9Sep2019
Customer feedback from our events means everything to us. In every event we have ever held, we have asked our customers to give us feedback and comments about their event experience, from speakers to customer service to networking opportunities. This is the number one way for us to develop and improve our events, and that is why, after each event, we go meticulously go through the feedback we receive from our customers.
Feedback also played an important role in planning our next Stockholm event, which will be held on the 21st of September, 2020. We had our third Stockholm event this past May, which was attended by the biggest audience we’ve ever had in Stockholm, comprising of 1350 attendees. In addition to having the biggest attendance, we also changed the location of the event from Stockholm Waterfront to Cirkus. After the event, we gathered feedback through customer calls and a survey to get an idea of the successes and improvement points for the next year. We want to thank all our customers for sharing their thoughts! With your help, we are able to shape the event experience to meet your expectations even better in the future.
Going through the feedback, it was obvious that there was one major issue that didn’t go as planned. It turned out that the maximum capacity of the venue that we chose was insufficient for the number of people attending the event. Our audience size quickly reached the maximum capacity limit, which meant that some of our guests had obstructed views and had a hard time seeing the presentation slides from their seats. During the breaks, the limits of the venue were most visible as the corridors got too crowded for people to move around. This also made networking difficult as people had a hard time accessing the networking hall and Brella meeting tables.
Luckily, the weather was on our side this year and people could spend time outside the venue as well. We had extra food trucks waiting with additional catering outside, which received a lot of positive feedback. The overall event catering was very well received too. However, our coffee supply was limited in some areas and, despite the efforts, we couldn’t fix this shortage as much as expected.
Overall, our audience was very satisfied with the event and the recommendation rate was 95.8%. This is the highest recommendation rate that our Sweden event has ever received. Simon Sinek received an average rating of 5.80 (on a scale from 1/weak to 6/excellent), making him one of the top 5 speakers in Nordic Business Forum history. Our networking opportunities got the lowest rating of 4.11, even though the attendees were very high-profile; 35% of the attendees were founders, co-founders, or CEOs, and 26% were directors, VPs, or other C-level executives. The low score may be due to the difficulty that people faced in accessing the networking area.
Due to all the aforementioned challenges with the location, we have decided to change the venue for next year to better meet the expectations of our growing audience in Stockholm. We are happy to announce that the 2020 Nordic Business Forum in Stockholm will be held at Stockholmsmässan, which offers more spacious rooms for our use. With our experience and expertise, and customer feedback, we will build up the catering around the networking hall and ensure coffee is easily accessible.
The speeches will take place at the Victoria Hall, which enables a great view of the stage for all our guests. In addition, the Victoria Hall can handle up to 2,000 guests, which makes it flexible for us to increase the audience size if needed. The 2019 Stockholm event was sold out two months prior to the event and, due to the limited seating capacity, we couldn’t extend it any further to allow for more people to join the event. This year, we aim to gather 1,600 attendees – but there’s room for more if needed! We’ve already received a lot of interest in the event and people have already been booking their tickets even though we are more than a year out from the event dates.
As always, we like to keep a strong focus on the content of the event and our curated speaker choices. Our goal is to present our audience with top-notch, world-class speakers and content. For the 2020 Stockholm event, we have managed to book speakers that will undoubtedly deliver valuable insights and ideas for all our attendees. These speakers are also rarely seen in this part of the world. We’ve already announced three of them, including Seth Godin, Ritu G. Mehrish, and Ryan Holiday, and at least one more speaker will be named soon!
We are very excited to take our event to the next level in Stockholm. If you have any further feedback or improvement ideas, please let us know! We’d be happy to hear them.
Aslak de Silva
CEO of Nordic Business Forum
