At the first European Event Summit in Luxembourg, ISES Europe's Chairman Christian Seidenstücker presented the 5Cs which should determine the future of the events industry. That inspired the attending event professionals develop and launch the 7C Manifesto. The seven C's are: Change, Content, Creativity, Credibility, Connectivity, Cooperation and Cost- effectiveness.
"To stay in the running, we have to run much faster," said Seidenstücker. "Events are taking an increasing share of the total marketing budget, in particular at the expense of traditional advertising, eventually we are getting the attention of senior management, and now it's the time when we have to prove our worth."
The idea behind the manifesto is to work with industry associations and thought leaders towards next year's summit, developing practical guidelines and initiatives towards higher levels of performance.
The European Event Summit in Luxembourg was the first of what is planned as an annual tradition with more than fifty senior professionals from thirteen countries. Netty Thines of Luxembourgian event agency Mediation initiated the conference: "The support across Europe has been tremendous" said Thines, "everyone seemed to think that the time was right for this kind of initiative."
On the agenda was ROI, Meeting Architecture, Sustainable events, Hybrid event concepts and multi-sensory communication. "This was an information packed day covering the issues of major importance to the industry," said the conference chairman Dr. Elling Hamso of Event ROI Institute.
He was also impressed with the attention shown by the Luxembourgian government, the summit being opened by the Minister of Economy and Trade Jeannot Krecké and the closing speech was given by the Minister of Tourism Françoise Hetto-Gaasch, and Hamso added: "It is paramount to our future success to break down the barriers of language and culture in Europe and consolidate all the excellent work being done in different countries. The annual Event Industry Summit in Luxembourg could play an important role towards this end."
The summit was followed by a highly acclaimed all day social programme in Luxembourg.
Next year's European Event Summit in Luxembourg is planned for 31 August 2012.
