Fixing a $3.6 Trillion Industry: Why Event Pros Must Unite with Stacy Wyatt

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Welcome to productiv Production Value Matters, the business event podcast brought to you by Burn Production Services. Here we explore different ways business events can bring value to your organization, the latest technological advancements in the event space, as well as providing you with actionable strategies to make a business event a success. Let's create an exceptional event experience. The business of events is at a crossroads. On one hand, organizations are relying more heavily on events to drive engagement, brand awareness and measurable roi. On the other, professionals are being asked to deliver more with fewer resources, all while navigating shifting attendee expectations. That's why we are really excited to be joined today by Stacy Wyatt, a Canadian event professional, strategist, publisher and producer who has dedicated her career to creating impactful conferences, trade shows and and brand experiences that don't just bring people together, but move the industry forward. Stacy is the force behind Canadian Special Events, the largest community event professionals in Canada, and the founder of the Hallmark industry event, CSE Live and the Canadian Event Awards. Now she's leading the way in the Business of Events initiative, a new initiative to bring the most pressing issues in our industry to the forefront while engaging everyone in the industry to be part of the conversation. She's known for her fierce advocacy and love for the event business, those who choose this life for their career, and advancing the conversations around what matters most for this industry. Today we're going to go into a deep dive into the Business of Events initiative and what it means for the industry going forward. Stacy, thank you very much for being my guest today. How are you? I'm great, thank you. Happy to be here. As a perfect example of your sort of love for this industry, just before we hit record we were talking about the Business of Events Initiative. Initiative and all of the amazing professionals that we were working with on this. Full disclosure to the listeners. I am also a member of the board of Business of Events and I'm struck by the fact that we were talking about the workload and the stuff that's going on behind the scenes. And the one thing that you said is like, I don't call this person a colleague. I call them a friend. And that's certainly true of your stature in the industry and your longevity is that 90% of the people who work in this industry know you as a friend, not just a colleague. So I just wanted to emphasize that to the listener. Thank you. Before we get started, so before we get into some specifics, can you tell me what was the spark behind Business of Events? First of all, the forum that we did earlier this year at CSE Live. But just generally, the initiative. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, people have been talking about this for so many years. And like you said, I have a lot of I, what I would call friends in the industry built strong relationships. So I, when I see people, when I talk to, you know, any call, any random call that you can think of or a conversation that happens over coffee at an event, there are always conversations that go a little bit deeper than client, supplier, publisher, subject. And people share, they talk about their issues and the challenges that they're having. And it's a consistent, consistent conversation that I've been hearing for years. And also, you know, we all know that a lot of our colleagues have brought this up in conversation at conferences. It's been the topic of panel discussions, deep dives at every level from, you know, small, intimate groups to large, large scale conferences. Business, the meetings mean business organization has tried to attack this. It's just a constant issue where we cannot standardize what we do. There are so many factors that impact why we can't standardize, but we can't seem to get there. And that's causing such a massive disparity as the generation is now doing a massive shift. The way that our industry is evolving, now is the time that we need to do this. So yeah, the spark was really just frustration and kind of being tired of listening to it and saying, okay, look like, let's just, let's just make a valiant attempt to try to do something. And if with our network that we have 60,000 plus across Canada, event professionals, I think that if we can't get a little bit of inroad in there, then I honestly call it. That it's not going to happen because that's what it's going to take. Right? Yeah. I think you and I have discussed in the past those familiar conversations that happen at every industry event, usually around like a coffee table in the lobby or over cocktails at a reception, where phrases like how come we don't have a seat at the table? Comes up. Right. Why are we dealing with familiar issues over and over again? You know, when I started in this industry 15 years ago, you know, the conversations were very familiar that why aren't we getting paid for creative? Why. Why do we still. When I say I work in events, why does anybody assume that that means party planner? Party planner. Yeah. Why. Why do we still have prevailing issues and. And