ASAE Annual Meeting: Building an Event for the Community

ASAE, the Center for Association Leadership, was looking to reinvent their annual meeting and trade show – their flagship event for content, community, and connection. They were looking to evolve their annual event to further align with their organization’s vision, reflect their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) objectives, and create more engagement opportunities for attendees.

As longtime, trusted partners, Hargrove worked with ASAE to focus on a journey of reinvention for the annual meeting. We reevaluated everything including language, signage, floor plans, the attendee journey, and content to reflect ASAE’s mission and objectives.

This included examining the expo portion of the event. We created a central piece for the floorplan, known as The Hub, which included areas like the Career Insights Theater and Conscious Inclusion Coffee Bar. The Hub featured spaces focused on attendee wellbeing, community giveback, and professional development.

Bringing in Encore for all the technology needs, we worked together to transform a traditional trade show floor into a place centered around developing community and fostering the growth of attendees and their organizations.

The overall event implemented similar changes. Attendees were able to design their own experience by customizing their schedules for educational content. The main stage featured speakers with unique perspectives on leadership and innovation. Plus, new engagement opportunities like Community Pop-ups provided a place for under-represented communities to connect and network.