Francesca Gangitano of Impact XM: 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run A Live Event, Conference Or Convention

Be Authentic & Vulnerable — Make “love” with Your Audience. Share your vision and your knowledge with others. Our job is to be provocative in order to reach people and ask them a question they must think about. From there we can teach them something and inspire them to do something different.

As a part of our series about “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run a Live Event”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Francesca Gangitano.

Francesca is a 20+-year veteran of all forms of live, virtual and digital immersive experience design and is Senior Director of Strategy and Planning at Impact XM, a global experiential agency. As a strategist, she has developed some of the most iconic live experiences in healthcare, technology, consumer goods, gaming, sports, spirits and automotive amongst others. Whether it’s a Healthcare/Pharma Congress, a weeklong technology conference, a 10-city product launch, a pop-up retail experience, a road-tour or a festival, Francesca can architect a strategy and assure the work is extraordinary, compelling and fires up the audience. Francesca’s motto: “My intention is that no one’s heart, mind, or soul leaves an experience untouched by it, they never leave the same as it entered, ever.”

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

As a child, I was always inquisitive, curious, and very active — as in always in motion and always asking questions. I know I drove my parents crazy because I had to take in all the stimuli around me — and I was especially sensitive to sounds and other people’s emotions. One year at Christmas, my family was looking through old photos, and we noticed that in every class photo, from kindergarten until at least fourth grade, the entire class was looking at the camera and smiling and my head was turned sideways or up. I was responding to something elsewhere. After we all laughed for an hour I asked how this was possible — every picture? My mom responded, “Well, that’s because you had ADD as a child. Your pediatrician said you HAD to respond to every sound or other stimuli. It was a compulsion, and your father did not want you to be on medication to change your natural instincts.”

I have done a lot of research since that holiday because I always knew that I learned and interpreted things uniquely. I also knew it was a form of intuition that I had to understand and refine. It ends up that I am ‘auditory kinesthetic’ and take in the world primarily on sound waves (as opposed to light waves). I interpret things differently than people who are visual and rely on light waves. And happily, this has helped me in this visual heavy field because I can add things to the mix that strengthen experiences from another POV.

Can you tell us the story of what led you to this career path?

It was as random as it comes. I began my career working for a financial services corporation to help market one of their high net worth products. I was young and itching for more excitement. I called my friend who was working as an ECD at a nontraditional marketing company, and he filled me in on the details of their latest project for Coca-Cola’s fountain division (Coca-Cola Fountain). The goal was to raise fountain volumes in convenience stores and other venues because it saved money, materials, man hours, etc. I thought “okay, Coca-Cola, this sounds great, I’m in.” The team consisted of five people, and we put together this whole marketing campaign that really changed the outlook of the Coca-Cola Fountain for many years to come. Not only did fountain volume go up by 2,000%, we also saved a lot of plastic and fulfilled the needs of people, especially in Southern states where it’s all about “Ice and Price.” That was my start in events and experiential marketing and I was hooked. I wanted to continue building things that made a difference to brands, improved people’s lives, and supported the earth.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I once was part of a team that got an intriguing RFP from IBM to be the agency of record for all their events as they were consolidating agencies. Long story short, we got the client. We were a team of 13 people who were about to put on 2,000 events a year. I had to write the introductory F.A.Q. for the new program which was going out to all employees involved in event marketing at IBM (around 30,000).

Having always been a planner, I tend to write things in advance and I had worked on it for two months with input from about 70 people. It was a 30-page long F.A.Q.: who to contact, how to get through the system, all the directions. I hit ‘send’ for a co-worker’s review. He wrote back to me 45 minutes later and said, “Fran, this is excellent, but why are you so interested in IBM’s use of decorative knitting as a basis for events?” I was very confused. I looked back at the document, and it turns out that “MarCom” had been autocorrected to “macrame” in every single instance, about 50 times. I was about to ask thousands of IBM event marketers about how important it was that, as their AOR, they share any and all “macrame” plans so we assure we incorporated them into events.

Here I was doing such a huge project and the simplest step, a spell check, got messed up. I learned that EVERYTHING matters and it is usually the little things that you may miss. The famous architect, Mies Van Der Rohe, once said, “God is in the details” and that is especially true in events. Since then, I have several non-negotiable safeguards that assure our best work — because even something as spell check can derail a program.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Professionally, the play and movie House of Games by David Mamet stands out. It’s about the confidence game and con men. I was fascinated by it and how it captured human nature so accurately. It is called a confidence scheme, not because you (the other) give me YOUR trust, but because I GIVE YOU MINE. It was so simple, and it blew my mind. That my giving of trust is the key that unlocks the door, and in opening that door people will assure that you were right to do so. If you give people your trust, they will do anything to make sure you were right in doing so. Beyond that, they will do everything in their power to assure success.

