Award Winning Event Strategist Driving Growth and Transformation For YOU | Plug-and-Play Project Manager | Technology Enthusiast | Always Curious

Shaping the Future of International Meetings | Collaborative Growth | Event Transformation

Curiosity - Innovation - Storytelling

As the Regional Director for North America at ICCA, I am passionate about driving growth and fostering collaboration within the global meetings and events industry. ICCA has stood at the forefront of shaping the future of international association meetings since 1963, and I'm honoured to be part of a team that champions innovation, sustainability, and advocacy on a global scale.

Over the years, I've had the privilege of strategizing, planning, and executing transformative events—from intimate gatherings to international conferences. My career has been built on an unwavering commitment to innovation, creative problem-solving, and a collaborative approach to ensure that every event exceeds expectations. Along the way, I've been fortunate to be recognized with honours such as "Planner of the Year" by Smart Meetings and a spot on the "40 Under 40" by Connect x BizBash.

But more than accolades, it's the connections I've built and the stories we've shaped together that truly inspire me. It was the Guinness World Record attempt to host the largest online event gathering, GMID Goes Virtual, in 2020, which connects almost all the industry associations across the globe. It was #EventprofsBreakShit that I co-founded in 2021, seeking an honest, authentic, but joyful way to explore event technology. 

These are the real rewards of our work, and they underscore the power of collaboration in our industry.

At ICCA, we're not just organizing meetings—we're creating spaces where ideas flourish, communities grow, and the future of our industry is redefined. I'd love to connect if you're interested in exploring how we can collaborate, build meaningful partnerships, or simply share ideas. Let's work together to amplify the value of international meetings and create sustainable, innovative solutions for the future.

Are you ready to shape the future of international association meetings? Let's connect and make an impact together.

Shawn (Yih-Hsiang) Cheng

CEO of Gleanin | We ❤️ events | We help event marketers get new attendees

Generate more attendees for your events with #CommunityMarketing from Gleanin. Sign up for a free account: https://www.gleanin.com/

15 years of event experience from individual project to portfolio management, which includes overall financial responsibility and management of sales, marketing, operations and finance. Also managed a number of launches and acquisitions (including due diligence and integration).

Specialties: Individual and team management; small to large-scale project management; financial management; strategic planning; negotiation (internal and external); key account/relationship management; creativity; trouble-shooting (teams, individuals or projects).

Tamar Beck

Another week, another event registration email telling me I should attend because:

- 6000+ attendees
- 250+ exhibitors 
- 120 speakers, 25 tracks across 8 theatres 

Right. And?

So what?

Nothing here tells me whether I'll actually get any value. Nothing helps me decide if it's worth a few days out of my business, away from my family. Nothing here demonstrates that this marketer has any idea of who I am or what I’m interested in.

If I've never heard of your event, straight in the bin.

If I have heard of it, you've just wasted my attention without giving me ONE single reason to register. I'll decide based on my own research or conversations with people I trust - so any action I take is in spite of your email, not because of it.

Come on…. we all KNOW that big numbers don't equal good experiences. 

We know that "networking opportunities" is meaningless without context. 

We know that generic promises of "insight" are just…….. generic.

So why is this kind of pre-reg email still SO common? It's 2026, not 1996.
 
Your potential attendees are drowning in options. They're time-poor and invitation-rich. 

Tell me WHAT problems your event's going to help me solve. 

Help me BELIEVE that people like me, interested in the same things as me, with the same problems as me, will be there. 

Tell me WHY this specific event, on this specific date, is worth my time over the other dozen I'm being invited to.

Or..... just keep telling me about your massive event and wonder why registration numbers are soft.

We can do better than this.

Moi?

Ready for 2026...... not today, thanks.

We use Fathom for meeting notes - it's a great tool. We moved to a team plan maybe 18 months or so ago. 

We pay $273/month for 7 seats - $39 per user.

Last week, while reviewing our costs for 2026 budget, I accidentally clicked on their current pricing. 

And what the hell? The most expensive plan I see is $20 per user.

Obviously, I fired off an email to a "success" contact and I was told the pricing changed back in August and existing customers remained on their "legacy plan by default." 

I asked, even though it is detrimental to your loyal customers?

I think they meant to say they hoped existing customers wouldn't notice. 

And like, who goes and routinely looks at current pricing for tools and platforms you've been using for yonks?

