The Event Experiment

Pitches, or short presentations, are not uncommon in the MICE industry. Agencies, locations and service providers compete against each other almost every day to convince customers of their merits. The customer specifies the framework and the service providers create an event concept and, in the end, there is a lucky winner. That’s what tenders in the event industry look like – until now. “Pitches consume incredible resources. They can be the killer of sustainability in the MICE business. But they also offer one of the greatest opportunities to make the event industry inevitably and quickly more sustainable,” says Tobias Weber, creative director of format:c live communication. The idea behind: a reverse pitch. At THE EVENT EXPERIMENT, the MICE world is turned neatly upside down, because here the customer applies for a unique premium event.

At THE EVENT EXPERIMENT, Gurgl Carat, format:c and other partners joined forces and developed the perfect event. There will be exclusive & unique features. But also slots, the content of which can be freely designed by the customer. Everything is possible, from annual meetings with further training character to team building with incentives. The premium event is designed for 100-250 people and takes place on 3-4 days in Gurgl in the Tirolean Ötztal. Interested parties can apply for the full event package put together by the professionals. The event is guaranteed to take place only once and will thus be sold only once to the winner of the tender. "Just once we wanted to be free from often irrational specifications and create a thoroughly planned process with creativity and exciting elements that knows how to inspire a customer's guests over 2-4 days. THE EVENT EXPERIMENT now offers this opportunity and we are curious to see how many customers will follow this path and take part in the reverse pitch,” states Natalie Driesnack, co-owner of format:c, describing the idea of this project.

But what is the idea behind the idea? What is a reverse pitch for? THE EVENT EXPERIMENT is primarily intended to take a critical look behind the scenes of tenders in the MICE business. Insufficient briefings, short processing times, the lack of comparability of the offers and a lack of personal presentation opportunities are often the order of the day for agencies, locations and other service providers. Therefore, format:c and Gurgl Carat identified these points of criticism in a cross-border and cross-trade task force. The missing or insufficient remuneration of most tenders is an aggravating factor. Felix Kupfer, Managing Director of Gurgl Carat, describes the situation for the congress center in Obergurgl as follows: "During the season, our hoteliers, caterers and other service providers simply do not have the capacity to constantly write offers and simultaneously provide pitch support for several lead agencies involved. If Obergurgl is only one of the possible locations and ultimately doesn't get a chance, then an incredible amount of work has been done in vain by everyone involved. In our opinion, this is neither sustainable nor fair.”

With THE EVENT EXPERIMENT, the initiators of the project want to raise awareness of resource-saving use in the MICE industry. The requirement is very clear: the quality of the pitches and tenders must be increased. It includes, above all, long-term partnerships, remuneration of organizational and creative services and protection of copyrights. All interested parties are cordially invited to take part in this important and constructively critical discourse. The official launch of the project will take place at IMEX 2023 in Frankfurt. THE EVENT EXPERIMENT is represented there with its own stand and events on the Ideation Stage. After that, Driesnack, Weber and Kupfer will offer the perfectly designed event for sale. A pitch decides who is allowed to buy. However, the customers compete for the services.