too, drop me a note.

• Global Event Tech Summit - I’ll be speaking on a panel discussion alongside Vanessa Lovatt from Event Tech World, Tommy Moore from DRPG and Zoe Lacey-Cooper from Alternative Events pm the topic of ‘Personalisation that Connects: Making Experiences Feel More for One"‘. If you are planning to be there, drop me a note so we can meet.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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In this issue, we’ll look at how your events can support a business goal of growing your existing customer base — with practical ideas for aligning event formats to customer expansion and retention.

I’ll also share some content ideas to help you nurture the connections made at your events through digital channels, ensuring that relationships continue to grow long after the day ends.

And for this GGBU event review, we’ll take a closer look at Creatio’s No-Code Day London conference — what worked, what didn’t, and what brands can learn from it.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

Long Lasting Relationships Through The Digital-Physical Loop

Last week I found it interesting to read in the digital marketing agency Rocket SaaS newsletter - SaaS Marketing Weekly - that they had just conducted their highest ROI campaign ever, and it wasn’t digital at all. It was a breakfast event!

Why? Because the event enabled them to meet, for the first time, the faceless contacts they’d nurtured through digital activities. In just a few hours, they were able to showcase their expertise, have meaningful conversations with guests in their Ideal Customer Profile, and start building relationships that would have been much harder to establish online.

The face-to-face time is invaluable to help build trust exponentially between people, but while you may not be able to host that audience at an event every week, this is where you can also bring digital channels to help you stay connected long after the event ends.

Here are just some examples of how that content could look like:

• Sharing highlights from the event — key takeaways, short video clips, or a recap blog post to remind attendees of the value they experienced.

• Social engagement with attendees’ posts, tagging speakers, or celebrating shared successes.

• Follow-up content that deepens conversations started at the event, such as customer success stories, tutorials, useful reports or templates tied to the topics discussed.

• Targeted email series that extend specific themes covered in your sessions and invite further interaction, such as webinars or office-hour style Q&As.

• Personalised check-ins from your sales or customer success teams referencing the event discussion — showing genuine interest and follow-through.

By creating this digital–physical loop, you transform what could be a one-time encounter into an ongoing relationship. Events drive trust and connection; while digital channels sustain and scale those relationships over time.

Are you looking for ideas on how to create more meaningful connections at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Aligning Your Event Strategy to Your Customer Growth Goals

As we get closer to the new year, now is the time to define your plan for the year ahead. In a previous newsletter, we discussed the importance of reviewing your current year’s event results to establish clear benchmarks — and shared an Event ROI and Performance Template to help you get to that level of analysis. But to truly determine which events should form part of your plan, you first need to have clear business objectives in place, so your event strategy can align to those goals.

In this article, let’s consider one common business goal: expanding revenue from your existing customer base.

To be able to define a strategy that will help you reach that goal, ask yourself a few key questions:

• What has helped our customers grow in the past?

• Where have we seen slower expansion, and why?

• Do customers truly understand the full range of our products and their benefits?

• Are we engaging the right people within their organisations?
  

Once you’ve understood those points, you can then start planning on how to address them. Perhaps customers need more education on your product suite — you could start with tutorial videos supported by your customer success team, and follow up with regional customer workshops to deepen engagement in person.

To reach different audiences within the same customer accounts, structure these workshops into themed tracks relevant to various departments or functions. This ensures every attendee gets value, while also introducing your broader offering to new contacts within existing clients.

To complement these workshops, consider executive dinners scheduled around your user conferences in key cities. These create opportunities to connect with C-level stakeholders — the ultimate decision-makers — in a setting that’s both strategic and relationship-driven. Focus the conversation on the ROI and simplicity of consolidating services with one trusted partner (you!).

And for your top-tier clients, launching a Customer Advisory Board can take things a step further. It positions your company as a true partner, giving executives a platform to share feedback while reinforcing your commitment to their growth.

By aligning these customer-focused events with always-on digital content — such as webinars, product tutorials, and case studies — you’ll create a consistent, year-round strategy that educates, engages, and drives expansion from within your existing base.

In short: start with your goals, identify what needs to happen, change or be improved to reach those goals and build every touchpoint, online and offline, around making those happen.

Need help defining your event strategy for the year ahead? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Creatio No-Code Day London

On October 21st, Creatio hosted its No-Code Day London at The Savoy Hotel — a polished, well-organised morning that reflected the confidence of a brand growing its community around the no-code movement. Here’s the Good, Great, Bad and Ugly from the day 👇

The Great:

• Half-day morning format: Running the event in the morning and wrapping just after lunch was clever. It made attendance feel manageable and reduced last-minute drop-offs as people go straight there first thing in their day.

• Customer-only workshop after lunch: A sharp way to turn a prospect event into a customer engagement opportunity. It can help deepen customer relationships, create clear value for existing users, encourage product adoption and possibly even introduce them to new features they could upgrade to.

• The mascot! The human sized fluffy Creatio character added warmth and friendliness to the event — just a small touch, but makes the event friendlier and the brand feel approachable and memorable, while giving delegates another reason to tag Creatio on social media when sharing their photos with the giant mascot.

Don’t underestimate small details and smart structure. Personality, timing, and layered experiences (prospects in the morning, customers later) can significantly increase both attendance, value and impact.

The Good:

• Pre-event communication: Attendees received clear reminders before the event — including a text message with clear instructions towards the venue entrance, which was not the most obvious one. No doubt this will have saved time and frustration for a lot of delegates, proving how valuable proactive communication can be.

• Balanced agenda: The mix of a short intro, a focused product demo that was actually interesting to the whole audience, and client panels worked well. It showed thought leadership and product value without feeling like a sales pitch.

• The big entrance: I wasn’t sure whether to include this in the good or bad section to be honest. They started the conference with a big entrance of two of the senior executives at Creatio walking on stage with air guitars to the sound of Lenny Kravitz - Are you Gonna Go My Way. It was the type of entrance that gives the English audience a bit of a cringe feel factor as it does look like a bit of an American showbiz type of thing to do. However, it’s fair play they braved the audience with some dance moves. It was no doubt entertaining so I think they deserve some kudos for that.

  

Product demos at a conference can work if the product is showing true innovation. This is not often the case though, so technology brands should carefully consider taking this approach to an audience that is not customer only as it can seem overly salesy. Creatio, however, showed us that it can work well if you have something to share that truly stands out.

The Bad:

• The venue: The Savoy Hotel is a beautiful space, but it doesn’t exactly scream future innovation or AI technology. Venue choice plays a huge role in reinforcing brand positioning — and in this case, the setting didn’t quite match Creatio’s ambition to be seen as a leader in cutting-edge tech.

• Audience mismatch: The room was buzzing — but mostly with small startups, not the enterprise audience Creatio typically targets. While attendance looked impressive, the strategic fit didn’t seem quite right.

Align your event environment and audience with the story you want to tell. The venue should feel like your brand — it sets the tone before a single presentation begins. And when it comes to audience, relevance should be more of a focus than volume: a few well-matched conversations can be far more valuable than a crowded room of loosely aligned leads.

The Ugly:

• Coffee chaos: The networking area was simply too small for the amount of people in the room which led to long queues for coffee and food cutting into prime networking time.

• The automated follow ups: For such a large event production you would expect a more thoughtful attention to lead follow-up. Even if handled automatically, it wouldn’t have taken much to separate the registrant list into “attended” and “did not attend” so messages could actually be relevant. Instead, everyone got the same bulk follow-up with a line like “whether you attended or not.” And that note at the top of the email saying they are sorry we didn’t get to meet at the event?! - when this was literally the first time I heard from that person.

Automating systems, particularly in follow ups for large audiences, make total sense, but try to make it at least feel a little personalised! Segment your audiences, tailor your messages, and make your automation feel human. Plus, make sure the space you have for the event is fully suitable for purpose so there is enough space for people to walk around.

Creatio’s No-Code Day London delivered strong structure, valuable content, and the polish of a well-planned event. My advice for next time would be to focus more on the overall delegate experience — particularly how the space makes people feel. The on-stage content successfully reflected Creatio’s innovative AI technology, but the traditional venue and crowded layout didn’t quite carry that same sense of innovation. Coupled with a more personalised post-event communication approach, these improvements could elevate the experience and strengthen the connection between the brand and its audience.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Event Tech Live - I’ll be speaking at Event Tech Live on the topic of ‘The Personalisation Payoff: Event Strategy That Proves REI’. The event takes place on the 12-13th November at the ExCel in London and registration is free so grab your ticket here.

• SXSW London - I attended their 2026 launch event last week, where they shared some exciting changes planned for their second London event that will be taking place on the 1st-6th June, 2026. Early bird tickets, speaking slots and artist submissions are now open.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Also, in this issue I’ll explore why showing you care about your audience drives stronger connections than a hard sell, why last-minute event invitations signal a weak strategy, and how brands can avoid the common pitfalls that undermine even the best-intentioned VIP events.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

Stop Pitching. Start Connecting.

