Annual conferences sometimes have a “been there, done that” feel. However, if the same attendees come to your event each year, they expect to experience something new every time. If you don’t deliver, your conference and brand can feel dated.
A creative conference theme is the key to a memorable experience year after year. The right corporate event ideas will capture attendees’ attention and keep them interested and energized. As a result, you’ll attract more prospects, engage more customers, and build your brand.
Why are conference themes important?
All too often, conference organizers play it safe with branding. To protect their business, they use conference titles that are bland, trite, or don’t fit. But branding is how you can differentiate your conference from all the other business events out there.
Once you figure out what you want to be known for or associated with, you can work on choosing a creative theme. Use your business’s brand values for inspiration, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box and take your brand a step further for your conference theme. Why not make yours more interactive or offer more opportunities for small-group networking?
25 conference theme ideas to get you inspired
Coming up with conference theme ideas isn’t always easy; sometimes, getting started is challenging. Instead of forcing ideas, explore these innovative conference themes. One or more of these ideas might unleash your creativity, whether it be leadership conference themes, motivational themes, or something else entirely.
1. Embracing Change: Focusing on industry innovations and becoming a leader in an evolving field.
2. Celebrate Resilience: Using motivational stories and techniques to highlight how individuals overcome challenges and hardships.
3. Flexible Planning for Success: Scenarios highlighting strategies for short-term planning.
4. Welcoming Future Trends: Embracing future consumer or industry trends and paying attention to demographics.
5. Digital Technologies is the Future: Incorporating AI, 5G, and online commerce to help drive sales and deliveries.
6. Getting in Front of Risks: Creating strategies and scenarios to highlight cybersecurity and supply chain risks and introducing tools to mitigate potential risks.
7.Leading Through Adversity: Learning how to lead through turbulent times — recession, etc.
8.Prioritising Mental Health: Managing stress through mindfulness — meditation, holistic health, etc.
9. Onscreen & In-person: Tips on working with hybrid audiences — virtual and in-person simultaneously.
10. Become and Create Stars: Create videos and host speakers to tell their stories to live audiences.
11. Highlight Women’s Accomplishments: Showcase the achievements of women in leadership.
12. Build a Strong Team: Improving workplace culture and productivity.
13. Everyone Belongs: Inclusion and diversity in the workplace.
14. Keeping Up with Tech: Learning how to maximize social media, automated marketing, and cybersecurity tools.
15. Make it About the Customer: Tips on how to improve the customer’s experience.
16. Strong & Thriving Businesses: How to keep businesses excelling during a recession and other turbulent times.
17. Marketing Your Brand for Success: Using automation, emails, texting, videos, etc., to position a brand in a strong, competitive position.
18. Going Digital: Understanding how blockchain, augmented humans, and other technology can help prevent business disruptions.
19. Managing Time: How to streamline efficiency in the workplace.
20. Go Global: Covering topics from the worldwide economy to trade wars, competition, and climate change.
21. Increase Sales: Tips on how to increase sales without cold calls.
22. Fire Up Your Team: Learn how to get teams excited about their tasks.
23. Changing from “I” to “We”: Bringing individuals together to become part of the solution.
24. Keep Team Energy Flowing: Learn how to keep employees excited and ready for the business day.
25. Go Big with Sales: How well-planned sales can drive traffic.
Revisit your business goals
Once you have the perfect theme, tie it to your conference’s goals and your brand values. Then, start promoting your theme to get attendees excited and offer them a unique conference experience.
For more tips on trends and challenges in planning a conference, read The Conference Organiser’s Guide to Branding.