an endemic burnout in this industry where people's mental health and physical health are sometimes at sacrifice to this industry. And so when you launch Business of Events forum at CSE Live. On a personal note, I was really excited to join into those conversations. So how has the response been since that initial forum and then further to the launch of BOE as a platform and an initiative? The response has been really good. I mean, I think it's definitely going to be a slow growth. Our industries, I would say, is kind of, in a way, been a frog in a pot for a really long time. And I use that analogy in a. In a lovingly way. In a loving way. I guess you deal with what's going on in your own business. You hear about what other people are dealing with through conferences and through, you know, discussions and one on one conversations with people that you know well. But generally speaking, even though we have a lot of industry events, it. We're not necessarily a group that shares openly what really goes on behind closed doors. Right. So when you don't have standardization and you have an industry that is all sort of going their own way, doing their own thing, you kind of become a frog in a pot because you're not, you're not really aware of everything that's going on around you. You're just kind of blissfully running their business, doing what works for you, building a great brand, managing your staff. You. You're focused on what's going on in your world and you're just not really in tune with, you know, I guess the higher necessarily, the higher the word escapes me. But do you know what I mean by that? Like, it's just not. Absolutely. Yeah. So everybody's very much in a silo and isolated where, you know, one of the things that I, that I thought was really Interesting about the forum itself was that it was an opportunity for everyone to sort of voice their questions, to sort of break down those barriers and silos and that silence and have an open discussion about things. You know, at one point, there was, you know, a few people on stage, myself included, who were sort of setting up some of these topics, but really we weren't talking about, like, oh, this is my experience, and I hope you learn from it. It was us asking people in the audience, what do you feel about this? What do you know about this? And it became a great sort of dialogue. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Listen, we're a $3.6 trillion industry, and we still struggle with fragmented practice. We have limited representation. We're experiencing widespread burnout. And that is something that most companies are feeling. People are feeling. But when I was referring to frog in a pot, what I meant was that you don't necessarily know. Everyone else around you is going through that. So the forum was an opportunity for us to listen. I had a great conversation with Aaron Kaufman before the event, and I know we all know that he's super passionate about this topic and kind of only puts his. His voice at the table or comes to the table when he really believes that there is an opportunity to. To make something happen. So I was very excited. He's a friend as well, but I was excited that he was willing to kind of dive in and explore this with me. He read the. The strategic plan that we were going to put forward at the Business of Events forum that happened at CSE Live and gave me some good advice. And the best advice I got from him was listen. Just set the panel up to listen and. And really get the audience talking so that we can kind of shift from having the water boil around us to, you know, controlling the temperature. Absolutely. So that panel discussion was really. It was great. It was a catalyst that allowed us to open a dialogue with a very eclectic group of. I think there were 80 people in the room. 60 to 80. They were in house planners, independent planners, supplier. And, yeah, you were on the stage. We heard some great feedback, and the. What came out of that conversation were very clear takeaways. Can you go into some of the things that people from the industry were telling you and us about their experiences in the industry at that forum? Was there anything that sort of immediately stood out as. As resonating with everybody? Yeah, I think the key takeaways, what. What people were really focused on, and we actually needed to rein people in a little bit because it started to become event session, which was One of our core priorities, do not make this a complaining session. This is really about sharing. So we gave people three topics, three wide topics that they could choose from to focus on in their, in their roundtable discussions. And they were commissions and kickback, transparency and billing, burnout and then the, just the overall need for unified standards. And I think most of the conversation, if, correct me if I'm wrong, focused on standards and burnout. I think those were the two biggest issues that everybody seemed to experience. I was kind of fascinated by the fact that most of the in house corporates were very open about the fact that they were not receiving paid overtime or being compensated for the 16 hour event day. And then they had to turn around the next day and be back at work at 9 o' clock and have a report due three days later. And that was a really, that's something that rose