At one of the recent events I attended, I had a few conversations that left me wondering whether some brands forgot what events are actually for. Several booths — particularly from brands on the B2C side — went straight into their pitch without even asking who I was or what I did. It felt like I was just another target on their checklist.

Events are, at their core, about connection. And whether you’re selling a SaaS platform or a craft gin, the human part of the exchange is what makes people care enough to remember you.

If this resonates, I want to share with you four reasons why showing you care about your audience will get you better results than any sales pitch ever could:

1. It builds trust.
   When someone feels seen and heard, they lower their guard. A two-way conversation will always go further than a one-way product demo.
   
   

2. It creates genuine insight.
   Asking questions helps you learn what your audience actually needs — which means you can tailor your message and offer something that lands. That’s how real opportunities start.
   
   

3. It makes your brand feel human.
   People buy from people. Showing curiosity about who’s in front of you — even if they’re not a direct prospect — builds goodwill and spreads positive word of mouth long after the event.
   
   

4. It strengthens your long game.
   Not everyone you meet will buy that day, but those who remember your warmth and authenticity might come back later. Relationships compound over time so keep that in mind next time you have an interaction with a potential customer.

At events, your product is only half the story. The other half is how you make people feel when they stop by your stand. If you lead with genuine interest, the selling part tends to take care of itself.

Are you looking for ideas on how to create more meaningful connections at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

How to Avoid the Last-Minute Event Invite Scramble

I recently came across a LinkedIn post from someone I know in sales, inviting their network to register for an “exclusive VIP dinner” happening in less than a week. While well-intentioned, this kind of last-minute, blanket approach signals something many brands overlook: a weak event strategy.

For starters, if you’re sending a mass invite to your full LinkedIn network, the event stops feeling exclusive and starts feeling more like a scramble to fill seats. VIP events should feel deliberate, curated, and thoughtfully planned, not last-minute panic.

So how do you avoid this? Follow these 5 tips to ensure your small, high-value event fills the right seats, well in advance:

1. Segment your audience early
   Identify the individuals who would most benefit from attending. Personalised invitations to a select group always feel more exclusive than a generic mass invite.
   
   

2. Create a timeline for invitations
   Send initial invites well ahead of time — typically 6–8 weeks before the event — and follow up strategically. Last-minute blasts can damage perceived value.
   
   

3. Leverage multiple touchpoints
   Use a mix of email, personal LinkedIn messages, and phone calls if appropriate. Repetition increases attendance without diminishing exclusivity.
   
   

4. Communicate value clearly
   Make sure the invite explains why the event is worth their time — who they’ll meet, what they’ll learn, and why it’s limited access. Exclusivity is more than a label; it’s a promise.
   
   

5. Plan for contingencies
   Always have a waitlist or a small list of backup prospects who can be invited if initial responses are slow. This ensures your event still feels curated and full.
   
   

A strong event strategy starts long before the invitations go out. When you plan deliberately, your VIP events feel more intentional, valuable, and anticipated — and you avoid the desperate last-minute scramble that undermines both perception and engagement.

Need help defining your event strategy and invitation plan for your upcoming events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Customer Engagement Summit

Finally attended a conference in a traditional venue where the look and feel of the space actually felt fresh. The Customer Engagement Summit, held on October 9th at Evolution Battersea, brought together customer experience and support professionals alongside solution providers. It stood out from the usual conference in terms of its look and design but it also has some clear areas for improvement so hopefully event organisers will make some adjustments to improve the networking side of things. Check out the overview video on LinkedIn and my full event review below:

The Great:

• Cohesive and well-designed space: The organisers took full control of the sponsor setup, creating a consistent, attractive look across the expo floor. Instead of the usual patchwork of stands — some sleek, others painfully basic — every sponsor had a high-quality booth shell to work from.
  This decision not only made the event visually appealing but also simplified logistics for sponsors, freeing them up to focus on engagement rather than booth construction. The result: a cleaner, more premium atmosphere and a better experience for attendees.

• Coffee done right: There were at least seven barista stations dotted around the expo floor — each sponsored, branded, and easily accessible. No long queues, no awkward “please scan my badge for caffeine” moments, and got everyone filled with plenty of energy all day long.
  Sponsors benefited from data capture and visibility, delegates got their coffee fix without friction, and organisers likely boosted revenue. A win for everyone.

  

When event organisers set design standards and reduce production hassle, sponsors are all showcased in a better way and delegates feel the difference. If you’re sponsoring an event, prioritise experiences that make it easy to engage rather than just show up. Cohesive design and thoughtful attendee touchpoints (like accessible coffee) can turn a standard sponsorship into an enjoyable brand interaction.

The Good:

• The venue: Evolution Battersea is a welcome upgrade from the usual Olympia or ExCeL setup. Its black-draped ceiling and string lights create a warmer, more inviting atmosphere — a nice change from the sterile, warehouse feel of larger venues. Nestled in the middle of Battersea Park, it also offers a pleasant walk-in for attendees, which subtly adds to the overall experience.

• Comedy close: Ending the day with a comedy act from Simon Evans was a smart move — lighthearted, energising, and a clever way to leave attendees smiling. While the audience could’ve been larger to boost the atmosphere, it’s refreshing to see organisers finish on something memorable and human rather than another panel or keynote.

• Design consistency: The event’s visual identity carried through beautifully. The same bold colours and geometric shapes seen on the website and print materials appeared across the stage design, sponsor booths, and even custom-designed beer bottles handed out at the end. It made the brand feel unified and thoughtfully produced.
  

Consistent design and thoughtful finishing touches elevate brand perception and attendee experience alike. When every detail — from signage to swag — reflects a cohesive visual story, your brand feels more polished and memorable. And if you’re planning an event presence, think beyond your booth: how can your design extend across the attendee journey to make your brand feel cohesive?

The Bad:

• Content depth: Several delegates mentioned that sessions felt too high-level, offering more overview than insight. As a result, some attendees didn’t stay for the full day — and the energy in the room noticeably dipped as sessions went on. Stronger, more tactical content could help keep engagement consistent throughout.

• Sponsor creativity: With a few exceptions, sponsor booths lacked originality. Many relied on the usual giveaways and branded merch to draw attention, but few created experiences that truly sparked curiosity or conversation. In an event so focused on engagement, that felt like a missed opportunity.

• Networking break too late in the day: An official networking break from all content sessions around 4pm didn’t have the intended result of driving networking. Instead, most delegates saw that as an opportunity to leave the show floor, so the last few sessions had less than ⅓ of seats filled and it also meant there were a lot less delegates around for the networking at the end of the event.

If you’re sponsoring or speaking at a conference, think about energy flow as much as exposure. Interactive, creative experiences — even small ones — help sustain attention and leave a lasting impression. Avoid blending into the noise of swag-filled stands; find ways to bring your brand to life and keep delegates engaged throughout the day.

The Ugly:

• The Night Summit: Intended as the main networking moment of the day, I would say the Night Summit was inexistent. Without a clear central hub or focal point, the atmosphere never really came together. Staff handed out free beers across the venue, so instead of gathering in one area, attendees were scattered — some watched the closing comedy act with a drink in hand, then quietly slipped out. It was a missed opportunity to close the day by bringing people together to make a few additional new connections in a relaxed evening environment.

Networking moments are only as strong as the environment they happen in. Whether you’re hosting or sponsoring, help shape the flow of the event by creating a focal point, and giving people a reason to stay.

The Customer Engagement Summit delivered a fresher take on the traditional conference experience from a design, look and feel perspective, but it could be improved next year with a more formalised networking that would encourage people to stay at the end to connect with others.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Event Tech Live - I’ll be speaking at Event Tech Live on the topic of ‘The Personalisation Payoff: Event Strategy That Proves REI’. It takes place on the 12-13th November at the ExCel in London and registration is free so grab your ticket here.

• Event Tech World Community - I’ve recently learned about this community for marketing and event leaders to learn how to improve their event efficiency through new event technology so I’m very keen to discover new tech through this group. It’s free to join if you’d like to get involved too.

• IBTM World - This is the cream of the crop in the event industry. Taking place on the 18th-20th November at Fira in Barcelona, it will bring together event professionals and their suppliers all under one room.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Another topic that’s been dominating conversations across the industry (and social feeds) is the growing movement to reduce or completely cut out alcohol at networking events. This shift is changing how people experience and connect at gatherings. If you’ve ever wondered how to approach events without leaning on a drink in hand, you’ll find practical tips in the article below.

And finally—this week’s GGBU review takes a closer look at Technology for Marketing, which I attended alongside the eCommerce Expo.

Here’s to a strong final quarter,

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

The Rise of Dry Connecting: How to Navigate Events Alcohol-Free

At many business and networking events, alcohol has traditionally played a starring role. The drinks reception, the “let’s grab a glass of wine,” the post-panel cocktails—it can sometimes feel like alcohol is the glue holding these interactions together. But the truth is, the most valuable connections don’t come from what’s in your glass, they come from how you show up.

At this year’s IdeasFest, a brilliant panel—Sam White, Helen Masters, Amanda Thomson, and Emily Syphas —explored what it means to network without relying on alcohol. They called it “dry connecting.”