This is one of my “management mandatories,” if you will. I give my trust completely and authentically. I give everything I know and train everyone who works with me to be ten times better than me, in the hopes that they see amazing success. They KNOW I am their champion. I joke that it is because when I am working for them someday, they will be nice to me. I know I need to earn trust and build the trust of others every moment of every day. The funny thing is, IN every moment of every day, you have that choice, and it costs you nothing. The opposite, ego, will ultimately cost you everything. I believe that 99.9% of the time, if you give people your trust, they will never let you down.

“House of Games” taught me that if you turn the con game on its ear, it can work as a beautiful growth strategy within your organization. Let’s face it, if you do not have trust in your organization, you will have fear, which leads to anger, and that ruins companies. Trust, unity, communication — all that gives your team confidence and strength, which in turn gives the company confidence and strength to reach higher and grow.

As a strategist, I have to say that strategy is increasingly important in growing business/companies and trust keeps teams and clients happy. Those things produce awesome work — ALWAYS.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I have a couple, but I think the biggest one is “Your attitude determines your altitude.” You cannot change a lot of things, but the one thing you can always change at any moment is your attitude. If you psych yourself up for things, you are going to build momentum around those things. If I am psyched for something, then my team is going to be psyched, then the client is going to be psyched, which again, builds confidence and trust.

In the yoga business, we like to say that your attitude will either attract or repel people. You can change your attitude at any time, you just must make the decision to do that, and that is what discipline is. I see the world not as one of scarcity but one of abundance — full of ideas and possibilities.

I also depend on a quote from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” where the Queen of Hearts tells Alice, “Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” I try to think of six things every morning after my alarm goes off and before I get out of bed in the morning. It’s a great meditation practice to set your day and some things are so bonkers that I giggle, putting me in a good mood as well.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit about your experience organizing events?

With 20 years of experience, my bread and butter is on the strategy and creative strategy/design intent side. I take in the RFP, or brief, and create the strategy around it. From there, I find the ideal audience and match the most authentic, absolute truth of the company to the truth of the audience, creating a series of participatory and connection themes for an event. I do most of the upfront planning, but a lot of the practical knowledge I’ve learned, and use is from the field.

I have developed everything from 8,000- to 60,000-person multi-day events, pop-up retail and temporary stores (which actually have lasted years) with brands like Nike and Beats by Dre, HBO, YouTube, Diageo, Clinique, and many more. They all have a few things in common: you need to bring their authenticity and their values to life, and also their truth forward in a way that meets the audience where they are and encourages them in explore new ideas and try new things.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job creating live events? What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

I think that there are many stratifications of great live events. Red Bull does pretty much the best of the best and does amazing things almost literally everywhere — and they choose the best of the best to represent them. They know the audience intimately and they give them things they can’t get anywhere else. They’re able to narrow in on their audience’s identity and interests to create incredible events.

They work it hard with grit, rigor, and determination and that shows. For Example, The Red Bull Music Academy, is for real musicians and for the most ardent of fans. They put in months and months of time in searching the globe for emerging talent and bring the most experienced and creative of existing musicians of all stripes to make it something exceptional. They put in the time and insane amounts of thought (and money) and it shows. It’s a great example of not only authentic appreciation of music — BUT REVERENCE. That reverence is what makes it extraordinary.

One event I did on the corporate side was called FedEx+Me: My Story Austin. This was centered around FedEx reaching out to small businesses in Austin. All the companies we worked with were small, Millennial-owned businesses and the intent was to have FedEx bring them together so they would in turn collaborate and become a support system for each other. There was a coffee shop we introduced to a cupcake shop, and they worked together on the best coffee to pair with cupcakes. Another company, a distillery that made rum, was interested in making a coffee drink with rum for the Holidays — so they connected with the coffee shop as well.

All these people were intermingling with one another’s small businesses and sharing knowledge, and information, but most importantly, they were helping each other succeed. In the past years, the distillery has gone from two Marques to 16! Going into a community like this and creating deep meaningful experiences inspired lasting relationships between people who mattered to and in the city. These people are still connected and champion each other to this day and I like to think that Austin — the city — remembers it fondly.

What are the common mistakes you have seen people make when they try to run an event? What can be done to avoid those errors?

