Rodney Hart: Hello and welcome into another Event Perspectives episode. Another one I’m thrilled about. Joined by Dahlia El Gazzar, who is the tech evangelist and idea igniteur, and I was afraid of getting that out correctly. Dahlia is at Dahlia+Agency. I know we’re going to talk about a whole bunch of things, but Dahlia, are you ready for this conversation?
Dahlia El Gazzar: I am so ready. I’ve been ready to be on camera with you, Rodney. You’ve been interviewing all these cool people and now I’m standing in line for it. So here I am.
Rodney Hart: Listen, the coolest one is joining today. And also a fellow Massachusetts resident. I’m sure we’re going to have a ton of fun. And one of the ideas I’m most excited about, but we won’t jump into it yet, is this notion of decision calories. I know that’s something you’ve kind of borrowed and we’ll hit on it, and what it means for people’s playbooks and how they should be thinking about their events. I can’t wait to dive into that, but I try to start out with something a little bit more fun to get the conversation going. If you had an unlimited budget, what is one thing you would add to your next event or client event?
Dahlia El Gazzar: So it would be all the puppies in the whole entire world. But if I had an unlimited budget, to be very honest, I would take the event outside of a hotel or a venue. I would use a city as the floor plan. The storefronts as the breakout rooms, the parks as the gathering spaces, all the puppies in the whole entire world, all the Paneras and coffee shops you would want. And ultimately, I think there will come a time where even if budget is an issue, events are going to have to be done in a very different way. So budget aside, I would not just limit it to general session rooms and hallways.
Rodney Hart: I love that answer. We’ll probably hit on some of this. You’re already starting to get to something, and I think you’re probably not someone who’s stuck on convention. Is that fair?
Dahlia El Gazzar: I’m not conventional at all. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. My mission here, when you have a lineup of speakers where you want people to think differently, is to literally have people step out of their comfort zone, or empower them to be able to have those conversations with their leadership team and the naysayers who’ve been in an organization saying, “We’ve always done it this way.” Nothing’s broken. Well, everything now is broken.
Rodney Hart: I want to unpack that a little. And the way I’m going to start is by asking about your background, how you got into events. What I can see on LinkedIn is that you were at a couple of different places that got acquired. Tell us a little bit about how you got into events and your journey to where you are today.
Dahlia El Gazzar: I lived in the Red Sea in South Sinai for six years. I am an accidental planner. I was brought in to move and pick hotels, to do guest relations, to spend money to make money. So I was wild on ATV tour guides in the middle of the desert, all of that. I was there to create joy and happiness for the tourists. The way I ended up doing events was someone said, “Can you do an event on the first of the year because all our diving boats have to stop, people drink a lot.” So I ended up negotiating with the Bedouins and doing a camel race, which still exists today. Like, if you can negotiate with Bedouins and put numbers on camels and get a thousand-some people to go into the middle of the desert and just have a blast, I call that a successful event. That’s how I started.
Rodney Hart: What gave you that? You got tasked with this idea of an event. What like how did you envision it coming to life? Maybe you came into it with less rules, less formality.
Dahlia El Gazzar: First and foremost, I had leadership that trusted me 200%. Second, it wasn’t a plan, it wasn’t an Excel sheet with 200 tabs color-coded. It truly was: what’s going to bring joy for different people? Those with families, those on their own, those who were just pissed they couldn’t go diving because that was a big deal. I was able to just envision all these little corners, and that was the event. It just came together. A lot of event planners feel they need to control everything, including the weather. A lot of times that doesn’t work. I trust the process. If it doesn’t work, other things will just take on. And it worked out really well. Yes, it was profitable. Yes, it was sponsored. And then it was given to someone who was able to run with it. You need to trust the process even if it’s a process.
Rodney Hart: How did that take you to the event technology side of things? Because I know you have experience at Passkey, at other event tech vendors.