up as a very common issue. So what that did is led us to understand that the education process really needs to happen with the corporations, with the clients and with the people that are hiring these planners because the planners themselves don't have a strong enough voice to be able to change that. Right. So it's an education process. So I think coming out of that the biggest trends were that we need to listen to what people are struggling with and then we need to develop a process to educate the end user and that's going to be where the success I think here is. And so after the forum itself, this is a totally leading question because I know the answer to this, but for the listener, what was the next step? What did you do with that information? Yeah, so after the forum we, we went back, we actually downloaded a trans using AI. We transcribed the content into a white paper, produced and published this white paper which basically outlined the key challenges, the takeaways from the forum and the steps that we want to take in order to start the ball rolling. So we developed LinkedIn working group, we developed a Discord channel which we're going to use for open conversation. Once the ball gets rolling and people start talking, we feel like we'll be able to host some good live events on there and generate some topic conversations. And we built a roadmap and the roadmap is really right now essentially it's got seven steps in it to get us to CSE 2026. So I can walk you through what that looks like. Yeah, let's give the listeners sort of an. So first of all, I'm going to totally plug that. If you are somebody who works in events, either on the Client side, as a supplier, as a partner, as a, like a super fan, let's call it those big categories. There is a LinkedIn working group called the Business of Events. You can join and we would love to have every. I'm sure everybody on the BOE would love everybody to join in on that and join the discord so that you can make sure that you're part of that conversation. We will link all of those things to the episode so it'll be in the comments below, wherever you're listening and or watching this. So shameless plug there. So there were, there are a few main sort of topics which seem on the outside, as, as you and I just said earlier in the episode, you know, seem kind of daunting. There. There are things that have, you know, all of this has happened and before and all of this will happen again kind of challenges ahead. But what was really interesting about that white paper was that it wasn't just here's our opinion, please take it, is that you mapped out that roadmap and that call to action and specifically some accountability in that. So can you take us through a little bit of that roadmap and where you see that accountability and that call to action? Yeah, absolutely. So immediately following the Business of Events forum, we got that transcription. We drilled down into what were the most common emerging themes, not from theory, but from lived experience. So this was all from people sharing. We took all of the content from the white paper from Voices in the Room, even to the point of using, you know, quotes. We had the backdrop of the event. It was the last day of. Of cse, so the backdrop was just a white vinyl and we actually had someone up there documenting with a Sharpie. So it made amazing, an amazing visual for us. After the event, we had all of the key points and the most important things people wanted to talk about literally written behind us. So we took that, we drill down and develop this white paper which outlines the key themes and the key things that we want to address overall in our industry. But we know that that's going to take years. So from that white paper, we developed a roadmap which would allow us to get the first and most important point into action. And really that's what we're looking at right now. So the themes that emerged from this initiatives that were apparently absolutely the most important for people to address were the need for unified standards, fair pricing contracts and RFP reform, which is what everyone is talking about right now. In fact, I see a bunch of LinkedIn conversations every day. I see them on RFP reform and people we know are talking about this and I keep putting the LinkedIn working group in and saying, go talk about it here, because we really want our industry to be talking about this in one place. The success of this initiative is going to be en masse. It's going to be crowdsourced. The more people, peer pressure. That's how it's going to happen. So we want to move everybody who's talking about this into one spot. Collective voices are larger. Transparency and commissions, compensation and kickback. That's another big one. Burnout, misalignment, and then education and the role it plays in our industry. Those are the themes that emerged. So this year, from now to 2026, CSE Live, which is in April, April 26th to 28th, small plug. Our goal is to try to adopt one key step, one key standardization, that we can push forward for industry adoption. So we put out a survey which can be found on our LinkedIn group. We've gotten some amazing feedback. It's anonymous, so that you don't have to give your name. If you're working in a corporation, you don't have to worry about your boss seeing it, it's or your