The most common mistake I have seen in the industry comes down to a lack of communication. In part, that is keeping track of the client’s needs and assuring the team gets the right information at the right time. It is vital to create tools and templates that manage the event planning in a way that stays with the project’s timeline and budget. It’s important to carve out enough time for approvals, understanding and comprehension. The better you do the first time, the more time you will save in the next round of reviews. I send bimonthly reports of everything that is decided. This makes sure all involved are aligned with the client throughout the entire process.

On the client or brand side, something I try to stress is “you eventing is better than me eventing.” Meaning the event and brand is better served telling its story via the success of its clients/attendees. If you are the brand, speak to your attendee’s mindset. It’s also important to not talk “at” people. Every part should “feel” conversational and personal. Even in the keynotes, engage the audience as performers do, “are you with me” kind of prompts. Everywhere else encourages dialogue and instead talking about how great something is, show them with stories of client successes and their customer’s wins.

You must be truthful with the client when they need it and when it’s hard. That’s the way you earn trust and become a partner, their internal advocate, and their true north. The best call to get is at 7:30 PM the day before the event when the client says, “I’m scared — can we meet?” This means they trust you because you are the person they are choosing to call and meet. You want to be trustworthy, authentic, supportive, and the person they call when they are at a critical moment. The best feeling in the world is when you ARE that person and can tell them with absolute certainty, “You’re going to crush it.”

Are there any essential tools, software, or mindsets/trends that you think an event organizer needs to know about?

On the operational side, it’s vital to have a database that helps you track project movement and deliverables on schedule. On my end, the strategic side, I like to have an account brief — an event message architecture for the entire event — and alignment briefs for each workstream. For example, at Dell World, there were 26 workstreams. There was the solutions showcase, the keynote, the website, the livestream, the learning tracks, the panel speakers, the ancillary events, etc. My job was to ensure our team and the Dell team (about 10 to a workstream) were aligned on the message and build the details of the activations week by week for 8 months with fidelity to the central theme and message hierarchy. Keeping those 26 workstream briefs up-to-date and evolving was vital to that event’s success and for our team to stay on time and budget.

The most important tools are common sense, knowing your client’s purpose as well as their client’s wants and needs. The biggest thing now — since COVID and other chaos lives among us — is that cognitive patterns for decision making have changed radically. I’ve been saying for a long time that, “we’re no longer brand managers, we’re brain managers” and now, more than ever before, it’s true. Three areas I concentrate on are Cultural Anthropology, Embedded Cognition and Memory Retrieval. It is important to remember we have 5 senses for a reason and ALL 5 are extremely important to communicating effectively to our memory. I consider the things I have studied in every strategic experience design effort, such as epistemology — determining what is a “justified belief” in the mind of attendees/participants and what is opinion. I must understand the difference because there are ways to change the latter for a behavioral shift. Embodied cognition is the information we receive through our senses independent of language, and they literally dictate how we, as adults, experience the world. It’s our “lens” if you will, and I try to determine how I can re-shape that, widen the lens, or even shift the view if you will.

I concentrate on Memory Retrieval’s two parts: engaging and encoding. Engaging is completely sensory because the human brain is NOT designed to think — it is designed to react to stimuli. I always consider hitting as many senses as I can, both directly and in more subtle, almost imperceptible, intuitive levels (white noise, branded sound, temperature, olfactory, etc). Finally, I consider encoding which is hitting on information imprinted or stored in the minds of the attendees/participants, in the context of interest and what information they store and use in their daily lives (another “lens”) and how we can shift that. These considerations are what help me better understand an audience or participants mindset and allow me to best articulate what is important from a message perspective via language but also engineers a 360-degree “cognitive communicative” experience that engages all the senses and touches on intuitive or unconscious notes for a more holistic and immersive effect.

Ok. Thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our discussion. An in-person event can have a certain electric energy. What does it take to create an engaging and memorable event? What are the “Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run a Live Event” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

There are six essential elements that determine an event’s success. The overarching thing to remember is, it is all about relationship building via the event and the impact it has on the space and place. So we think of the following: the hopefully indelible and lasting effects of the strategic intent, the immersive effects of the narrative arc, the multi-sensory design intent and design elements, the internal and external activations, the personalized elements/touchpoints, the multimedia, the social/digital surround, the learning tracks, the charitable and community service plan (to leave a lasting mark on both the attendee and the city we “borrow” for a few days) as well as pre- and post- communication. These are the big things which open a thousand and one other questions to answer all with the single-minded purpose that you must “show, share, and prove your love” to that audience and city, from planning the event, during every moment of the event and afterward, leaving the city better for being there.