Dahlia El Gazzar: In the middle of the desert you don’t get a lot of tech. Fast forward, I moved from Egypt to the US. I got very intrigued about the technology that powers the infrastructure of events, the hospitality and travel world. And so I was lucky to work on different projects that led me to Passkey before the Cvent days, and that led me to onPeak. Those platforms, it wasn’t only about the technology itself being really great. It was about how you were empowering all the different players to do better events, better experiences. My main mission there was strategic partnerships and just listening to different organizers and planners on what was keeping them up at night, and then the tech follows.
Rodney Hart: And as a question on tech: I kind of came into the event space somewhat accidentally myself and ended up gravitating toward tech because it spoke to me. I was on an event team full of planners whose skill set was different than mine, and they were like, “You like tech, you like data, great, you can have it.” And for me, my brain was always around: I don’t want the tech to be the star of the show, I want it to be an enabler of the actual show. Something that functions well, that brings everything together, that ultimately gives me a sense of measuring it afterwards. Long-winded question, Dahlia: what’s your thought on event tech? What’s the role, and where is it succeeding and where is it not?
Dahlia El Gazzar: I’m going to start with what’s not succeeding. Ninety-five percent of our engagement with organizations, whether association, corporate, or trade show organizers, when it comes to them trying to figure out their tech stack or whether the tech is working: what’s not working is that we almost showcase tech with no emotion. And it is an emotional sell. It is an emotional buy-in. It’s almost like tech therapy. We go in almost as therapists. Sometimes it’s like marriage counseling, because you have different departments, different players who don’t want to talk to each other. There’s a gatekeeper keeping it all in because of some insecurity. That’s what we’re dealing with right now. I think there needs to be more emotional charge from the tech companies, because when someone’s working with RainFocus, for example, they are truly in love with their account management team. What’s not working is leaning hard on the emotional and persuasive side. It’s all code or capabilities or features, which is awesome, but it’s not what it’s about. If you look at a lot of websites, a lot of RFPs, there’s no emotion. Like, how are you going to feel when you do work with me?
What is working right now is there’s a speed to market that’s different than what it used to be, which is great, but it also means that tech companies need to be in a learning mode, not a teaching mode. The onboarding and the handholding has to be almost 200% more than it was. The technology has to be almost invisible in the sense that you need to think of it more as an experience, a journey that is not only about the platform or the bells and whistles. It’s a relationship. When we say “vendor,” that term should be deleted. It’s a relationship. The feedback loop has to be open almost 24/7 right now, and has to be taken into consideration. There are tech companies that are going to deliver it, and there are going to be others where they say, “Oh, that’s going to hit the roadmap in Q4.” Well, you don’t have time for that.
Rodney Hart: From your perspective, is the need faster delivery on features, or really just being a better listener?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Both. And we need more of that even within the organization itself. Event technologist used to be a title at some organizations. Now, in itself, that can potentially be the hub or nucleus of business intelligence, event intelligence, tech intelligence all in one. And everything that you do with events, everything that supports that, is part of business strategy. People need to step up to that.
Rodney Hart: And I think everyone who’s listening, I’m going to try and translate this back to another question I’ve got for you. Tell us a little bit about the journey to starting Dahlia+Agency and what you focus on.
Dahlia El Gazzar: First and foremost, I’m not an expert. I’m not a guru. I’m not a maven. None of those. The whole idea of “expert” and so forth can’t be the case because it is changing very very quickly. The way Dahlia+Agency started was: I was grateful for the leadership at onPeak and Passkey when they realized what I wanted to do was serve and mine the gap between organizers and the tech and services companies that were not able to translate what the buyers needed, and vice versa. I wanted to sit in the middle and help do that. So Dahlia+Agency is a group of misfits basically that are able to translate, whether it’s needs, visions, or perspectives, on both sides.
For the tech companies, a lot of them don’t know how to tell their story in a way that impacts their clients or prospects. We help with that. We want to differentiate them, because they don’t belong in one bucket. They also need to be able to serve from an emotional aspect. On the buyer side, on the organization side, when we come in to help organizers with a brand new reset on an event or a playbook or the tech, it’s not all about the tech. Usually there’s a talent and training issue that happens. Or there’s a gatekeeper who’s afraid and has used the same app or platform for many many years and is just afraid to let go because they’re afraid of their position. That’s why we say it’s supercharged. We use a lot of intuition. There’s always a hidden story. That’s why psychology is included here.