clients knowing that you contributed. But the contributions so far are so eye opening, they're vulnerable, they're open and really giving us some great insight into how people are feeling and some awesome solutions. So right now we're just listening. We're in the survey phase. So July and August were about collecting content, collecting feedback. We're going to push that also through into September. And then at the end of September, we're going to take all of the data, drill it down, analyze it and come up with the one key. I mean, it will be a paragraph standardization that we want to adopt this year. I think it's going to be something around RFP reform. It's definitely going to be up a pricing because that's the one theme that's rising up from, you know, all the content that's coming in. At the end of September, our plan is to host our first live. So we'll have the working group with us and we'll get on a live chat, a zoom call. We may do it on Discord and we'll have a conversation, allow people to share more, a little bit about what their thoughts are and build some momentum for this one adoption after that, we're essentially going to move forward in the next five months after that. So from basically from October until CSC Live, our goal is to push this out as much as we can through everyone's audiences and leverage every network that we have, our working group, network, association partners that come on board, media partners that come on board far and wide, whatever standardization that we want people to adopt. So let's just say, for example, the first thing that we want to do is come up with a standard way for event planners to respond to RFPs. A lot of people are talking about charging, no charging. Even yesterday on LinkedIn, I don't know if you read Sabrina Roy posted and it got a lot of feedback and conversation around how much work goes into an RFP and being asked to do all this work for free. We all know how that goes, right? If you're a planner, you are asked to do a full, creative, sometimes a full event plan that then just gets either shopped around or it was never even a real rfp. They know who they're going to hire. You've done, you know, four to five days of work, you're not getting paid. One of my favorite lines about, about RFPS is sometimes an RFP is a customer confirming that they already made the right choice. Yep. And, and you know, that sort of discounts all of that hard work. Sorry to interrupt, I just. No, not at all. I'm. I think this is, it's just almost a stream of consciousness at this point. We do not have the information that we need in order to move this forward. What we want to do really is listen to what our industry needs, what our industry wants, drill down into the deepest challenges that they're having, and then try to find a solution. So the way that we think we can do that, in a nutshell, is by peer pressure and fomo. Yeah, associations have tried, you know, all the power to them, like love our associations and kudos to them for trying, but associations are volunteer based. So maintaining that over a long period of time, maintaining the momentum, you come onto a board, you might be there for a year, two, three, four years, you might work for an organization that doesn't give you enough time to really, you know, volunteer where you can actually make huge change. Like, there's a lot of challenges with associations being volunteer based and being able to impact these things in a big way. Right. So we know why no one's really been able to do it. We think it's about fomo. We think, and you know, I've talked to a lot of people about this and it sounds almost like a bit crazy, but we think that the strategy to getting this into action is to push people to do it. So what we're going to do is collect the data that's coming in on the survey. We're going to analyze it from that, we're going to decide on what that key adoption, that first key adoption is going to be. And if it's RFP reform, we're going to come up with a set of standard practices. Again, crowdsourcing that. We'll go back to our audience, we'll draft it because someone has to draft it. We'll pull from the information that we collected in order to frame that theory what those five points of RFP reform are going to look like. For example, go back to our audience, go back to our LinkedIn, shop it again for another two months, get feedback, finalize it, and then create a badge. And we're going to literally go out and just like we're campaigning, we're going to ask people to adopt this, wear the badge, put it on your website. It might say something like, you know, I follow this practice I or standard I, something standardized. We don't know what that's going to look like, but it's going to be something that we're going to ask our industry to adopt. The more people who adopt this and who agree to do it, the more the clients are going to have to adhere to this. Because if enough event professionals refuse to adhere to a practice that they don't agree with, change will have to come. It might seem a bit naive, but that's the strategy in a nutshell. It's one of the main reasons why I was so interested in this and continue to be so interested in this because of that, that adoption and that accountability. I love the idea of this pledge that you're, you're not actually, you're just asking