Whether it’s an internal team, your client, or any audience, as a leader you must channel that LOVE throughout the process otherwise it will show in the output. Therefore, I never allow anyone on my team to say anything negative about any client or each other. No matter how challenging any person is, you rise above it and show more love. Because if you do not, dissent will come through in subtle ways and that will compromise the work. Your client will pick it up in unconscious actions and that will diminish trust which ultimately leads to disaster. I tell everyone that if we act with love, the client will respond in kind. It may take time but it ALWAYS happens. The flip side is that the client also knows when the work is made with love, and seeing them joyful when they acknowledge that is priceless. That having been said, to make sure all these elements are encapsulated in your event, I recommend the following five things:

1) Know Your Audience and What They Value — Match Them to the Brand Value

This is the first thing you must do. You must know your audience and its values INTIMATELY. I always say that insights are great, but behaviors are way better. Our teams are up on cultural trends and unique things that are happening in the GLOBAL cultural landscape, as well as the experience world. You must make it your business to KNOW what people are participating in and how they are participating. Great things happen everywhere and the internet allows us to see and integrate awesome things from literally anywhere. Program for participation, people have a greater appreciation for events that encourage them to participate on their terms and I try to create as many opportunities as possible to do that in various ways. You want people to be active and enthusiastic participants and you must encourage this in multiple ways to be inclusive of all personality types.

Highlight everything that the customer and the company share. At every touch point, create a thought, question, emotion, or discussion point and make time for these conversations to happen. Do not over-program. Make room for people to ponder, to explore their thoughts, to form questions, or find their own way to incorporate themselves into the story. People want to relate and participate, and they want someone to provide the glue that creates that bond. That is the event’s purpose and the shared humanity that I think makes all the difference.

For example, there was a Starbucks event I worked on a while back, and there were four pillars to re-teach baristas how to be kind in the stores and make good coffee. They shared many customer stories and poignant moments that occurred in the walls of the stores throughout the event. It really made you feel on a visceral level just how important Starbucks is in people’s lives.

2) Be Authentic & Vulnerable — Make “love” with Your Audience

The second thing is to be authentic and vulnerable. Share your vision and your knowledge with others. Our job is to be provocative in order to reach people and ask them a question they must think about. From there we can teach them something and inspire them to do something different.

I did a pop-up with Adobe in San Francisco. It was to introduce two new products that creatives could use but it was also for the ordinary person. Most people didn’t know anything about the new products, but the company had a come one come all attitude, and said, “Hey, we are having a party! Come and take photos with us, come make a scrapbook, check out the equipment, go on a photo walk if you are interested in taking some photos.” There was no advertising. It was all word-of-mouth through art schools and wild postings, and people came! It was well attended. Everyone was so happy to learn something new. Adobe is a happy company, and their employees love the brand. This immediately came through in how they interacted with their participants.

3) Deep Connection & Sharing — Never Leave the People and Place the same as before you arrived

The most important events are all about deep connection, sharing and participation in the story itself. We want to create an experience that allows people to be inspired and to share the inspiration with the locale, city, and people not necessarily at the event but will be touched by it. FedEx+Me: My Story Austin was about the exchange of ideas, dreams, passions, camaraderie, and of course, love of a city that loves small business. We brought together small businesses to collaborate with each other and achieve further success. ‘Keep Austin Weird’ and appreciation of local businesses are key aspects of the Austin identity. We chose Austin because we felt like they would carry this banner forward, and they did. These people still get together and we all keep in touch. These people will never forget what FedEx did there.

4) Think Long Term and LONG TAIL — The Lasting POSITIVE Effects You Create

An event has a number of touchpoints, but it all comes down to the long-term strategy. I heard Andy Spade speak at PSFK, and he said something that was the inspiration not only for FedEx+Me: My Story Austin, but my ENTIRE career. He said, “The bigger a company gets, the smaller it should act.” Those words hit me. My entire career has been all about these small actions, making every attendee feel special, important and fulfilled. It is the job of a lifetime to be able to make thousands of people jump out of their seats with joy when you have inspired them and sparked their collective energy. I like to think we can enable any person to do something amazing as a result of our efforts — and believe it or not, many do.

