One conference, up to 600 guests, a new world every year

Potter was growing and changing quickly, and what it needed to say to customers shifted every year. So each conference built on the successes of the years before it, factored in the feedback we received, and adapted to the challenges unique to the next event, with its own theme, identity, and on-site experience.

I owned the event end to end: city and venue selection, hotel and vendor contracts, theme and messaging, session content, the full million-dollar budget, and the on-site experience. Most of that budget is committed before any creative decision, so discipline on fixed costs is what funds the choices that matter.

We also measured what the conference was worth. We closely tracked revenue across dealers who attended and dealers who did not, and saw larger growth in the dealers who attended. We attribute that to the direct, hands-on relationship building, communication, and feedback loop the conference provides.

When leadership favored an off-the-shelf event platform, research and two trials showed it would constrain the bespoke experience the event depended on. We built our own instead, a decision covered on the platforms page.

Each conference starts with the message, and the message becomes a theme with its own name, mark, and visual world. That identity is then built out at full scale, across the hype video, the stage, the session graphics, and the hotel itself, so guests are inside the theme from the moment they arrive.

The experience on site is where we chose to spend. Guests should enjoy themselves and still know, at every moment, what is happening, when, where, and with whom. So the theme carried through the wayfinding, signage, and environmental design of the whole venue, and attendees and sponsors consistently describe the event as the best run and best communicated they attend.