people who, who. We talk about this all the time. Both you and myself and Jason, your partner, chat about it all the time. That those LinkedIn posts like Sabrina's, they get posted every day. I posted one the other day, probably on the same subject of like, oh, this is. Seems broken. Why is this? And what, what is what is always resonant and always common in that is everybody jumps on it and says, yes, absolutely. I think just before we started recording, I said, you know, yeah, I posted something and I got a bunch of, you know, reposts that said this with a finger emoji pointing down. Right? And, you know, it's always great to get that kind of engagement. But the one thing that I always reflect on that is like, okay, now do something about what now, what's next? You need to push that action. And what I love about this initiative is it I think we'll give people the tools to be able to do something about it. So that when you post, repost something like Sabrina's post or mine or one of Jason's or yours where it says, you know, hashtag this, this is the truth. 100% agree. Well that's great. Will you then go out and pledge that I will do this to make this better. And I think that that is a brilliant part of this and happy to support that as we go forward. When it's not just another meeting, when it's the event that matters, you need a production partner who delivers. Burn Production Services specializes in multi day meetings, conferences and large scale events that demand flawless execution. From cutting edge audio and video to stunning lighting and staging, we're built for your largest events. Take your production to the next level. Visit burnproductionservices.com and request your proposal today. Enjoying the show? Don't miss a single episode. Follow Production Value Matters wherever you get your podcasts. And for bonus content, tools and event insights, head over toProduction Value Matters.com and subscribe. Stay sharp, stay inspired. Production Value Matters. You know, first it's, I think it's important also to clarify that it's not. This is not a CSE initiative. Did I really want to take this on? In addition to everything else that I do in my life and you know, on my fourth rescue dog, this house is a, is a doghouse now. Like it's crazy. Our life is crazy. No. And I'm not being a martyr and trying to, you know, leave a legacy. Honestly, the truth of the matter is that I literally just got frustrated by seeing something continuously be brought up, continuously be talked about. You know, maybe it's my personal bias. I do get a little irritated. We all do with we all, we all have a LinkedIn pet peeve, right? So I do get really irritated. And speaking of Jason, like he'll hear me from my office, be like ah, like you know what I mean? What's wrong? Nothing. LinkedIn post. Like I get irritated when I see posers. I just often in on inauthenticity is my kryptonite and I'm not the poster child for authenticity. But I do think that I am pretty unfiltered and I try to shoot from the hip and that's just, you know, that's my ethos. No one else has to, you know, live their life that way. But it just irritates me when I see so many people posting on, making comments and they're good comments and they're good people, but it's, they're, they're vanity posts. There's nothing behind it. So is there anything wrong with vanity posts and being visible? No. That's what LinkedIn is for, right? So you can't fault someone for it. But when a topic is passionate, you're passionate about a topic and you constantly see like the conversations and the chirping and the, you know, the comments and then there's no action. That's what sort of over time built up. And I'm like, okay, we have to, Leslie. We had to just try to take this to the next level. So I think we're going to, after we host our webinar and we this interactive focus group, we'll come back with the findings and then we'll finalize and release this event. Industry Pledge or Ethical Practice Badge. And we're going to launch a national campaign sharing case studies, tools, resources explaining how you can adopt this, what it means. We will work on a plan and strategy to educate clients. That'll probably be a resource manual that is going to be two pages long and then it'll be in the hands of the employees. It'll be in the hands of the in house planners, the in house venue managers who are there till 3 in the morning and have to come back at 10 o' clock the next day if they have another event. You know, there's so many things going on in, in that that are going to need to be changed. But it's going to be up to the individual event professionals to take this document that we've created for you and push it forward, push it to your leadership. Share it. We may host live events that are specifically designed for end user clients and corporate and you'll see maybe, maybe 50 planners will be able to get their bosses to attend. You know, if it's going to result in, in more productivity, if it's going to result in better in health and wellness. I mean a lot of corporations are, are talking to talk about wellness. Well, this is the way that we can, you know, put this into practice. So, so that's our plan and then we'll continue that rollout from December to March and then at CSE in April, we're going to spend a full day. Last year that we had half a