Also, whenever you can, make a point to have charitable and community service plans — and assure its value to the community. This is something that has powerful and lasting effects — you can literally uplift people who don’t attend the event. Before joining Impact XM, I was in charge of coordinating the Starbucks Leadership Conference volunteer initiative in New Orleans. We transported 10,000 partners/employees for community service — a total of 54,000 volunteer hours over 4 days. I believe we rebuilt 30 homes, planted trees in various neighborhoods, and built an urban garden. The initiative and its results were not only highly visible, meaningful, but also touched the lives of many people. This was a herculean effort but there SO MANY ways to create meaning not unlike this on a smaller scale. As I said before, “leave a lasting mark on both the participants/attendees and the city we “borrow” for a few days with the intention of leaving it with a spark of inspiration, joy, and hopefulness by having been there.

5) Know How People Are Making Decisions and Play To That

Everything we do has to have INTENTION. How do we raise the audience’s feeling of safety and trust? How do we change the audience from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance? How do we get them to feel and believe something completely different by the time they leave — uplifted, supported, a part of a community that encourages them, that their hopes, dreams, and futures will be bright? What is the purpose of what we are doing? What is the meaning to them? If you have intention, meaning, and purpose — you will have an impact.

As brand managers, we must think about embodied cognition. All information we take in is filtered by embodied cognition. What we receive is based on what has happened to us in the past, what is going on around us, and the climate that it creates. We must think about cultural and political sensitivities, generational subtleties, and how we can take them away from all that and celebrate a shared humanity — the things that unite us — when planning an event. We must create a safe space for a mind shift. We can do this through encoding and engaging, by creating positive memories for attendees and leaving them feeling uplifted.

I believe that in everything you make you must add something that makes magic or gives people a glimpse at something magical to come. That’s why brands like Red Bull, Diageo and Adobe do so well. The magic of giving, creating, and introducing new things is an opportunity people do not get too often. Events are the finest way to do that in my mind.

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a live event that they would like to develop. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

I would tell them to channel this: “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand,” by Anonymous and read the answers to the question above. First, I would ask them why they want to develop the event. I would probe into that answer because, I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but there is usually a challenge behind the need for the event. We call it the “finding the problem behind the brief.” At Impact XM, our team has the responsibility to assure whether the event will solve the stated (and unstated) challenge(s). Sometimes the event will solve the problem, but often my team needs to determine whether we will have consultative work to address organizational challenges before we decide with the client that the event is the right answer and in tune with the company goals. For example: if a company needs more sales of something — whatever it is — I want to know if sales are not happening because of an internal problem like HR/compensation or cannibalism. We must fix that before putting on an insanely great event that meets their goals. What I look for is the root of the problem(s) they are trying to solve prior to putting on an event that hopefully will blow their minds and blow up their bottom line.

Super. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

As a yogi, part of my daily vow is to do an act of selfless service or “Seva.” Whatever my Seva may be on a particular day depends on my schedule, but I do one or a few acts a day. This simple thing has literally changed my life probably more than the act does for others because I feel connected to a higher purpose. It costs me nothing but a few minutes to an hour a day and enriches me in ways I could never have imagined.

I think it’s obvious that we need to rebuild our shared humanity, especially after the events of the last couple of years, and it’s sort of cool to think that since people innately need to belong in doing service, we can also revitalize ourselves en masse. My obsession now is how to create a movement that ultimately aims toward a sort of countrywide “Citizen Seva”, Citizen Seva is a WORKING TITLE, that ultimately could become a full-on organization like the Peace Corps.

FedEx+Me: My Story Austin was a very good trial balloon — it was massively successful and COULD turn into the seeds of what I am talking about. The intention of “Citizen Seva” is to grow the “My Story Austin” into “My Story Boston, Brooklyn, Cleveland, San Francisco, LA, New Orleans, etc.” In doing this we showcase people, stories and projects that prove we’re a “yes, we can” people and nation. We can showcase the resilience, action and collective purpose that people can gain by working and helping each other. We also regain collective unity and common purpose.

The underlying mission is to unite people and country by serving the needs of communities within the 50 states. FedEx+Me: My Story Austin achieved this. It CAN BE done. We could address certain needs of each state, locality, or even town. To begin the movement, I would create a challenge for all 50 states to partner with anywhere from 1–5 companies, maybe with a few scattered celebrity appearances, to do something that would be meaningful for that state, with the end goal of building up the country, community by community. We need to understand that we do have a lot to be grateful for and prove that the world is not scarce for love, peace and joy — but abundant with it.

I’m depending on this MIRACLE — so who’s with me?

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to meet:

Billy Beane, because of his love for baseball and belief that he could (and did) change the game as the underdog

Eric Holder and Barack Obama because of the “Citizen Seva” idea tie-in with the Obama Foundation, and The Dalai Lama for a global “Citizen Seva.”

I’m all about changing the game and the “signal over noise.”

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this