Here follow some tips on how you can do it too, based off some of their takeaways, combined with new research that helps showcase the future of connecting at business events:

1. You set the tone

Choosing not to drink signals confidence and can put others at ease. Instead of following the crowd, you’re showing that meaningful conversations don’t need to lean on alcohol.

2. Confidence doesn’t come from the glass

It’s easy to believe that a drink in hand will help you relax and start conversations—but that’s more mindset than reality. True confidence comes from preparation and presence, not alcohol. A smile, a good opener, or simply asking someone about their work can break the ice far more effectively than a glass of wine ever could.

3. Ease into it if you need to

If you’re used to drinking at events, going “dry” doesn’t have to be all or nothing. One tip can be to start with a single alcoholic drink early in the night, then switch to a non-alcoholic option. Most people won’t notice—or care.

4. Or start as you mean to go on

Even better? Begin with a non-alcoholic drink. Starting out this way often makes it easier to stay alcohol-free for the rest of the night. With the growing range of sophisticated zero-proof options, you don’t have to feel like you’re missing out.

5. The cultural shift is here

According to upcoming Boldpush research, 62% of Gen Z do not drink alcohol at business events. As Boldpush’s founder, Julius Solaris points out, this is more than a lifestyle preference—it’s reshaping how events need to be designed. Connection can’t just be delivered with free drinks and loud music anymore. Attendees want meaningful interaction built into the main event, not left to chance at the bar.

6. Remember why you’re there

At the end of the day, events are about people, not pints. When you focus on the conversations, the ideas exchanged, and the opportunities to connect, you’ll realise the drink in your hand is the least important part of the evening.

As the next generation of business leaders moves away from alcohol, it’s clear that intentional design and purposeful connecting are becoming the real markers of event success. Whether you’re sipping a cocktail or a kombucha, it’s the quality of the connection that counts.

Are you looking for ideas on how to create more meaningful connections at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Turning Past Results into Future Wins: Event Performance Benchmarks You Need

As we enter the final quarter of the year, planning for next year’s events begins. But effective planning requires solid benchmarks — ideally drawn from your own past results — rather than guesswork or wishful thinking.

Here’s how to build the critical benchmark data you need for smarter event decisions:

1. List your past events

Capture every event you ran last year.

2. Capture costs

Include all expenses tied to your marketing budget (sponsorship, venue, travel, swag, side dinners). If useful, add a separate column for staff costs to present a full ROI picture to finance — but keep these distinct from your marketing spend.

3. Track results

For each event, log:

• Registrations and attendance

• Prospects vs. customers

• Opportunities created (and their value)

• Deals closed (and their value)
  

4. Calculate ROI

Use total costs vs. total profit to calculate ROI. For recent events where opportunities haven’t yet closed, apply your company’s average opp-to-close conversion rate to estimate results.

5. Create benchmarks

With this information you can build averages split by event type, region, or audience — the foundation for effective planning.

Ready to get started?

The Hook Studio’s Event ROI & Performance Template helps you input your data, calculate ROI, and instantly generate performance graphics.

Download it Here!

Strategic conclusions you can draw

• Which event types work best → Compare ROI across trade shows, dinners, roadshows, and more. Decide what to scale up or cut back.

Keep in mind: Just because an event didn’t deliver a positive ROI doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest in it again. It could have been the case that it delivered some great results but the costs were just too high, so you’ll want to plan how you can reduce those costs for next time.

• Regional performance differences → Spot markets where events deliver strongest ROI and decide where to expand or test.
  

• Audience quality vs. quantity → Track attendee → MQL → Opp → Closed Won rates. Learn whether smaller, targeted events outperform larger ones.
  

• New business vs. existing customer impact → Separate prospect vs. customer results to see if events drive pipeline creation or expansion.
  

• Pipeline sourcing vs. influence → Understand how much pipeline events source directly vs. influence across the sales cycle.
  
  

Tactical conclusions you can draw

• Attendance rate benchmarks → Refine registration-to-attendance expectations.
  

• Conversion by stage → Identify weak points and adjust targeting, messaging, or format.
  

• Supplier & logistics insights → Spot which venues and partners deliver the best ROI.
  

• Average opportunity value → See if certain events consistently yield higher-value deals.
  

• Board-ready narrative → Prove event impact with clear ROI metrics and secure next year’s budget.
  
  

Although you should note that ROI isn’t necessarily the only measure of event success—some events may deliver value in brand awareness or advocacy rather than direct revenue,—event ROI is an excellent way to quantify performance and compare results objectively. By completing our Event ROI & Performance Template, you can move from “we think events worked” to “we know exactly which events drove ROI, and why.” This clarity allows you to refine your event mix, negotiate budgets with confidence, and run a more efficient program.

👉 Download The Hook Studio Event ROI & Performance Template here.

* The template focuses on ROI against your marketing budget. You can easily add columns for additional costs or profits depending on your finance team’s requirements.

If you’d like help implementing this analysis for your company, book a call. We’d be happy to support.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Technology for Marketing

Taking place at the Excel Centre in London, the Technology for Marketing event ran alongside the eCommerce Expo on 23–24 September, bringing together technology providers and brand-side professionals seeking new tools, ideas, and insights to elevate both B2B and B2C marketing strategies.

During the event, I had the opportunity to speak with a variety of sponsors—check out some of the highlights on LinkedIn:

Part 1/1: Overview with some of the hits and misses from event sponsors. - Watch here

Part 2/3: Bridging a digital campaign with an in-person event - Watch here

Part 3/3: Partner activation with a client life example - Watch here

The Great:

• Stand out activations that hit the mark:

  A few exhibitors really stood out by turning their booths into experiences that went beyond product demos:

  • WooCommerce + Pressable: The two brands teamed up with client Cora + Spink for a joint activation. With a cohesive, co-branded booth, they showcased how their platforms power real businesses—while Cora + Spink stitched and personalised sustainable bags on-site. Delegates could then explore the brand’s full e-commerce journey at the demo station, making the activation both tangible and memorable.

  • Yotpo: Brought its digital campaign “The Great Migration” to life with a bold jungle-themed booth—complete with décor, product tie-ins, and themed staff outfits. The activation extended their campaign reach, reinforced their “switch providers” message, and created a playful, standout experience that drew delegates in.

  • OPLOG: Translated its logistics and fulfilment robot-powered solution into an F1-inspired activation. The racing theme made their message of “faster growth” for e-commerce brands instantly clear and engaging—connecting their tech offering to a relatable and exciting concept.
    

Creative activations that tell a story and tie directly to your brand message stand out. Whether it’s bringing a digital campaign into the physical space or showcasing a client success live, experiences beat static stands every time.

The Good:

• Categorisation of sponsors: Exhibitors were grouped by category—payments, logistics, marketing tech, etc.—making it simple for delegates to find relevant solutions. Of course, this also meant direct competitors were placed side by side, which isn’t always advantageous for exhibitors.

• Talks & variety: With 9 stages across the two events, content was well-themed and easy to navigate. However, the open layout meant noise carried across the show floor, occasionally affecting the audience experience.
  

Clear signposting and well-structured content streams make it easier for delegates to find you. However, when exhibiting in open-floor setups, plan activations and conversations that cut through noise—whether that’s with strong visuals, engaging demos, or scheduled micro-sessions on your stand.

The Bad:

• No clear delineation of the two events: While some may see it as a benefit, the merging of the two shows created a blurred identity, requiring delegates to spend more time navigating. For organisers and sponsors, however, the larger combined audience was a plus.

• Badge system: The self-serve badge area was intended to speed up entry, but confusion over multiple registration codes slowed the process and led to queues.

Expect logistical hiccups at large events and plan accordingly. Encourage your team to arrive early, pre-register with the right codes, and be ready to direct your guests or prospects smoothly if they face delays.

The Ugly:

• Sponsor staff missed training: Some sponsors invested heavily in their stands but neglected the most important asset—their people. In several cases, staff struggled to clearly explain their value proposition and defaulted to product descriptions, missing opportunities to connect meaningfully with delegates.

Never underestimate stand staff training, and make sure you provide that training before the event AND in the morning of the event to help refresh everyone’s memory. Equip your team with clear messaging, conversation openers, and confidence in articulating your story. The human element will always make or break your event presence.

Technology for Marketing, alongside eCommerce Expo, provided a valuable platform for connecting brands with technology providers and for showcasing a wide range of solutions across the marketing and retail landscape. The joint format boosted audience diversity, while thoughtful categorisation of sponsors and content streams enhanced navigation. However, logistical hiccups and inconsistent sponsor preparation highlighted the importance of planning beyond the physical setup.

What Else is On My Mind?

• The Lead Scanner Alternative - If you’ve ever been to any event at Olympia you will have experienced the struggle of delegate data capture due to low wifi connection. Boop is a new event technology that solves for that and more. Leveraging SMS and WhatsApp Boop captures delegate data, activates surveys and immediate event follow ups while delegates are still on site.