day. We're going to dedicate a full day to the Business of Events forum. We're going to recap everything that's happened and then we'll start over with strategy number two. Whatever the next adoption is, and we'll continue to do this. And it's going to be through conversations, through LinkedIn, through lives, through pushing that out, that hopefully we can build enough momentum and enough noise, make enough noise that some small change will happen. What I love about this initiative is that it is about giving the tools and the resources. It's not about, although it did start. And in our early conversations on those initial calls after the forum, we were like, oh, we should make a statement, we should, should have a stance, we should make a stand. And that's always very noble. That's, you know, again, I like to post and share my thoughts about, like this seems wrong and we should probably fix it, which is easy, to be honest, which is awesome, by the way. I don't want to interrupt you, but I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying people shouldn't post and talk about important topics. No, no, no, that's not. I did. No, no, look, I do that for me. I don't do that for anybody else. I, I like, I can't, I can on a certain extent. I cannot let that stuff stay in my head. I need to get it out. And so that's therapeutic for me. So that I don't like when you going back to your idea of a frog in the boiling water pot, right? Sometimes I feel like I'm a frog in a boiling water pot and I just gotta jump out, scream, and then I can get back in kind of thing. That's what it's about. But I love the fact that the BOE initiative is really focused on, okay, we hear those voices, we see those posts. We're not just going to say, you know, repost, hashtag this. We are going to say, cool, let's move that into action. Let's give that person who just reposted that and says, you know, I agree 100%. This should change. Okay, here's how you do it. And I think that's what has been missing. You know, I don't want to be overly critical of associations, but I feel like sometimes they get to a certain point of like, oh, yeah, we agree that's wrong. And they say, now we're going to go plan our little, our, our annual conference. We hope to have a conversation with you there. Well, it comes down to bandwidth, right? And priorities as well. The associations, I think, do the best they can, but that's not, you know, changing the industry necessarily isn't their priority. Supporting the work of their, of their members. And just on a cord, day to day, I Think is, you know, is as much as a volunteer foundation can do, right? Absolutely. So I want to chat about you for a little bit just because in our pre communication before we sat down to record this, I'm going to out you a little bit and you mentioned something. It's like, well, why do you want to talk to me? I'm just Stacy. And I'm like, because you're Stacy and you have been such a driving force in this industry ever since I joined this industry and I went to, I think, my first Canadian events awards, and, you know, it was one of my first ones and everybody was, oh, that's Stacy. And I'm like, who's this Stacey lady? And I. And I learned so much about you in that I have been a great admirer of you based on your work with CSE and beyond and the awards. Like, what is driving your passion for the industry and the market and those who work in it. Well, thank you very much. I am. I appreciate those comments. Anyone who knows me well knows that I prefer to be behind the scenes. You know, that's. That's just my comfort place and really proud of the work that we do at CSE and what we've been able to contribute to the community and look forward to being able to continue to do that work and grow and grow with the industry. And I learn every day just as much from the people in my life and in my circle that Dan, I do teach as well, really give back to them. So it's a. It's a win, win. I think for me, I've just always. First of all, I've always loved events. Right. That's why I got into this industry. I was just fascinated by the power that events have to create, the power of a shared experience, the power of live events. And I think people say that all the time, so it sounds pretty cliche, but I'm. I just love it when things come together and I can see people connecting and the sparks that happen. I am at my core, pretty creative person. I have learned over the years to balance that with strategy as a business owner, but my creativity came first, and I think I lead with that. So from a graphic design perspective, the color, the, you know, the design, the whole, every event is a blank canvas, and it gives you the opportunity to pour your creativity into it in any way that you can. And so I think that's what keeps me excited year after year. And then my passion for continuing to do this kind of work is driven by the people, by the relationships that I've Made. And the people who have been a part of cse, been a part of my community, been a part of my universal event experience over the years, there's a lot of people, and I see this with, with very humbly, there are a lot of people who started their careers at CSE who won an award in. Not to say that you need to win an award to be an outstanding event producer, because there are thousands of event producers