Welcome to the first episode of the Craft of Conferencing Podcast. This show features enlightening and candid conversations with thought leaders in the B2B conferencing space. We will begin as a monthly podcast. However, the show’s frequency will eventually increase to weekly.
We are excited to have Daphne Earp Hoppenot as our inaugural guest. If you are an eventing pro you will know Daphne as the founder of The Vendry, an event-tech platform built shortly before the pandemic to fix what Daphne saw as a broken venue-search ecosystem.
The idea for The Vendry came to Daphne while she was at Yext.
Yext produced multiple events a year and had a high-caliber events team that struggled with some of the basics of doing their jobs because of the lack of an efficient marketplace, particularly for sourcing event venues.
Here Daphne describes what she saw that led her to create The Vendry.
The Vendry was launched in 2019. It was acquired in July of this year by the meeting sourcing and planning platform Groupize.
Daphne and I first met when I was at The Kelsey Group, an organization that produced some great B2B conferences in the ‘90s and the ‘00s. I helped to plan many of those events. I learned the conferencing game from the legendary John Kelsey himself. There was no better conferencing training ground than to work at TKG in its heyday.
We met Daphne when she was in partnerships at the software company Yext. Anyone with “partnerships” in their title or description does a lot of business at conferences.
Our podcast conversation moves quickly through this background and into the story of The Vendry from its inception through its recent exit. Daphne and I also share some candid observations about what makes B2B events tick.
One thread touched on why people attend conferences, and the impact this has on event speakers. We agreed that some delegates are “lobby people” who are there to do business, not to sit in the meeting hall and take notes during keynotes. And there is little that event organizers can, or even should, do about this.
We hope you enjoy the show.
If you want to learn more about The Craft of Conferencing, visit our website, or write to us at Charles@craftofconferencing.com.
Time Stamps — The Craft of Conferencing Podcast Episode 1
The Vendry Origin Story [02:17]
The Evolution of B2B Events [12:01]
Surviving Covid [19:41]
The Vendry Exit [27:31]
How AI Will Impact Events [33:08]
Learn more about The Craft of Conferencing by visiting our website.
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