• Festival of Marketing - A key London event in the marketing calendar is taking place today, on the 2nd of October. Although I won’t be able to attend in-person, I’ll be keeping an eye out for any relevant updates via social media.

• Customer Engagement Summit - 9th October - In its 14th year, the theme for this year’s event explores how organisations balance technological innovation with the human touch to engage with customers.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Some friends were surprised I went solo to a two-day festival-style conference, but honestly, there’s no better way to fully immerse yourself. Going alone means you meet more people, have deeper conversations, and really soak up the atmosphere — and below I’ll share why I think you should try it too.

This issue also highlights some standout sponsor activations I spotted, including clever ways brands used partner cross-promotion to boost visibility. And, of course, my full GGBU review of Ideas Fest — what worked, what didn’t, and what brands can learn from it.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

5 Reasons Why You Should Go Solo to Your Next Event

People can sometimes feel uncomfortable to go to a business event on their own, particularly when it’s a multi day event away from home, but if you really want to make the best of an event you attend and build as many connections with purpose as possible, I would recommend you to take the plunge and go on your own. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. You’re more approachable.
Walking into a room on your own signals openness. People are much more likely to strike up a conversation with someone solo than with a pair who are already engaged with conversation.

2. You’ll push yourself further.
When you don’t have a comfort blanket, you’re more likely to step outside of your bubble — whether that’s by pre-booking meetings ahead of attending with other delegates you may find through the event app or linkedin, or starting a chat with a stranger, joining a new table, or asking a question in a session.

3. You stay focused on your goals.
Your agenda, your sessions, your pace. No need to compromise with a friend or colleague who wants to do something different.

4. You make meals work harder.
Sitting with your colleague at lunch is easy — but grabbing a bite with someone new can turn into one of the most valuable connections of the whole event as you share a possible longer period of time with that person during the meal.

5. You avoid the “duo bubble.”
When you’re deep in conversation with someone you already know, it’s harder for outsiders to join the conversation as they are more likely to try and meet others who are on their own.

And if you have to travel to an event with a friend or colleague, at least try to limit the time you arrange to meet at the event to a minimum to allow for other meeting opportunities.

Are you looking for ideas on how to create more meaningful connections at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Power in Numbers: How to Cross-Promote with Partners at Events

Whenever you’re attending the same event as a partner, don’t miss the chance to cross-promote. By teaming up, you both benefit from greater visibility, more delegate traffic, and the impression of being part of something bigger. Here are some creative ways to make it work:

• Partner bingo card
  Perfect when several partners are present. The first stand a delegate visits gives them a bingo card, which they fill by collecting stamps at each partner’s stand. Completed cards can win instant prizes or be entered into a draw — driving steady traffic across all booths.
  
  

• Branded event trail
  A curated route around the floor, such as “The Future of Event Technology Trail.” Delegates follow a guided path to visit each partner stand, turning ther discovery into an experience.
  
  

• Cross-branded activations
  Feature each other in your booth design and invite delegates to visit your partner’s stand for an added reward. At Ideas Fest, for example, HelpBnk’s pitch booth sent delegates on to Airwallex’s booth for the chance to pitch their business again and win a prize.
  

  

• Shared hospitality
  Host a joint breakfast, dinner, or happy hour. Each partner invites their own clients — creating a room full of prospects for both sides.
  
  

• Shared content moments
  Run a joint workshop, fireside chat, or panel. Co-creating thought leadership, positions both brands as experts and extends audience reach.
  
  

• Social amplification pact
  Agree to feature each other in live coverage on LinkedIn, Instagram, or X. Even a few reshares multiply visibility and make your partnership feel stronger.
  
  

• Raffle with cross-entries
  Each booth runs its own prize draw, but entering one automatically enters the delegate into the partner’s. This drives cross-traffic and grows both databases.
  
  

• Meet-the-experts rotations
  Create a shared lounge area with rotating experts from each partner. Delegates drop in for one brand but naturally engage with the others while they wait.
  
  

• Joint follow-up campaign
  Keep the momentum going post-event with a co-branded e-book, recap blog, or “what we learned” content. This extends visibility and reinforces your partnership beyond the two days.

Defining a strategy with a partner for cross-promotion can take significantly longer to coordinate and agree on for all parties involved, however, the benefits from the extra visibility you’ll get can far outweigh the time setting it up. By teaming up with partners before, during, and after an event, you turn individual activations into a collective experience that drives more traffic, deeper conversations, and stronger ROI for everyone involved.

Need help defining a great collaboration that you and your event partners can benefit from? Book a call with The Hook Studio today!

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more event highlights and reviews!

Ideas Fest

Hosted in the middle of a field in Tring (just an hour from London), Ideas Fest brands itself as “The Glastonbury for entrepreneurs.” It certainly had that energy: buzzing with founders, early-stage builders, and curious business owners. Less music, more mingling which for me, brought exactly the right mix of learning and connection.

The concept is quite unique and memorable: a business conference with the feel of a music festival but with less glitter (even though there was some around too!). For me, it felt like a very enjoyable experience, but like for any new conference (this was their third year), there are definitely some areas where it could improve further. Here’s my take on the Great, Good, Bad, and Ugly — and what brands can take away.

The Great:

• The setup: the festival-style staging stood out from traditional conferences. It created a relaxed, immersive environment that encouraged conversation and discovery.

• The Delegates: Spot-on attendance. The festival attracted exactly the right audience — founders, entrepreneurs, and those in the early stages of building something new. People were remarkably open to conversation, generous in sharing ideas, and eager to connect.
  

Lean into the environment. Attendees expect experiences that feel different and informal — so interactive activations and bold creativity land better here than slick but static booths.

The Good:

• Location & commitment: Because most people had to travel and stay over, the crowd was highly engaged and present across both days. That gave brands longer windows to connect, beyond just the session breaks.

• Outdoor space for activations: The open-air setup gave brands license to experiment — from mini-golf installations to DJ booths - the sponsors did go above and beyond the usual booth at Ideas Fest in ways that encouraged a lot more engagement and interaction than what you normally expect from a standard booth in an expo floor.

• Talks & variety: Six main stages plus smaller tents offered a wide range of sessions, from business growth strategies to bolder conversations on topics like ageing or sex. While a few more marquee names would have been welcome, the quality was strong overall.
  

Use multi-day formats, outdoor freedom, and the openness of the crowd to design touchpoints that spark curiosity and encourage people to linger — think participatory activities rather than passive branding.

The Bad:

• Sponsor comms: From the sponsors perspective we heard they received too many generic emails, but not enough targeted sponsor guidance (deadlines, logistics, must-knows) and also commented on how The WhatsApp group created to deliver fast communication with the organisers, was actually slow or unresponsive.

• Booth setup: There was a main U-shaped sponsor booth area that felt a little out of the way from all the most engaging things happening at the event so they weren’t necessarily a destination. At least if sponsor areas had been grouped by theme (e.g. retail, services) that could have created mini-ecosystems that drew the right crowd.

• Queue management: There was no differentiation or fast track access to the event for sponsors, which meant that some were frustrated for waiting in a queue when they should have been setting up their stand.

Don’t rely on organisers to create traffic for you. Design your booth or activation to pull people in, and where possible, coordinate with adjacent brands/partners to amplify impact.

The Ugly:

• Scheduling slippage: Some sessions ran late, others started late, and in some cases there was no visible timekeeper to help keep speakers on track.

Ensure every session has someone keeping time, whether on a main stage or in a side tent, to avoid derailing schedules. From a sponsor perspective, build flexibility into your activation so it isn’t dependent on sessions running exactly on time.

And to hear the full experience directly from some of the sponsoring brands, check out The Hook’s Studio’s interview highlights on our Instagram:

Ideas Fest delivers something memorable: an energising, unconventional space for founders and brands to connect. Its uniqueness is its strength, and with some tighter operations and sponsor engagement, it could become a must-attend on the UK entrepreneurial calendar.

For brands, the real opportunity here is immersion. The festival format allows for bolder, more playful activations that attendees will remember — but success depends on standing out with creativity, not just showing up with a banner.aying calm, and keeping people engaged is what leaves the lasting impression.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Technology for Marketing - Taking place on the 23rd and 24th September at the Excel and free for in-house marketers

• Ecommerce Expo - Taking place alongside Technology for Marketing at the Excel

• Brandwatch Marketing Bootcamp - 24th September in central London - Brandwatch are putting together a full day of content and networking for the London marketing community with sessions on anything from PR to AI in marketing and social media.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

Share

I’d love for you to check it out, share it with any connections who might benefit from our work, and let me know what you think of our shiny new site via our contact page (oh yes, we have one contact page now!)

With September here, we’re entering the final stretch of the year. Social feeds have flipped from holiday snaps to motivational quotes, and everyone’s in go-go-go mode — chasing campaigns, pushing pipeline, and grabbing those last opportunities to close before year end.

And of course, there’s that other thing… 2026 planning. You know there is no time for planning right now because you need to make stuff happen! But you also know you can’t keep it on the back burner[ for long. In this newsletter we help guide you through how to navigate 2026 planning when you are still engrained with work.