who don't enter awards for various reasons, and that's totally okay. But there's also a lot of people I know who have jump started and used it as a launch pad. People who volunteered with our events, you know, back 20 years ago, who are now GMs of convention centers and running multinational multimillion dollar companies. And I'm really, I'm very proud of that. I'm proud that we could play a part. That I could play a part in their life. And I think not to make it sound like we're saving lives or cause curing cancer, because we are not. And I'm. I am more aware of that than anyone. I don't take myself or this too seriously, but I do believe that we are. That. That events have the power to change lives. And I've seen it happen, and I. I love that. I love being able to, you know, have a conversation with Mike Granick. Do you know who that is? Yeah, yeah, I know Mike. Yeah, Mike Granick. Okay. So, I mean, that's a great example. So Mike is such a dear friend. He started as a volunteer at our show, like, 20 years ago, went on to open his own event company, then became the director of the event program at the Art Institute of Vancouver, took all of what he learned and just built a successful company. Now he's completely shifted and he has, like, I think it's called the School of Rock for. For kids in music. But yeah, just being able to watch people grow has been a highlight of my career. So you've been a leader in Canada's event landscape for years. Do you think that there's something unique about the Canadian approach to events compared to other markets? Oh, my gosh. That is such a big question. I'm trying to get a little elbows up on this conversation. We are inherently. Oh, I'm going to get crushed by saying this. We are very nice people. I think that the Canadian market is not as competitive. We're so much more collaborative. There are lots of collaborative, incredible people in the international associations who are also dear friends, so nobody take offense to it. But just generally speaking, we're not as cutthroat. We collaborate, we do play nice in the sandbox and I think we have some incredible talent in Canada and I think our events are among the best in the world. I, I'm biased, but I'm also pragmatic when I say that I really do believe that I sit on the board of a couple of different international award programs. So I do get a behind the scenes look at the production of some of these international productions and events. And I can tell you that our events like rank definitely, you know, among the top in the world. One of the big things. You might want to edit this out. One of the big things. You just said that. So now I'm not going to. I know, right? You might want to edit this. Yeah. I feel like just as an overarching observation from someone who, you know, reads hundreds of event doc like event packages for the event awards, the Canadian Event Awards. I mean, you know, people are submitting production schedules, marketing plans, strategic plans, full packages, full event documentation sets and then also the same for international award programs. I have really a very good insight into how people build events and the differences in the countries is astronomical. So there's a lot of events that happen, you know, in, in the Middle east that have massive budgets and you would know a lot about that, like the technical production, the huge stadium shows, like things that I didn't even know existed. Massive things that happen in the sky. But the pre production work and the documentation that goes into it is so much less than a gala or a corporate conference for 2500 people in Canada. I find that the Canadians dive deeper into the detail, I guess in the, I don't know, I mean the events are still successfully executed, but we seem to do a lot more prep work. And I thought, I don't know what that means. I'd have to analyze that to figure out what that means. But I think it's an interesting point. We're very detail oriented. Yeah, I think it goes into the Canadian politeness that, you know, when you go into sort of European markets, especially in the exhibit world, you usually have to carry like a big stack of euros in your pocket. And the reason is that if you want the forklift to show up right away, you've got to slip the guy €50. Right? So I'm not saying that that doesn't happen globally. I'm just saying that in Canada we would write ourselves a receipt for it, whereas in Europe they wouldn't because we'd be like, well, I got to, I got to tell the Cra. That I. That I spent this money. That was a little bit of a tax joke. Every accountant friend that's listening just laughed their asses off at that. Jo okay, so what kind of industry trends do you see or that you're watching for closely as we move into the end of 2025 and into 2026? I think a lot of events are becoming more festivalized, if that's. I just coined that phrase. We are continuing on the experience trend. I don't actually think it's a trend. I think it's here to stay. We've evolved into looking at events as experiences as opposed to gatherings, I guess. So immersion interactivity is just off the charts. We continue to see incredible innovations. I mean, obviously, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about AI. AI is revolutionizing what we do, but I think there's fewer transactional, certainly in the