Tips from the Trenches: 6 Ideas to Make Your Events Appeal to Gen Z 

Amenah is a planner who focuses on micro event and experiential events targeting also younger crowds, and she organizes, various event and party types, but also has and I want to underline this. I mean, it’s not just all parties and, engagements, but you do work with corporate events as well. And so I wanna talk about that to you today, and I want to learn more about, you know, not what you think we need to do to engage younger audiences, but, you know, being from that generation, what you know works for these audiences. So I’m very, very happy that you’re here with me today. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. We Gen z is such a fun generation to work with, but it’s always just a very fun balance to target them in the corporate sector as well. And it’s great to be part of that generation and also be able to speak to how to do it on both ends. Yeah. And, you know, when I when I looked at your your website, your company is called Picnics Toronto, and, it’s it’s already the entire website communicates completely different than, you know, websites with five years ago. And you talk a lot about corporate engagements and activations for staff and business partner and so on. And one thing I’m wondering in particular about engagement is what are some of the things that you do around these events that you organize for your clients to already drive the excitement before the event? Yeah, of course. So, for our corporate partners, our PR companies that we work with, when they have either, like, team building events or networking events or socials or even, like, launch events for brand activation, we generally try to really create a lot of buzz, and we do it by focusing on personalization. So for the attendees at the events, we will send them personal invitations, email them a very aesthetic beautiful invitation So, they feel like they’re not just getting invited to just like another event. It feels a little bit more tailored and personalized to them. That’s one of the ways we really strive to create that and we have multiple touch points between the event, and then like the event invitation to keep them engaged and keep them excited and let them know what to expect, what to bring, all that type of fun stuff. And I wanna I I wanna come back to that right now because you mentioned, personalized notifications and, obviously, personalized emails. I was a little bit surprised when you said emails because on one hand personalized emails have been around forever, but you also mentioned in particular the aesthetics. Do you find that aesthetics of communication is more important for Generation Z folks when you want to engage them? I think aesthetics is incredibly important for Gen Z. They’re very, very aesthetically conscious generation just because, like, they’ve grown up in a digital age where there’s influencers all around them, whether no matter what industry they’re in, and they’ve seen how much social media comes to play in that as well with aesthetics, even their fashion sense, how they dress, brands that target them. So aesthetics is very important to Gen Z and then when you just have that little sprinkle of aesthetics, it really makes them feel like it’s more than just another corporate event. It’s something tailored to them. Okay and just keeping with Gen Z for a second if you sometimes there’s and I honestly I think Gen Z is a bit misunderstood sometimes Gen Z is thought to being a little bit, you know, snobby because they seem so hard to impress sometimes. When you do your events on-site, so not pre-event, but if you do events on-site, how what are some of the things that you do to make sure that, you know, all the Gen Zs that are around actually participate in whatever activity you’ve got going for them? So essentially, we try to just engage them by meeting them where they are. So we’ll look at what like their interests are, what their hobbies are, what type of little engaging activities that we can do to sprinkle in throughout our regular corporate events, such as it can be as easy from like the venue you have to the the type of catering or beverage options like you have as well. Like, if you have beverage options such as like daydream or like sapsucker, these types of drinks that they like to drink with, their friends or that they try to, how would I say this? Like, they want to, like, seek out, like, the when, like, the new flavors launch and drop. So if you essentially kind of integrate these little pockets into events, it really makes them feel connected. Even if it’s, like, as easy as, like, when you have merchandise, like, companies love having merchandise, people love wearing it. And then for Gen Z, they have no problem wearing it. They just wanted to integrate a little bit more into what they would regularly wear. So if we have an event, like say we have a brand event, we would have merchandise and like neutral colors that go along with the brand that they could wear regularly outside of like their outside of the event and outside of the workplace as well. And even just like having little activations like I know like in person bingo is like a really it’s like a really fun one. Gets like people engaged and encouraged to go and meet new people. You can go around and network, but other small things such as like, we’ve had events where we’ve had like a tarot card reader where like they could get their tarot cards read, and having just like even a space dedicated to wellness where they can take like a little moment away to just, you know, recollect themselves, just catch their breath and then re-engage with the event when needed. Interesting. So, I’m not sure