Enjoy the issue!

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

The Power of Asking Better Questions

With work mode back into full swing, you may already have a few events coming up in your agenda. In Hooked #7 we had already discussed the importance of setting intentions before heading to any event to make sure you get the most out of it. But then, to help you fulfil those intentions you must also be asking the right questions to people you meet at events.

Often, conversations with new people at events fall into the same trap: “So, what do you do?” or even worst “where are you from?” The former at least it’s polite, and a relevant way to start understanding an area where you may lead the conversation next, although it rarely sparks a memorable exchange. The later though, is to be avoided at the start of any conversation, if you don’t want to be perceived like you are judging that person based on how they look or sound. So unless their region or nationality becomes relevant to be discussed later on in the conversation just skip that question all together.

To create purposeful connections you should focus on asking questions driven from relevant curiosity that invite people to share something meaningful and that open the door to real stories and opportunities.

Example questions could be:

• “What were you hoping to get from attending today’s event?” – It’s a good one to ask early on as it’s not too specific to the individual but opens the conversation towards their interests, so you can potentially explore that topic further.

• “How did you get into your current role/industry?” – Everyone has a story, and this question helps uncover the journey behind the job title.

• “What’s something exciting you’re working on right now?” – This brings energy into the conversation and gives people a chance to share their passion.

• “What kind of collaboration would make a big difference for you this year?” – It signals you’re thinking about how to help, not just what you can get.

• “What’s been the best connection you’ve made recently — and why?” – It prompts reflection and often uncovers people or ideas you wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.

Better questions lead to better conversations, which lead to better connections with purpose.

If you have any go-to questions you feel work well as conversation starters please drop them in the comments below.

Are you looking for ideas on how to create more meaningful connections at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Avoid the Rush: Start Your 2026 Event Strategy Now

You know how it goes – as we hit September, there’s still a lot to do, goals to hit, and those marketing campaigns that got pushed past the summer holidays now need to be actioned. But sooner than you know it, the end of the year creeps in and you still have all the planning for 2026 left to do… with very little time.

That means long evenings and weekends spent chasing performance analysis from this year’s activities, putting pressure on your data and ops team.
Outcome: your data and ops team are annoyed.

You finally get the numbers you need, but the research and thinking — especially around events — is more time-consuming than you hoped. So you work late again and cancel personal commitments.
Outcome: your partner or friends are annoyed.

You pull it together, make predictions, split budgets, and create reliable forecasts. You prep your deck in time for the executive meeting. But of course… you need last-minute design help.
Outcome: your design team is annoyed.

Exhausting and stressful, right?

It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, you’ve promised yourself every year you’ll start earlier, but let’s be honest — you won’t. You won’t have the time. Not with everything else going on.

Here’s the good news: right now, in early September, you do have a window to make sure this year doesn’t end in chaos. How? By outsourcing one of the most time-heavy, high-ticket areas of your planning — your event strategy.

Events are one of the biggest line items in your marketing budget. They take forever to analyse, select, and negotiate. They’re also the part of your marketing strategy that can most easily be outsourced and still integrated smoothly into your overall plan at a later stage.

This is where The Hook Studio comes in.

The benefits of outsourcing your event strategy to us:

• Performance clarity - We’ll dig into this year’s event performance and translate the numbers into insights you can actually use.

• Confidence in your event choices - A curated list of the events (split between sponsored, owned and/or partnered) that align with your goals and audience, so you stop wasting budget on the wrong ones.

• Cost savings - We handle negotiations with organisers and, given our relationship with many organisers, we can secure you better deals.

• Budgets you can defend – Forecasts for 2026 built on your 2025 data and industry benchmarks, packaged in a format your finance team will trust.

• Ready-to-present strategy – A calendar, costs, and ROI forecast in a clean, board-ready sheet.

• Standout presence at every event – From the right format to engagement tactics to content, we’ll design how you show up so it drives results.

Still unsure?

Try a free event strategy assessment. Before you commit to working with us, you can test-drive our process at no cost. With this assessment, you’ll walk away with:

• A high-level overview of your past event performance.

• Actionable recommendations for next year to boost event ROI.

All you need to do is book a 30-minute event strategy assessment call. We’ll ask a few clarifying questions about your 2025 activity, and within days, you’ll get your personalised assessment.

Book a free 30-minute event strategy assessment call with The Hook Studio today!

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more GGBU event reviews!

Startup Valley Pitch & Network London

This time I’m making a GGBU review of an event I hosted! The Startup Valley Pitch & Networking London event where startups pitched to investors. Cannot take credit or responsibility for the strategy, marketing or organisation on this one, but as the host, I shaped the feeling of the event and how delegates were looked after. So it’s only fair I also take a critical analysis of how well things went for this one, and yes, I’ll share the bads and the uglies too!

The Great:

• Engagement - given the quality and relevance of the audience, everyone was very keen to meet everyone else in the room so there was a clear interest from people to ‘work the room’, learn from each other and share their startup stories.

• Value beyond the event - one of the key propositions of the event is its global investor network, so regardless of how many investors are present on event day, all startup pitchers will have their presentations distributed after the event to their global network of investors, allowing startups to be seen by more investors.

Delegates value events more if the experience extends beyond the day — share content, highlights, or interviews to keep your brand top of mind.

The Good:

• The audience - the event is targeted at startups and investors and that was very clear in the event title and description which also ensured that the audience was strongly comprised of startup founders which was hugely valuable to them and the conversations they had in the room. There should, however, have been a more balanced attendance between startups and investors to make it even more valuable to the startups in attendance.

• Attendance rate - is was pretty solid on this event at 65%. There was a clear correlation between attendance and paid tickets, meaning that, delegates who paid for their ticket, were a lot more likely to attend than those who didn’t.
  

Charging for tickets can make it harder to get to your registration goals, however, the perceived value of an event increases when people pay to attend, and so does the attendance rate. Charging for tickets is definitely worth considering if relevant to the type of event you are hosting.

In terms of getting the right audience in the room, organisers should have in consideration partnering with organisations that can secure that audience as a strategy to guarantee their attendance.

The Bad:

• Some of the startups pitching their business hadn’t sent their decks in advance or had provided the decks in various different formats, which makes it more complex to get all decks ready for presentation on event day.

When your speakers are due to present with the support of a laptop, make sure you give them clear instructions of the format they should be using and don’t be afraid to chase them for their decks by the deadline. When they all share their presentations in advance using the same format, such as PPT or Google Slides, it will make it easier for the host to bring them together into one single deck in advance, so it’s smoother to change between presentations on the day.

The Ugly:

• I forgot to take the ever so important mac adaptor to connect the laptop to the TV. 🙈I know!!!! That meant I spent some time trying to connect the devices through bluetooth, unsuccessfully, and still hadn’t found a good solution by the time the first delegates arrived. My saviour was one of the venue staff members who lived locally and was able to get an adaptor from home.

Make sure you always have a ‘things to take’ list that you can tick off before heading to the event AND triple check that your ‘things to take’ list actually has everything listed that you will need. Also, even when things go wrong make sure you are always polite and friendly to staff as they are more likely to help you should you need, and it improves your relationship overall.

At a networking event of this kind, delegates usually remember the conversations and connections most — but the smoother you can make the logistics, the more effortless those connections feel. For me, the biggest takeaway was that even when things go wrong, owning it, staying calm, and keeping people engaged is what leaves the lasting impression.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Ideas Fest - They call it the Glastonbury for founders and entrepreneurs. It’s taking place in a field, with a completely different concept to your usual conference, they have a networking AI tool to help you connect with people of relevance, and so much more… I’m excited to attend and share the experience with you. Don’t forget to follow The Hook Studio on Instagram for live updates from the field next week! If you are planning to attend, hit me up! Would love to meet while there.

• Bringing the Happy Every Day - with Matt Turner - I listened to an Events Insight episode with Matt Turner, founder of Clownfish Events, and loved his story of building his events management company sustainably over the years since the young age of 19 years old. His focus on company culture and employee engagement really resonated with me — a reminder that culture drives performance. Worth a listen!

• Got an event you’d like me to review? If you know of an event that deserves an honest evaluation, send it my way.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Drop us a note with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

Share

Since I haven’t been out at events myself recently (I know, shocker!), I’m using the review section to highlight how The Hook Studio supports businesses like yours, and when you might need that extra boost. And because I’m a big fan of useful templates, I’ve also included a couple you can use to follow up with new event connections on LinkedIn.

Hope you enjoy this issue!

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

How Not to Let New Contacts Go Cold

I’ve mentioned this before but it’s definitely not too much to emphasise how meeting people at an event is just the beginning. The real value comes from how you follow up and nurture those new relationships. Here’s a framework to make sure your post-event networking turns into long-term value:

1. Connect on LinkedIn (with a note)

If you didn’t connect during the event, do it as soon as possible afterwards. Always add a short note to your request — people may not immediately recognise your photo or remember your name.