trade show world, there's fewer transactional events where it's Booth and Atrin. It's. It's immersive, no wall kind of experiences. I would say there's a lot of focus, obviously still on wellness and anything that deepens the authentic experience. I do see a lot of movement toward incorporating Indigenous protocol or an Indigenous aspect, particularly in Canada, to events. I think that that is interesting. It's a, It's a conversation in itself. I spent 12 years as the director of events at a major Canadian university, as you know, and was involved quite heavily with the local Indigenous community and, you know, managed the opening of the national center for Truth and Reconciliation and many other high profile Indigenous events. And so I gained a tremendous insight into the community, built some incredible relationships, and learned a lot about trust and protocol and ceremony and the reasons why things were done. And I think that incorporating Indigenous content into our events is a really great way to recognize the importance of, of the Indigenous culture in Canada and the place that it holds. There is a bit of a concern of tokenism, I find. And that, of course, is a whole other conversation. But I think that that is, I would say it's a trend. It's not a positive one. That would be my, my biggest take on what's. What's a trend that's happening. That's not something that's super awesome. AI is super awesome. Incorporating cultural content. So it's performative, not so great. So I think that's. Yeah, that's sort of my take on what's happening. Okay. So at the end of each episode, I always like to ask each of my guests what they think is actually valuable in producing events versus what you think is a waste of time and money. And maybe you stumbled on that a little bit in your last answer, but I always like to ask that question. I think anything that deepens the authentic connection is hugely valuable. Anything that can bring people together in a space where they can connect on a deeper level, where they have time. I think time at events is important. Don't rush people through the experience just because you want to throw everything at the wall. You know, choose what's going to make the most impact and be meaningful to your audience. Somebody said to me the other day, it wasn't in relation to events, but it was a great comment, that they're thinking of their client in every step of the way as opposed to what they want in the experience. And I think that most really good planners do that, But I think that's really important too. You know, go through the user journey in your head and what would matter. I think a waste of time is cookie cutter activations. Decor just for the sake of decor, where there's no purpose to it. I think everything in an event needs to be purposeful and meaningful. 100% agree with that. I actually had a conversation with a client and they were like, hey, we got this, like 10 by 10 space. We need to stick something in there, there. And I immediately said to them, but why, like, does it. Does it actually support, like, and. And the idea of, like, what's new, what's cool, what's hip? And I go, it does not matter a bit. Right. As long unless it is something that you're trying to integrate into your narrative, into your story that you're talking to your audience about. Right. Not just like, oh, it's a photo booth, because we had to have a photo booth. It's sort of like apps. Like, what's the point of an app if you don't actually have a purpose for it? Right, right. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't want to say don't use decor. I think decor has a purpose. Absolutely. I think obviously rental furniture and the. The different options and opportunities that exist with all of the rental partners that we see coming up, they offer the opportunity to create spaces for community, create gathering spaces where people can talk and connect. And I think just that that word connection and authenticity should be sort of woven into everything you do. And if you can't speak to that, and if what you're doing doesn't correlate with purpose, meaning, authenticity and connection, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. Absolutely. Stacy I can't thank you enough for sharing your perspective and all the work that you're doing through BOE and CSE to elevate this industry. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me. So if you've enjoyed this conversation, make sure to like, follow and subscribe to Production Value Matters productionvaluematters.com We will have links in the description of this episode to the LinkedIn group the Discord where you can join and the survey so that you can have your voice heard as part of this initiative. And I highly encourage you to participate in that survey and be and join this organization. Stacy Again, thank you so much for joining me. It was such a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Production Value Matters, the business event podcast is brought to you by Burn Production Services. To find out more about Burn Production Services and how putting on events can drive value for your business, visit burnproductionservices.com make sure to click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. And on behalf of the team here at Production Value Matters, thank you so much for listening.