News

5 Nov 2013

1,500 Event ‘Professionals’ tested on tech knowledge…..

The Event Leadership Institute in the USA tested 1,500 Event Planners for technical knowledge with an online test and found an average score of 48 out of 100. This shouldn’t surprise any AV tech working on the nervous coalface of corporate AV, but it needs improvement, since this was a survey of PROFESSIONAL planners who frankly need to know more about their events.

The survey was designed as a feeder for an online course that Event Leadership Institute offer, which runs for 8 hours and costs just under $400. The course covers all aspects and is touted as a Non-Technical Approach to Thinking About Audio Visual.

“The scores are disappointing, but not altogether surprising”, says Howard Givner – the founder and executive editor of the Event Leadership Institute. “Over the years planners have gotten smarter and more sophisticated when it comes to just about every aspect of meeting and event planning. We’ll challenge a vendor if there’s something they don’t understand about the venue, food and beverage, decor, and other elements.”

It is highly likely the test would result in the same result if conducted over Australian Event Planners. CX managed a score of 80 out of 100, with a couple of the questions framed in a tricky way, like this one:

Note they are looking for the FALSE statement! Some of the other questions allow multiple answers, which go towards your score. The test is very brief, just ten questions, and gives you the correct answers at the end which is a good thing.

While this is an interesting approach to selling spaces in an online course, the test falls short and can only really be considered a ‘taste test’, as opposed to a measurement tool. Still, the relatively low average score across 1,500 ‘professional’ event folk is a worry, isn’t it?

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