Template connection note:

Hi [Name], it was great meeting you at [Event Name]. I really enjoyed our chat about [topic]. Let’s stay connected here.

2. Send a Thoughtful Follow-Up InMail

Once your connection request is accepted, send a short, personalised message. Reference your conversation, briefly remind them what you do, and let them know how you can help. If you have a newsletter, this is a natural moment to invite them to join.

Template InMail:

Hi [Name], it was a pleasure meeting you at [Event Name] and talking about [topic you discussed].

As a quick reminder, I [what you do/your role], and I help [who you help] with [specific challenge you solve]. If at any point you’re looking for support in this area, I’d be happy to chat.

I also share practical tips in my newsletter, [Newsletter Name], which you might find useful — if this is of interest you can read and subscribe here [link to newsletter].

Great to be connected!

3. Engage on Social

Don’t just message and disappear. Interact with their posts on LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack, or wherever they’re active. A thoughtful comment goes much further than a “like” — it shows genuine interest and keeps you visible.

4. Set a Re-Engagement Reminder

Add a reminder in your calendar or CRM six weeks (around 1.5 months) after the event to check back in. This is a perfect time to show up in their inbox again so you don’t get completely forgotten in the vacuum of Linkedin contacts. Ideally more than a check-in, also share something useful they may like.

Re-engagement message idea:

Hi [Name], I was just thinking back to [Event Name] and wanted to check in to see how things are going. I also came across [article/resource/industry news] which reminded me of our conversation at the event — figured you might find it useful. Hope all is well!

The goal is to stay top of mind, not to be salesy. A light, relevant touchpoint can be the nudge that reminds them you’re the right person to reach out to when a need arises.

5. Personal Systems Matter

Even with the best intentions, follow-ups slip through the cracks. A simple system makes a big difference:

• Keep a short note in your CRM, LinkedIn tags, or even a spreadsheet about who you met and what you discussed (I use Notion for that).

• Tag connections by event or topic, so it’s easy to re-engage groups later.

• Automate reminders with tools like HubSpot tasks, Notion, or even a recurring calendar event.
  

The bottom line is: Events are just the spark but consistent, thoughtful follow-up is what turns those sparks into real business opportunities — without feeling pushy.

Are you looking for ideas to create meaningful experiences at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

How to Nail an Invitation Strategy for Your Own Event

You’ve already done the heavy lifting—your event has a standout name and messaging that your audience finds irresistible. Now, let’s dig into how you get the right people through the door. Here’s a breakdown for an invitation strategy that gets results.

1. Timing: When to Launch Your Invites

Timing isn’t one-size-fits-all—it depends on event size and formality.

• Small, executive dinners: Minimum 3-4 weeks' notice; but ideally more as executive calendars tend to be booked up far in advance. Equally, often senior professionals prefer not to commit to attending events too far in advance so they have better visibility into their schedule so 4-6 weeks notice is about the sweet spot.

• Mid sized corporate events that take over a few hours of the working day : Start invitations 6-8 weeks in advance. As the event is not taking over the full day, delegates normally prefer to book a bit closer to the event to have a better understanding of their plans for that week and day.

• Larger corporate events such as conferences that take over 1 day or more: The more lead time you give people the better as they need to negotiate that time off their usual working day and block the calendar far in advance so that it won’t conflict with any important meetings. You want to start promoting the conference at least 3 months in advance, but think anything between 3-6 months as an ideal time frame.

2. Registration Flow: Automatic or Curated?

If your event is free to attend you need to decide if every registrant gets an automated confirmation of registration or whether you want to vet them first. Make the decision based on your invitation list:

• Pre-qualified list (e.g. email database, loyal customers): Auto-registration is efficient.

• Broader reach (media ads, open promotion on social media): Consider having a waiting list to prevent seat-filling by less relevant guests who are just after the free cocktail hour.
  

Your choice should align with your intentions in terms of event visibility, branding and guest list quality control.

3. Channels: Mix & Match for Maximum Reach

Use a smart combination tailored to your audience and scale:

• Email news blast: Great for immediate and broad awareness across your full audience.

• Outreach sequences (GTM teams): Personal invites from known contacts often lead to higher conversion.

• LinkedIn InMails: You sales/SDR team should reach cold or lukewarm prospects personally—keeping it still professional and targeted.

• Social posts & boosted content: Start with organic posts, and then paid boosts for top-performing content.

• Media partners (for large-scale events): Paid placement to build awareness beyond your network and give you increased brand visibility.

• Partner/sponsor/speakers promotions: Provide your partners and speakers with material they can easily leverage to promote their participation at the event - from social media cards to email content they can leverage.
  
  

4. Partner vs. Sponsor Communications

Clarify how you invite other businesses to collaborate with your event, based on your event goals:

• Sponsors: They will provide revenue; but you should expect minimum promotional effort from them as they are paying you to deliver on the delegate attendance and brand visibility.
  

• Partners: They will have equal or a balanced co-ownership of the event, which means you have shared promotion responsibility, but you lose the event exclusivity.
  

• Your choice: If it’s “your” event, sponsorship keeps branding consistent. If co-branded, partner promotion can expand reach.
  
  

5. Cadence: Plan Your Invites, Avoid Overload

Coordinate these schedules:

• The marketing team manages announcements and follow-ups.

• The GTM/outreach team sends personal follow ups to marketing announcements and works from the same calendar to avoid duplicate touches.

Add all sends to your shared invitations calendar so everyone stays aligned. As a rule of thumb, aim for no more than one marketing email and one personal email per week. Start with invites spaced further apart, then increase frequency as the event date approaches.

6. Content Ideas: Hook Every Invite With a Fresh Angle

Make each touchpoint feel new and valuable. Here are five ideas to rotate:

1. “Speaker spotlight” — highlight a compelling presenter or panel

2. “Content hook” — tease a key theme or learning outcome

3. “Networking value” — emphasise who else will be there

4. “Exclusive insight” — promise an actionable takeaway or proprietary finding

5. “Social proof” — mention early registrants, partners, or brands already on board
   

Clever variation keeps interest high and taps into different motivators.

7. GTM Outreach Sequences: Make It Personal

Personal invites carry more weight—so make them reflect that:

• Refer to past interactions, mutual connections, or shared interests.

• Use a more casual tone, yet confident and respect-driven.

• Keep it concise: If you know someone’s goals, link that outcome to your event content explicitly.

• Always include a clear call-to-action (“Let me know if you can make it,” or “Would you like me to save a seat?”).
  
  

8. Reminders & Calendar Invites

A final touch you must include but is often underplayed:

• Send a confirmation email AND a calendar invite once someone’s registration is confirmed (attach venue, logistics, contact).

• Reminder sequence:

  • 1–2 weeks before (to remind delegates and reconfirm attendance)

  • 3–5 days before (last-minute details or excitement plug)

• Day before and Day-of reminder (with weather tips, parking, etc.)

Looking for help marketing your event? Book a 15 minute call with The Hook Studio.

When to Work With The Hook Studio

I realised I haven’t really shared in this newsletter how The Hook Studio helps businesses, so I thought I’d use this section to give you a clear picture.

About me, the founder:

I’m a B2B marketer with 20 years of experience leading international teams for high-growth tech companies. I’ve helped scaleups achieve successful exits, guided North American brands expanding into EMEA and APAC, and led global growth marketing functions. In 2023, I was named one of the Top 30 Most Influential Marketers in B2B SaaS by Finite.

I founded The Hook Studio because I kept seeing the same pattern: companies investing heavily in marketing and events, but struggling to turn that spend into measurable business results. Campaigns felt disconnected, events lacked clear purpose, and teams were stretched without the right strategy or tools to guide them.

The Hook Studio exists to change that—by combining strategic marketing leadership with event expertise to help businesses align their brand, messaging, and customer engagement so every effort drives impact.

Outside of The Hook Studio, I mentor students through Founders4Schools and contribute to the Centre for the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls (CPVAWG) by supporting the growth of their partnerships programme. If you’d like to find out how to be involved contact me or read and sign the charter here.

So when should you talk to The Hook Studio?

If your Events are Reactive, feel like a last minute thought and lack purpose.

• I’ll help you implement a long term event strategy:

  • Aligning event activity to business objectives

  • Mapping out a full-year strategic event calendar across sponsored, owned and/or partnered events

  • Setting smart budgets and resource plans

The time to start planning for 2026 is now, so don’t delay and let’s start a conversation. You can thank me later!

