How to safely hold a day-long event in a pandemic!
Their Goal
Words@Work has been working in partnership with the Maine Real Estate and Development Association (MEREDA) since 2018 to provide the professional execution of signature events along with positive PR to enhance their work and brand.
With two annual conferences that attract over 1,000 real estate professionals and the publication of the MEREDA Index, a key economic indicator for the state of Maine, MEREDA needed a PR team who could deliver at a high level while working within their established organizational structure. We developed a comprehensive plan for delivering this, and brought our signature communication style to work with their board of directors and members effectively.
Our Strategy
In the fall of 2020, Words@Work was again tasked with helping to plan and coordinate MEREDA’s 2021 Forecast Conference. Planning the 2021 conference presented new challenges as the decision was made to hold the event virtually due to COVID-19 safety concerns. The challenge for MEREDA was how to generate excitement for a virtual event given the Zoom- and webinar-fatigue that many professionals were experiencing as a result of the pandemic. The Words@Work team pivoted from the conference setups of years past, and came up with a completely new and innovative creative idea – to produce the virtual event like a Today Show broadcast, complete with anchors, interviews with presenters, and commercial breaks featuring conference sponsors and tradeshow participants. Words@Work worked to ensure that the virtual conference was as interactive as possible, helping to produce 9 hours of video content, provide logistical support, and coach the key people involved to deliver an event experience that would match its goals.
The result was a fun and profitable event with 500+ virtual participants in attendance. Words@Work provided ongoing support to the MEREDA organization, its presenters, and sponsors, delivering on all 2021 conference goals. For 2022, MEREDA has asked the W@W team to work once again as the problem-solving agency, to pull off another successful event. This year, the conference will be held at the Cross Insurance Arena, allowing for all the in-person activities to take place that make the conference memorable for its participants – a happy hour, tradeshow, and the all-important economic presentations, but with a setup that allows for social distancing.
