Interview - Tahira Endean

Tahira Endean is the Head of Programme for IMEX Group, which hosts the largest trade shows for the global meetings, events, and incentive travel industry. She designs people-centric and purpose-driven events through appropriate and engaging environments and thoughtful, relevant experiences. She is also the author of Intentional Event Design, a book where she shares her experiences, knowledge of events, and actionable ideas you can quickly implement in your events.

Tahira blew my mind with what she did for IMEX America this year. In just three weeks, she put together 110 unique sessions in 8 theaters and brought in many speakers for their Inspiration Hub. In this interview, she talked about this fantastic experience and shared some pearls that can help other event planners plan and execute a successful event, big or small.

Tahira considers IMEX as the mothership of the industry. It brings together all MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions industry) under one roof twice a year, once in Frankfurt in May and Las Vegas in October. This year was the 11th iteration in America, and the goal was to bring people together to do business. They had 160,000 sq ft of exhibitors who were all there to meet buyers. They also welcomed visitor buyers and had close to 4000 buyers out of 12,000 total attendees of the show. While most people were there to do business, sometimes they just needed to take a break from meetings and learn something. IMEX takes education and innovation seriously, so they had a dedicated area for Inspiration Hub that hosted learning sessions throughout the three-day event. “It has always been an active part of the show and one that invites more people to come,” Tahira shares.

The Inspiration Hub draws buyers, associations, corporate event planners, and agency buyers, so education sessions had to cover that gamut. Tahira and her team provided education tracks that were simple and well-defined, so they had more breadth to build them. Here are some of this year’s tracks and the vision behind each one:

1. Respect is anything people and the world around us, with sessions focused on masculinity, navigating workplace politics, and other bigger and deeper topics.

2. Event Planner Toolkit covers contracting and food and beverage.

3. Future Self is anything about personal and professional development.

4. Innovation & Technology is getting into the metaverse and adapting to new technology trends.

5. Be Well is sitting with trained psychologists for one-on-one conversations to promote mental and physical health.

One hundred seventy-five speakers applied for the event. Tahira also reached out to many people to find the right speakers. With three weeks of planning, she built out a mural using color-coded post-its with speaker names, grouped them logically, and weeded out the obvious. “It’s partly about the right speaker, but often it’s also about the right topic.” Tahira’s advice to event planners is not to be scared to say no if the speaker or the topic doesn’t fit the event’s theme. She also stressed the importance of understanding who you’re programming for and what you are trying to achieve with your event.

IMEX runs the programming for three days. Each session typically rolls around for 30 to 45 minutes, stagger them through the day, so there’s a balance of some free time, overlap time, and some time for refresh rooms. On the first two days, they start at 10:00 am until about 4:00 pm because happy hour starts to open up on booths. On the last day, they still have many attendees and great engagement. However, people are in a different mindset at this point as they are getting ready to leave, so the event finishes early at about 1:30 pm.

Tahira did some cool and unique things for this year’s IMEX America event. One of them is a keynote panel where she put three inspirational keynote speakers about values, community, bridging of travel, and why it is so important. She also worked out a crazy idea with our very own Killer Pitch Master, Precious L. Williams, that surprisingly got a lot of traction. Precious is a fantastic speaker and an expert at elevator pitches. IMEX didn’t have traditional spaces for keynotes, so Tahira set up Precious’ session at the bottom of an escalator so people could learn how to do an escalator pitch. The sessions Precious did were very well-received. “I think sometimes not only do we have to come up with these crazy ideas, we have to be not scared to present them,” Tahira added.

Tahira wrote a book called Intentional Event Design to educate event professionals on how to do better educational formats and event designs by making intentional decisions based on the knowledge available about the participants and their needs. “There [are] so many ways to make the experience richer for people with very, very small tweaks to what we’ve been doing with traditional programming.“ The book has seven intentions, including developing stronger event processes, understanding how to make the most of the available technology and data including digital marketing, designing to optimize the experience through immersive, brain-friendly design, and creating sustainable, wellness-driven events.

Tahira advises thinking things through from the beginning when talking about event space and how to use it.  How can you put people in groups and give them points of interest? What is the light like, and how can you use it to change the energy or promote creativity? “Every space is going to have sort of a unique vibe to it.” When event planners get to choose the space, there’s more opportunity to plan things around. When you are stuck with a space you didn’t choose, you have to step back, look at it as a blank canvas, and think about how to use it to the best advantage.

To end the interview, we asked Tahira about a fundamental thing people need to know when starting out as an event planner. “It’s okay to question. It’s okay to ask questions of our clients so that we have more clarity. It’s okay to ask questions of our venues and our partners to make sure that we are doing the very best thing that we can do and bring the best forward.“

For more information about the IMEX trade shows, visit their website at www.imexexhibitions.com. If you want great tips and ideas to implement at your next event, get your hands on Tahira’s book, Intentional Event Design, Our Professional Opportunity, on Amazon.