If your Events Lack Impact

• I’ll help you define the event strategy for one or a set of key events

  • Designing a tailored format for the event or type of event that aligns with your brand's goals

  • Recommending and helping you source high-impact speakers, partners, and activations

  • Creating a plan to attract and engage the right delegates

  • Create an event performance tracking framework

If your registration numbers are low, no show rates are high and there is little cohesiveness with the rest of your marketing activity

• I’ll help you define your event marketing

  • Crafting a content strategy for pre-, during-, and post-event

  • Creating the brief for promotional assets, social content, and messaging

  • Ensuring the brand is visible, engaging, and consistent throughout

  • Ensuring your events are aligned with your overall marketing strategy

If you are ‘reinventing the wheel’ for every event

• I’ll help you craft an event playbook and deliver team training

  • Design a repeatable process with clear GTM team roles

  • Train internal teams to nail engagement and follow-up

  • Ensuring post-event content and insights are captured and repurposed

If your event data is siloed and you lack ROI tracking

• Event and marketing technology sourcing and advice

  • Review and recommend the right event and marketing tools for your goals

  • Helping you integrate tech for better planning, engagement, and measurement

  • Setting you up to track, analyse, and optimise event ROI

If you need to grow and retain top customers through executive relationships

• I’ll help you create a Customer Advisory Board (CAB) program

  • Designing a strategic framework for an effective CAB

  • Creating compelling agendas, formats, and communication flows

  • CAB meetings strategy and design to the minimum detail to ensure every interaction is high-value

Lack senior marketing direction

• Acting as a fractional Head of Marketing, I’ll review and revamp your current marketing strategy or build it from scratch

  • Translating your business goals into a clear, actionable marketing strategy aligned with your brand and vision

  • Reviewing and advising on your tools and systems to ensure a cohesive flow of data across the business

  • Creating a practical plan of action, ready for implementation

You have a local sales and account management team but no marketing support

• UK and EMEA Field marketing for international companies

  • Acting as your local field marketing partner, embedded in your GTM team

  • Helping you localise your overall marketing strategy into one that resonates in the UK or across EMEA countries

  • Supporting Sales and AMs with region-specific campaigns, follow-up, and relationship-building

If any of the above challenges resonate with you, book an exploratory call today. Don’t let your challenges become a problem by ‘waiting to see if things improve first’. Your costs for delaying can be much harder to recoup at a later stage.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Ideas Fest - Ideas Fest is the ultimate festival for founders, taking place in a field in Tring on the 10th and 11th of September. If you are planning to attend, hit me up! Would love to meet while there.

• Startup Valley London event - I’ll be hosting my second Startup Valley event next Tuesday the 26th August in London. If you are a founder looking to get funding or an investor looking for the next unicorn, join along!

• Got an event you’d like me to review? If you know of an event that deserves an honest evaluation, send it my way.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Email us at hello@thehook.studio with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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Lately, I’ve also been thinking a lot about executive events. Bringing senior decision-makers together is no small feat, but with the right invitation strategy, it is possible to cut through the noise. So I’m sharing with you 10 ideas that will help your next executive invite stand out.

And finally, I’m exploring the role of intention when it comes to attending an event. Whether you're hosting or attending, taking the time to clarify what you want to get out of an event can shift the entire experience—and the results that follow.

Ana Williams

Founder and Event & Marketing Strategist

Building Connections With Purpose

Setting Intentions that Drive Results

If you read about the STAY to Connect framework shared in Hooked #3, you’ll remember it helps you stay open-minded, positive, and approach each conversation at an event with curiosity — until you make at least one meaningful connection. In that framework, the ‘Y’ stands for ‘Your Why’. So in this article, we’re diving a little deeper into what that actually means.

Understanding Your Why — or, in other words, your purpose for attending an event — is closely tied to the personal intentions you set beforehand. These intentions break down your purpose into small, actionable steps that help you move through the event with focus.

Think of it like this:

• Your Why is your overall goal.

• Your intentions are your personal KPIs — a way to measure whether you’ve made that goal count.

By setting clear intentions, you’ll be more likely to take action towards meeting them and be able to reflect meaningfully on how successful the event was for you. While intentions don’t have to be measurable, at The Hook Studio we always recommend adding some form of measurement if possible to make it easier to track how effective the event was for you afterward.

The best way to explain this is with practical examples you can adjust for your own event context:

Your Why/Your main purpose is: Generating brand awareness

Your intentions could be:

• Tell the brand story clearly and confidently at least 4 times

• Connect with 4 people who have not heard of your brand before

• Post one piece of content on social media during or after the event to reinforce your brand identity

Your Why/Your main purpose is: Generating new business leads

Your intentions could be:

• Ask qualifying questions to understand if someone could be a potential customer

• Connect with at least 2 potential leads and take notes on their challenges

• Secure at least 1 concrete follow-up (e.g. email exchange, call, or meeting)

Your Why/Your main purpose is: Support a Particular Cause

Your intentions could be:

• Explain why the cause matters to you in at least 3 conversations

• Share what you have done to support the cause in 2 conversations

• Inform at least 2 people how they can support the cause too

Your Why/Your main purpose is: to attract talent to your company

Your intentions could be:

• Have 2–3 conversations that show what it feels like to work at your company

• Ask curious, open questions to uncover what people are looking for in their next role

• Mention any open roles or future opportunities when it feels relevant

Your Why/Your main purpose is: to find a new role

Your intentions could be:

• Introduce yourself to at least 5 people, explaining your experience and what you’re looking for

• Have 3 conversations with people who work at companies you're interested in

• Connect on LinkedIn with relevant people you met and follow up with a note expressing interest in future roles

Your Why/Your main purpose is: to find an industry mentor

Your intentions could be:

• Start at least 4 conversations with someone more experienced than you

• Ask one thoughtful question about each person’s career path or decision-making

• Briefly share your own journey and current challenges to see how they respond, and consider whether to follow up after the event

Setting intentions before an event helps you move from passive attendee to purposeful participant. It gives you a roadmap—not just for what you want to achieve, but how to achieve it.

Whatever your purpose for building new connections at an event, setting clear intentions turns your wishes into actionable outcomes. They guide your conversations, help you prioritise who to meet, and make your follow-up more thoughtful and effective.

And remember: while intentions don’t have to be measurable, giving them structure—like the examples above—makes it easier to track whether the event truly delivered value for you.

So before your next event, take five minutes to ask yourself:
“What’s my why—and what am I intentionally doing to bring it to life?”

Are you looking for ideas to create meaningful experiences at your events? Book an exploratory call with The Hook Studio today.

Event Strategy That Drives Results

Creative Ideas For Standout Executive Dinners

Recently, I’ve been helping a client define the best approach to organise an executive dinner that appeals to both clients and prospects. Executive dinners are a popular format for companies aiming to build relationships at the senior level—but the strategy behind them should vary significantly depending on two key factors: your goals for the event and the people behind your target audience.

Considering the goals

Here are a few scenarios to illustrate how different goals should shape your event strategy:

1. Deepening Relationships with Existing Clients

• If your aim is to strengthen relationships with executive-level contacts who already know your team, you can go deeper on the entertainment side. Since there's existing familiarity, the event should focus on offering a premium, memorable experience that allows for personal connections to grow. Think of corporate hospitality-style events, such as a private suite at the Oasis concert or a table at a prestigious awards dinner.

2. Expanding Business Within Customer Accounts

• If some of the invited executives are not yet familiar with your company or team, you'll want to provide space for business-oriented conversation—while still keeping the atmosphere relaxed. For example, a dinner with light programming could work well. You might include a short customer success story presented by a client, or simply encourage peer-led discussion about how your solutions are being used successfully. The key here is to create opportunities for sharing value.

3. Engaging Both Clients and Prospects

• This audience mix requires a more delicate approach. Prospects know you have commercial intentions, so the event must offer a clear, relevant reason to attend that doesn’t feel like a sales pitch. One strong strategy is to centre the evening around a topic of shared industry interest—something aligned with the challenges you help solve. If senior peers from relevant companies are attending, the event becomes an opportunity for them to learn from each other, not just from you. Add a unique venue or entertainment twist to make the experience stand out, and you’ll significantly increase attendance interest.

Understanding Your Audience

Knowing who your audience truly is—beyond job titles—is essential for shaping the right format, tone, and experience. This means:

• Understanding generational or cultural preferences: Think about whether your guests are Gen X, Millennials, Boomers… What’s likely to appeal to them?

• Considering personal preferences: Ask your sales or account managers for insights. Do they prefer formal or casual settings? What’s their vibe?

• Factoring in logistics: Are they coming from home or an office? Does the venue’s location make it easy or difficult for them to attend?
  

Even seemingly small considerations—like knowing their work-from-home policy—can influence how likely someone is to attend. The more personal insight you gather in advance, the more compelling and tailored you’ll be able to make the experience.

Once you’re clear on your goals and audience, here’s a list of creative, high-value ideas to help you curate a standout experience alongside a private dining event.

10 attractive entertainment ideas for your executive dinner

Art gallery or museum:

A private dining room at such a location where you can either offer a tour of the venue or have an expert come in to the room to talk about some of the artwork in showcase can feel both interesting and special for the audience. Some London museus or galleries renting private dining rooms include:

• Sir John Soane’s Museum in Holborn - 30 guests capacity

• Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury - 40 guests capacity

Historical Houses:

These may include a full tour of the house or part of the house showcasing their history ahead of the dinner. Some examples include:

• Brunswick House in Vauxhall - various rooms from 12 guests capacity

• Leighton House in Kensington - 18 guests capacity

Expert talk:

Depending on the audience or the venue, having an expert coming in to share their knowledge on a particular topic of interest for 20-30minutes, won’t take too long from the event but will enable you to have an extra hook to add to the invitation giving it another reason why people may want to join. Examples can include:

• Architecture talks can be an attractive way to introduce a particular venue or area. For example, if you are hosting a dinner at a restaurant with a view such as Duck & Waffle or at 14 Hills, you could invite an architect to come in and share some of their knowledge of the London skyline.

