Any public or private activity consisting of a minimum of 15 persons with a common interest or vocation, held in a specific venue or venues, and hosted by an organization (or organizations). This may include (but not limited to): conferences, conventions, symposia, congresses, incentive group events, marketing events, special celebrations, seminar, courses, public or trade shows, product launches, exhibitions, company general meetings, corporate retreats, study tours or training programs.
The demand for a business event is driven mainly by organizations choosing it as a forum to communicate messages, to educate or train, to promote a product, to reward or celebrate, to collaborate on issues and solutions, or to generate resources.
Types of business events
- Conventions – A conference is an event which people confer, exchange views, convey messages, open debates or even shed light on areas of opinion on a specific issue.
- Exhibitions – A tradeshow is commonly seen as an event people go to show, display or exhibit products or services for public or private view.
- Meetings – Meetings are gatherings that bring people together to allow them to learn from one another, understand what is meant to be achieved and observe what superiors are planning.
- Convention – A convention is an event that usually combines a few different types of events, i.e. a Comic Convention is a tradeshow and a congress.
- Corporate event – Many believe in general there are two bodies that host corporate events, these are; corporations and associations.
- Corporation events – These are mainly internal and is somewhere where superiors discuss company initiatives, policies and reports. The most common examples of corporate events are sales conferences, training seminars and manager meetings.
- Association events – Association events consist of people in similar trades. These types of events are held to provide attendees with additional information on the happenings within their industry and networking opportunities.
- Product launch – A product launch is a tool used as a way to build anticipation for a products release. These types of events are usually aimed towards retailers or dealers.
- Incentive travel – The main goal of incentive travel is to encourage employees to meet challenging business objectives to help increase sales.
- Congress – A congress in a gathering of large groups of people, usually to converse over a particular subject. A congress can take several days to complete and can play host of multiple sessions.