You have to read what’s going on. You need to step back and say, “Oh, it’s not only the registration. It could be the flows, the processes, or you’ve simply outgrown your tech stack.” That’s a beautiful thing. Don’t take it as a bad thing. We want to help and empower event professionals to think differently and really tune in on what is going to serve their primary stakeholders.
Rodney Hart: And in those conversations, as you’re saying, hey, whether it’s a change to the playbook or the tech, do you have a way of figuring out who’s the key stakeholder, maybe who’s the gatekeeper keeping things the way they are?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Usually there are different missions being told to us. “Oh, we want to change registration,” or “the mobile app sucked, we want to get rid of it.” Then we try to dig deep. We look at all the personas in a room. Someone in the C-suite might be saying something different, or heard something different, shiny object syndrome. What always happens is there’s not enough transparency between all the personalities. Some of the personalities that bring us in just need a team to help them validate why they need to shift. I like to say “shiv it” because I don’t like the word “pivot.” We’re done with P words. But you need to take a look at the dynamics between team members. This is why, when you get on a demo, the majority of people on one side have their camera off and are muted. They’re either playing with their dog or checking email. That dynamic cannot happen if it’s a workshop done together in one room, which is most of the time what we do. And you need to also read the body language. You might see that Amy doesn’t like what Bob says. That’s a huge tell. You might as well shut down the presentation and just listen to what’s going on. That’s the therapy part. And when you are able to diffuse that bomb between an Amy and a Bob and a Rodney, everything goes in a better direction. It’s not even consulting anymore. It is tech therapy.
Rodney Hart: I would totally second that, because I’ve done demos with people I work with who don’t have the same end goal. As a tech company, presenting and trying to convince two people equally might not be the case. There’s a lot of listening that should be happening, because it’s one thing to talk about your solutions, but another thing to figure out: what exactly is the problem you’re looking to solve? What’s not working that’s resulted in this conversation? And between the stakeholders we’re talking to, are you both aligned? Now, I’ve got another question for you because, in one of our chats beforehand, you said the phrase “decision calories,” and it spoke to me immediately. Talk a little bit about this concept.
Dahlia El Gazzar: This is a phrase and concept borrowed from the amazing Scott Galloway, whom I am a big fan of. Basically, you have to decide how many calories you’re going to give to different components of an event. I was just at an event recently. Guess how many concurrent sessions they had.
Rodney Hart: Let’s go with six.
Dahlia El Gazzar: Twelve. So, think of it from an attendee perspective. It’s almost like a daily calorie intake. As an event or experience designer, it would be kind of cool if you’re putting a program together for different attendee types. A first-time attendee who is already overwhelmed when they go into a show, don’t offer them 12 concurrent sessions, the hosted buyer dinner, the reception, and everything else. You have to take a look at it and maybe on your planning grid put together some sort of calorie intake. Decision calories. They will thank you if they don’t have to have so many options to decide on. You can also think of it as attention calories. Who are they giving their attention to, and how many calories are they spending? You can’t go over the daily intake. They will feel bloated, they will feel overwhelmed, they might actually “fast” the next day, and not come back. It’s a big deal. We tend to think, “I’m going to give them 2,000 sessions, 250 speakers.” That’s every single event homepage. And what that means is, by the time it’s lunchtime, all my social media battery is gone and you will not see my face. I won’t come back next year.
Rodney Hart: And when you have that conversation with a client and say, “Hey, this is a problem and you need to solve it,” do you think the hesitation is more that internal stakeholders won’t handle this well, or is it more the fear of looking like we’re doing less and giving less value?
Dahlia El Gazzar: It depends on the client, but the fear is always: we’ve always done it this way. The fear is if we don’t have enough, they will not come. But here’s the beauty of it: you can take a look at all your potential offerings like a buffet and try to promote it where it’s different types of meals for different types of appetite. At different times. You never eat all your calories.