• Industry expert - websites like JLA or The Speakers Agency offer a wide range of speakers experts in all types of fields, so you will be able to find someone that can speak on the key topic of interest to your audience.

Venue tour:

• The OWO hotel in Westminster, where the Old War Office used to be, offers heritage tours of the building including the offices of Winston Churchill’s and MI5. The hotel will be able to offer private tours to your dining executive dinner

• Royal Albert Hall offer private dining rooms and tours of the venue to diners during the day - perfect for a breakfast event

Wine tasting:

• The Connaught in Mayfair has a wine cellar and offers private tours, tastings and dining at their Sommelier’s Table

• Vinoteca across several other locations offers private dining and wine tasting experiences

Spirit tasting:

• The Clarette in Marylebone offers Whisky tasting experiences in a private dining setting

• TT Liquor offers private tastings for Whiskey, Rum, Gin or Agave and they can come to any private dining venue you book in London

Champagne tasting:

• St Pancras Bar and Brasserie offers private dining options and you can request a champagne tasting

• Raffles restaurant inside the OWO offers a Pol Roger Champagne tasting, including Sir Winston Churchill’s prestige cuvée. This will take more of your full event time as it lasts one hour, but you could then move on to one of their private dining rooms or lounges to continue the event.

Music entertainment:

• Langan’s Brasserie in Mayfair offers private dining and has a popular bar with band and DJ in the upstairs bar area to where you can move your party after the dinner

• Sushisamba private dining offers add-ons such as music entertainment with Samba dancers, for after dinner entertainment

Casino:

• Wynn Mayfair offers private dining options, and you can entertain your clients after dinner at the casino

• The Colony Club in Mayfair offers private dining and private gambling experiences for guests

Dining while travelling:

• British Pullman offers private dining on board of a train departing from Victoria Station and onto different destinations such as Canterbury. The whole experience will take 5 hours and it will give you plenty of opportunities to host discussions and entertain your customers in a private luxury train carriage.

• Whether you prefer moored boats or moving boats, London has a variety of boat companies that can host private dining experiences to suit your executive dinner.

There are many ways you can add that extra hook to a private dining event to encourage your executive audience to join you for a few hours, but the key is this: know your audience, know your purpose, and build an experience they genuinely care about.

Looking for help defining the best executive experience for your guests? Book a 15 minute call with The Hook Studio.

The Great, Good, Bad and Ugly (GGBU): Event Review

Business Network International - Is it Worth the Investment?

In this section, we review recent events we’ve attended, highlighting what worked well, what could be improved and what simply didn’t land. We focus on key areas like audience engagement and experience, communication throughout the event lifecycle, content quality, operational execution, and overall brand impact. Follow The Hook Studio’s Instagram for more GGBU event reviews!

When I first discovered the BNI, I was sceptical. The concept felt quite traditional, and the website looked like it hadn’t been updated since the early 2000s. As a member, you commit to meeting weekly—either in person, online, or hybrid—with the same group of professionals, with the goal of exchanging business referrals.

This isn’t the kind of event I usually review, but BNI is built on the idea of creating strong connections that lead to actual business. So I decided to attend two sessions in different London locations—Brixton and Liverpool Street—as a guest. Here's my honest take on the experience.

The Great:

• Members attitude: At the Brixton meeting, I was warmly greeted by a member before we even reached the event room. He immediately asked what I did, how he could help, and who he might introduce me to—within the first two minutes of meeting. That left a great impression.

• Venues: At both locations, members were friendly and welcoming. The venues themselves were quite different but equally comfortable. The Brixton meeting took place in a co-working space lounge with self-serve teas and coffees. The Liverpool Street chapter met at The Alchemist, where a full breakfast was served. Both venues had comfortable seating and AV setup.
  

If you're hosting a morning networking event, ensure there's ample space to sit comfortably and provide basic refreshments like hot drinks and water.

The Good:

• Networking time: There was dedicated time for networking at the end of both events, which gave me a chance to speak with a few people. That said, some attendees left as soon as the meeting ended, which limited how many connections I could make as a guest. I can see, however, how regular members—seeing each other weekly—would naturally build relationships over time.

• Introductions: Everyone introduced themselves and their business at the start of the session, which helped me quickly get a sense of who was in the room and whether any attendees aligned with my ideal customer profile. But yes—they do this every week! With mainly the same group of people, and a few odd guests. So, I can see how this might get repetitive after some time.

• Attendance: To maintain consistency in group size, BNI allows members to miss a limited number of sessions annually (usually four). If a member can’t attend, they’re encouraged to send a substitute—either a guest or a member from another chapter. It’s a good way to avoid having empty seats and keeping people accountable for coming to the meetings so there is more value for everyone in attendance.

• Membership reach: The BNI is far larger than I had realised, with chapters across London and the UK, meaning, many people will have access to a chapter near where they live or they can attend an online only chapter.

• Meeting structure: The meeting structure is always the same, so people know what they are coming for: introductions, share of revenue generated through BNI referrals, a member presentation, success-sharing, and closing networking (this could be good or bad, depending on personal preferences).

When attendee numbers are manageable, giving everyone a chance to introduce themselves helps attendees identify relevant people to connect with.

The Bad:

• Profiles: This can be bad or good depending on who you are selling to, but most attendees across both chapters were small businesses offering services to individuals or other small businesses. I met estate agents, architects, builders, accountants, lawyers, photographers, jewellers, interior designers, tour operators, and more. While there was strong alignment and synergy within the group, this isn’t ideal if your audience is more corporate, enterprise, or product-based.

Carefully consider your audience when designing a networking event. Shared interests or industries help deepen value and drive stronger results.

The Ugly:

• Pre-event communication: My experience at the Liverpool Street event got off to a rocky start. The confirmation email and calendar invite listed one Alchemist location—but when I arrived, that venue was closed due to flooding. No one had contacted the guests about the last-minute change. I tried reaching the hosts through BNI’s website and LinkedIn, but the people behind those accounts, although responsive, didn’t know the updated address either. I only found the new location thanks to another guest outside who happened to have a member’s contact number.

  The venue had changed to another Alchemist 15 minutes away—but only members had been notified. Not ideal. Members were apologetic when I arrived and quickly made me feel welcome, but it wasn’t the ideal start.

• Membership fees: The cost of becoming a member is significant. There’s a £299 one-time joining fee, a £960 annual fee, and a monthly chapter fee depending on the venue. Liverpool Street costs £90/month to cover the venue and breakfast. Brixton is cheaper, covering only admin costs. They do say these costs are quickly recouped via referrals—but of course, only if the member base fits your target audience.

• Format: The format is… repetitive. If you thrive on structure and feel more comfortable with familiar faces, this might suit you. But if you value variety and meeting new people, the weekly repetition might feel monotonous.
  

Always communicate any venue changes promptly to all attendees—including guests. Provide a contact number or direct email in case someone needs support finding the location.

I have to admit—my initial scepticism wasn’t entirely fair. BNI has a well-oiled system that works, especially for service-based small businesses looking for steady local referrals. The structured format, member accountability, and weekly cadence make it easy for relationships to deepen and leads to grow.

That said, it’s not for everyone. It’s a significant time and financial commitment. You need to enjoy routine, appreciate a structured approach, and see a fit between your business and the membership audience.

Am I joining? I am not. The member profiles don’t match my Ideal Customer Profile, and personally, I prefer events with a bit more variety and spontaneity. But I can absolutely see the appeal for others—and with 340,000 members globally, clearly many people do.

BNI is proof that structured, intentional networking can lead to real business growth—BNI does it for small businesses and other types of events will do it for different audiences. You just need to find the approach that is right for you.

What Else is On My Mind?

• Future of AI - I’ve been thinking about the best ways to use AI to streamline event attendee experience, and the FT announced that this event will address how AI as a core tool for enhancing productivity and personalisation in every area, including events, so I’m curious to find out whether they will cover that specific topic as their agenda gets developed further.

• Bizzabo’s Event Experience Podcast - I’ve come across this podcast recently and despite the odd self promotion they make, it also has some pretty interesting interviews. Would like to hear from a wider variety of guests from global companies, but overall, I got some good insights from some of the speakers, so it’s worth a listen.

• Got an event you’d like me to review? If you know of an event that deserves an honest evaluation, send it my way.

Did you enjoy this Hooked newsletter? Have any topics in mind you’d like us to write about? Email us at hello@thehook.studio with your thoughts.

How Can You Support this Substack?

The Hooked Substack is free but you can support it by subscribing and sharing the link with any business owners, marketers, GTM leaders, event professionals or others who may benefit from improving their event strategy to drive more authentic connections and business growth.

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