if I’m the only one. Are you making tea in the background? Is there a whistle in the background? I’m not making tea in the background. There’s no I’m not sure. We’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll just pull through it. It’s it’s not that bad. And also everybody who’s over thirty five cannot hear those high frequencies anyway so, it’s it’s fine. One thing I wanted to talk about you know everything you’re saying about, how to get, Gen Z engaged pre and also during the event is obviously very interesting and also very, you know, very relevant and presumably very true. One of the things that we need to consider here is though that no matter what event we organize, it’s unlikely to be an event that is just going to be with people that are part of Generation Z. So likely in your work, will encounter, events where, you know, other people like, millennials and Gen Xers and, you know, God forbid, boomers are, taking part. How do you, do you have a tactic? Do you have a way of making sure that they all engage? Can you engage them all? Or how do you what do you do to bridge that gap? Definitely. Like, I think the gap, it’s not honestly too big to bridge. It’s just essentially creating space for Gen Z as well. Not necessarily having to redefine what’s what is being, like, the core of the event, just creating a little bit of space. And it’s it’s not that hard from what we’ve gotten back as feedback from our clients and our attendees. It’s as easy as, like, having experiences where they can also just resonate. Like, for example, if there’s like a giveaway, like, out of events when there usually is, if you have a giveaway where there’s also a Gen Z, usually people give away, like, spa tickets or sports game tickets. It’s very easy to incorporate all the generations by having like, you know, something like at a spa, like a spa giveaway or like a giveaway to like a golf course or like a day pass. And then as well as having like a pair of like Beyonce tickets or having like a trending item from TikTok or an aesthetic new experience that they can like a gift card too that they can they can go with their friends to just add into that. So it’s not necessarily very different. It’s just creating space that you can have all the generations. Right, and I guess now that you mentioned a trending item from TikTok, I can see how, you know, the infamous Stanley Cup is going to unite everybody from Generation Z to, you know, my parents. Would all appreciate that Stanley Cup. One thing I’m wondering about when we’re talking about New Rules of Engagement is what do you think event planners can learn from the experiences that you specialize in? Are there specific lessons that you’ve learned from running these micro events for smaller audiences that maybe also works for larger scale conferences? There is just some, like, caveats that can be, like, taken away. It’s essentially just being okay with having a little bit of fun. Like, you can still have a very professional event, but still showcase a little bit of, like, your fun side on social media platforms to create buzz. And that can, like, touch into, like, it’s okay to, like, be in touch with pop culture a little bit to create that type of buzz because Gen Z really resonates with pop culture. And then also just stepping away from traditional event mediums, like, we’ve had it where we’ve arranged, like, beach days or outdoor movie nights for, like, even, like, senior and the c suite level staff. And they’ve always had like a great time to do that. So there’s just like, you can keep the traditional, but then you can also just add in little pockets of being able to step outside of the box. And then that just goes into having space for creativity and then just creating those interactive experiences where they cannot only just have a moment, that, like, at a conference or at an event, but they can just, like, use it as, like, a memory of something they created or they bonded with. Alright. And, kind of as a question to wrap this up, can you come up with one or two top things that, the event planners are listening to this and watching this right now, they should keep in mind when they’re when they’re trying to attract the younger crowd. Do you have, like, one or two more more tangible or more concrete things that you would like to share? For them to try to attract a younger crowd, I would definitely yeah, I would definitely say to leverage social media and just back to what I was saying like leverage it in like a fun way like look at like Duolingo like look at like how insane they’ve blown up over the past couple years and they’ve also maintained that growth with how they just create for their social media perspective. It’s not so they’re not informing, their audience of what they’re doing. They’re just resonating with their audience and getting them to want to participate in their events and want to participate in like their app. And then another thing would just be like really when there are like food and beverage and venue options to kind of have more trendier items as options for Gen Z. So like we touched on, like, even if like you’re having like alcoholic beverages and stuff, having like the trendy vodka soda cans as opposed to just having a regular bottle sometimes. Like those little those little moments can really transcend and resonate and create positive excitement with the younger generation. Hold on. I thought your entire generation had just communally communally stopped drinking. Do you do you still do alcoholic beverages? They there still is a really big market for, like, the packaged, vodka sodas. I mean, there’s there’s a pretty good market as long as, like, you know, it it’s not over consumption.