Rodney Hart: I knew you were going with that. I do my best not to, but sometimes I eat 90% of them in a meal I shouldn’t have had.
Dahlia El Gazzar: Like, here’s the other thing. A lot of people need more direction. The decision calories concept works twofold because if you had a facilitator of some kind that says, “Rodney, this is where the personalization of the journeys are in the experience. You’re going into this event. This is your maximum, this is your capacity. I want you to go to these three or four sessions because those are going to be amazing for you for day one.” Maybe this is where we look at design. Do you repeat some sessions? Because what is the use of having 12 concurrent sessions, they’re not recorded, they’re gone, and you’re left with a speaker who has 10 or 15 people in a room instead of a full room? Why would you do that? And that doesn’t leave any room for the top reasons people want to be together, which is the networking. I want to be at the bar with Richard and Rodney and Adam Parry. And then the other part is: you need to give space, mental space, for everything that’s been consumed, or else it’s an overload and people cannot take that. I haven’t seen any events really play with personal journeys yet. But our consultations and our advice when we come into a show and someone says, “Here’s our program,” and it’s from 6:30 till 5 for four days, we’re like, “You just hurt yourself. You won’t see them again.”
Rodney Hart: And that’s so important to say, because as an attendee and as an event organizer, I can see both sides of this coin. The idea is always: well, more can’t be less. But what you’re saying is it can be, because just because you might say “well, they don’t have to go to everything, they can pick and choose,” I think we feel intuitively as humans that we’re now foregoing stuff we should be going to, but we can’t physically do that many sessions. And trying to do so means we’ll collapse by the end and feel negative because we missed out on so much stuff that was offered. Really, the organizer designed too much, they didn’t do a good enough job curating.
Dahlia El Gazzar: You overpromise. And I’m not talking about you. You guys did a great job at INSIGHT putting networking time aside for people to connect. But what I’m saying is, you need to do it in different ways too. I was talking to someone yesterday and she said, “Oh, instead of the puppy corner, which everybody wants, we took about 15 of us and went for a walk with puppies from a local shelter and had a chat about a certain topic.” Brilliant. Who said that as event organizers we’re not creative? Like who put limits on us? I want to find that person because I have words.
Rodney Hart: And what I find interesting is: when required, I think some of us who love this industry and have a problem to solve two or three weeks out are where we shine the most. Because the playbook is gone. And you’ve seen the booking patterns of registration, you know how people make their decisions. Oh, I’m going to go because Nicola and Adam and Liz are going to be at the event.
Dahlia El Gazzar: This is where I say: event professionals, you still need to trust your gut, trust your intuition, and trust the process, because your best ideas are your last ideas, or they’re on site. This is where the playbook, as it stands, needs to be shredded, ripped apart, and thrown somewhere. And the most successful events when they do a refresh or a reset, they actually bring someone in with no ownership of the event, just asking questions. “Why are you doing it this way? Why are you getting hosted buyers up at 6:30 in the morning? Who told you that they wanted that?” Then what you do is you have this surge of grounded data. When you’re designing, the playbook has to change. It has to be relevant. It can’t be tone-deaf, and it has to be encompassing of the kind of people you are having within the event.
Rodney Hart: I’m looking at the time and I have so many other questions. So I’m going to fire off a couple. Playbook needs to be ripped up and shredded. What’s the first thing you’d rip up and shred?
Dahlia El Gazzar: The program of panels, the program of breakout sessions. Instead, give room for what I call “vibe eventing.” So you have vibe coding, which AI has started, where you can go on different websites or ChatGPT and code whatever with a prompt. Similarly, in the playbook, leave room for vibe eventing. If the attendees want an ad hoc session out of the blue about LinkedIn, or a space where everything around them is loud and there’s a lot of noise and they just want to be together with no filter: create those moments for them, because what you’re doing is amping up their energy and vibe within your event. When you put the playbook together, it’s about connections, content, community, conversations, all the C’s in the world. But when you put that together, think of what type of energy corners you’re putting in and how it’s going to be co-created. Your speakers and facilitators need to come in with a specific momentum. If your playbook is not tracking the energy and the momentum and the joy that you are bringing to your stakeholders, especially your first-timers, because you can lose them very quickly, then don’t have the event. Cancel it. It’s not worth anybody’s money, time, or attention. You need to amp them up.
