The X(en) Factor

It's not often I get really excited about doing events. I have found in the past that you put an awful lot of effort in for about 15 registrations, of which perhaps 10 will turn up on the day if you're lucky. Getting end users to attend is one thing, it's a nice day out of the office for them. Getting resellers to come is another entirely - it's a day away from re-selling.

A couple of years ago, we did a roadshow for what was then a new Citrix product called NetScaler, one event was at Silverstone and the other was at a racetrack near Manchester. We spent about 5 or 6 grand in total on location hire, invites, telemarketing etc and we also had a kind of corporate identity done. This involved our agency buying a Scalextrik set, re-branding it with COMPUTERLINKS stickers etc. then having a professional photographer take exhilarating pictures of the cars speeding around, it was utterly fantastic. If I can work out how to do it, I'll put the pictures up here.

Anyway, we had about 60 registrations across the 2 events and 3 people turned up! Disappointed was not the word...

I've just sent an email out today to about 150 people inviting them to an event we are doing on Monday 23rd June featuring internationally renowned Citrix guru Brian Madden. The email has gone stir crazy, we are getting approximately one registration per minute at the moment!

Obviously it remains to be seen how many people actually turn up but, if it does turn out to be successful, I will not only be extremely pleased but may just have found out how to hold successful events. It's obviously not what you know...