Rodney Hart: And what’s your favorite way of tracking that energy?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Tracking the energy is a fail when people try to do evaluations at the end of a breakout session or at the end of an event. No. You need real time. You can build a chatbot right now, and that chatbot’s asking, “Hey Rodney, was Dahlia a great guest? Would you have her again? What would you want her to speak on?” This is perfect timing. This is why in the virtual world, if you light up your chat on fire and have cheerleaders who are also surveyors at the same time, you can capture that in the moment. The evaluation has to be real time, and right now it’s much easier to do. The other thing is: don’t be tone-deaf. If you know for a fact that your audience is hurting or in a world where they don’t understand what’s happening and they just need to talk it out, have a “what the zone.” A space with mocktails, maybe some really chill music, and they all speak together, cry on each other’s shoulders, etc.
Another zone I would truly have is one that helps especially young professionals think that they’re unwithable. That they stand their ground, they have a voice, they know their worth, and nobody can dim them. That’s a state of mind. Your event is a cause. People come in and they need to leave thinking they’re bigger, stronger, and better. The other zone I’d really want to see everywhere is about vibe marketing and vibe coding, because things are moving so fast. Attendees need to see the power they can have taking ideas from a cocktail napkin into an app, into a tech, into something. That actually empowers you. And that’s what we’re all about: empowering people.
Rodney Hart: I’ve got one last question. One of the other KPIs you mentioned: ELU. Tell me about that.
Dahlia El Gazzar: ELU is another borrowed concept, and she knows how amazing she is. This is Wes Kao, who is the co-founder of Maven.com, an online academy, and also did the altMBA certification with Seth Godin, which I went through and almost died in four weeks. ELU stands for “eyes light up.” And I do have another KPI, because it’s not a vanilla KPI. Your ROI and all those are the vanilla ones. These are the rocky road ones because they’re emotionally charged. If you look at ELU: what are you doing to have your stakeholders’ or event participants’ eyes light up? If you think of it this way, you will re-evaluate everything from an energy perspective. Are you empowering them? Are you going to make them spark up? Is it going to be like a Spotify playlist they’ll have on repeat? That’s the kind of event everybody wants. That’s the kind of energy speakers should be bringing.
And another KPI I call AMP: awareness, momentum, and possibility, or potential. You’re taking a look at whether you’re sending your attendees out of a session room thinking they have more potential than when they checked in. Will they come back? And even if you offer them something like micro events and micro-dosing of content from one annual to another, are they going to come in and bring their friends with them?
From an energy perspective, I don’t know exactly how you measure it beyond facial recognition and all of that. But it needs to be taken into consideration going forward, especially with the younger crowd coming in. You have to give them a bigger cause for spending their time and attention and energy with you than you have done before. You can’t just say, “Oh, you need to be here because 18,000 people are here.” That’s not enough.
Rodney Hart: And it’s remarkable what happens when as an event organizer you start thinking about those moments. The check-in, the morning, how you greet someone. I remember at one of the conferences we did at the Hyatt a couple years ago, in my hotel room was not fancy whiskey or a bottle of wine. It was a box of Taco Bell tacos. And I like, for me, that stuck with me forever. Someone could have spent $1,000. They might have spent $20. I don’t know. But it was more about: somebody had remembered. And so it’s providing those moments. They absolutely matter in terms of what people take away from that human experience. And piggybacking on that: if you want me to come to an event, all you have to do is give me Smart Food white cheddar popcorn. That’s my secret.
Dahlia El Gazzar: So that’s second. You have to bank on those moments. We’re in the emotional and empowerment business. That’s what we do. No matter what you say, “Oh, we educate and we do this and stuff.” No, that’s the fluff about it. There will come a time when your event websites are powered by those mini stories. The Taco Bell Rodney story should be on the homepage. Nothing else.
Rodney Hart: I love it. Dahlia, I love it. We could keep going, and I’m going to start transitioning us into our closing question, which is this: the event industry, it’s not the easiest business to be in. Those who stick around find it rewarding, but it’s not because it’s not stressful or crazy at times. What’s your favorite piece of advice to give? Whether it’s advice you’ve heard before or something you’ve come across, what’s something you like to tell people who are aspiring to be in this industry or are new to it?
Dahlia El Gazzar: If you are new or want to be in this industry, you truly have to trust your own process and your gut. If you’re in it, even if you’re a founder or have a company or you are an event strategist, marketer, intern, or coordinator: this industry is begging for your expertise. Stand your ground. I’m a huge believer that you can’t go around thinking of all the rules that have been around forever. You need to break them. The whole idea of having the mental state of being “unquivable” is actually a thing. It keeps you grounded, but it also keeps you confident in what you can bring to the industry. Those that do the best know exactly what their worth is and they don’t listen to all the book rules that are out there. If you have bullet rules happening in your company, leave. Leave and you will find your own niche. Make your own job description. Don’t look at what’s out there. Bring it to the company that you want to work with, but you have to stand your ground. Don’t leave the industry.
Rodney Hart: Dahlia, amazing advice. This has been an amazing conversation, from camel races to the idea igniteur here and tech evangelist at Dahlia+Agency. There’s so much for people to take away, but what I love most throughout this whole conversation is that it’s true, it’s from the heart, and it’s very candid.
Dahlia El Gazzar: And I’m here to help anybody else out with anything. I’m open to that.
Rodney Hart: You can find her on LinkedIn. Anywhere else people should find you?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Dahliaplus.com. 617-470-2655.
Rodney Hart: First time I think we’ve had a phone number on this program. Dahlia, last section. We’re bumping up on time but I don’t really care. If they’re still watching, they’re still watching. Are you ready for a lightning round?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Yes.
Rodney Hart: The hardest part is I’m not supposed to react. Usually I do. But okay. Are you ready? First question. Who is your dream guest keynote speaker?
Dahlia El Gazzar: For the longest time it was Simon Sinek and Sally Hogshead, but right now it’s Pedro Pascal.
Rodney Hart: What is one book everyone should read?
Dahlia El Gazzar: It’s called “The Code of the Extraordinary Mind” by Vishen Lakhiani, who is the owner of Mindvalley. And he does talk about being “unclonable.”
Rodney Hart: I’m going to put that on my list. The best airline is JetBlue for me.
Dahlia El Gazzar: Okay.
Rodney Hart: Window seat or aisle seat?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Window.
Rodney Hart: Networking session or educational workshop?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Oh, definitely networking.
Rodney Hart: I knew that. You have a concert to close your event. Who is your dream musical artist?
Dahlia El Gazzar: It would be like Live Aid and it’s a bunch of people. It would be like Tomorrowland: Tiesto, Zedd, Rufus du Sol. All of them, boom boom boom, all day, all night.
Rodney Hart: A real rave. Love it. If you could host an event anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Egypt.
Rodney Hart: You see, I’m stacking. I’m creating an event here. You don’t know this, but I’m going to put all these ideas together. You’re going to see this event I’m marketing and it’s going to be all of your ideas. We have the pyramids at night, and there will be a camel race as well.
What is your go-to comfort food during event planning stress?
Dahlia El Gazzar: Smart Food white cheddar popcorn. Like it.
Rodney Hart: And yours is probably Taco Bell, so there you go. What is your current favorite mobile app?
Dahlia El Gazzar: It’s called The Pattern. And it is based on birth location, birth date, birth time. It gives you how the planets’ energy has worked since your birth and how it helps you with work and emotions and everything right now. And it’s very spot-on.
Rodney Hart: All right. And the final question: closing event party, live music or DJ?
Dahlia El Gazzar: DJ. Wait. Yeah. You’re going to do it. I’m closing it out.
Rodney Hart: I’d have you close it out any day of the week. Speaking of closing it out, that’s going to be the end of this episode. Dahlia, thank you so much for joining.
Dahlia El Gazzar: Thank you. This was awesome.