Even if we were paying for the most expensive plan, we've overpaid $147/month for five months. 

And not because we're on some premium legacy plan..... just because we're already customers.

Call it what you want, but this is ripping off loyal customers.

We're also a subscription SaaS. When our customers are on legacy pricing, it's always favourable compared to new customers. That's the entire point of legacy pricing - you reward loyalty, not penalise it.

If you reduce prices for new customers, you tell your existing customers. You don't hope they don't notice.

An intentional strategy or just bad business?

This is no way to build loyalty. It feels dishonest.

We've moved to the new plan for now - $18 per user... (down from $39) and though I should feel good about the cost saving, I don't. There’s zero trust. 

I’ve diarised regular checks on their pricing plans, and for all our tech - lesson learned - and will be looking for alternatives when I’ve got time to catch a breath.

To any founders reading this - your existing customers shouldn't be a cash cow to subsidise new customer acquisition. 

They're the people who believed in you first and you need to show that you value and respect them.

Still baffled that people are using X.

Grok has been generating non-consensual sexualised images of women and children at industrial scale. Musk's response - laugh emojis.

Then they restrict the feature to paying subscribers, effectively making it a premium feature and monetising it.

Flipping heck, even for those who've tolerated everything else on X, if turning real kids' photos into child sexual abuse imagery isn't the final death knell, what the hell is?

This time last year, I thought we'd entered the Upside Down.....

After a lovely two week break from work (and even better, LinkedIn) - back to find we've hit Jan 2026 with even more chaos unfolding globally.

I'm determined to stay engaged with what's happening in the world (being able to opt out of the "news" is a privilege that those living it don't have), but to limit doomscrolling and the feelings of helplessness that follow. 

It's a good time to remind ourselves that despite malign forces constantly attempting to pit us against each other, when you meet real people face to face, you're almost always reminded that most humans, irrespective of everything, are good to each other.

Being real though, with everything going on, it's going to be trickier this year to persuade people to leave their homes/offices and invest time and money in events, especially international travel.

Yet the desire for genuine face-to-face connection has never been stronger.

In-person events are becoming one of the few places left where you can verify someone is actually real, have unrecorded conversations about what matters, and build trust that's hard to fake.

A massive marketing budget won't guarantee your event's success this year.

Your event needs to be the one people WANT to attend despite everything - and genuinely want to tell their trusted network about.

Where they can spend time with people who get it. Have conversations that actually matter. And raise their head above the parapet long enough to remember they're not alone with their challenges.

No algorithm required.

Much like all the years gone before....

Event marketers will be doing their absolute best to deliver more, higher-quality attendees.

More often than not, they'll be trying to hit their targets without the budget and resources to match.

But what's changed is that people are even more selective about which events they take time out to attend.

At the same time, I don’t think there’s ever been such a strong desire to get offline and meet in real life.

Events give us the chance to spend time with our friends, peers and colleagues.

Improve those relationships. Laugh. Cry. Hug. Build trust.

So how do you convince someone to spend thousands of pounds and/or days away from their desk and choose your event? 

When they're drowning in options, at the same time as your marketing budget is shrinking?

You don't.

Someone they trust does it for you.

The most successful, memorable events won't be the ones shouting and boasting about how great they are... 

They'll be the ones being quietly and consistently recommended in private chats, Slack channels, WhatsApp groups, over coffee..... and occasionally publicly.

When someone's choosing between your event and a dozen others, word-of-mouth from the right people in the right places is what tips them your way.

Almost all of what your prospects think they "know" about your event isn't gleaned from....

Your website or your carefully crafted marketing.

Many won't even have heard about it from someone who's actually been before.

They've heard it from someone.... who heard it from someone else. 

Like third-hand at the pub or a networking event a while back. A crappy comment thread they half remember seeing. Or something their ex-colleague mentioned a year or more ago.

And the story changes just a little every time it gets retold - exaggerated or slightly twisted.

That overwhelmed attendee who got stuck in the queue and told anyone that would listen - "The whole thing was a disaster".

The exhibitor who didn't prep at all and took no responsibility - "We got zero business. Never again".

So, by the time it reaches your prospect, what actually happened is now irrelevant.

Absolutely not fair... but that's how a LOT of people form opinions.

And when it comes to an event we've never been to before, most of us rely on its reputation to inform us as to whether it's worth it. 

And a reputation is only as good or bad as what enough people say about it.

Meanwhile, you're "sat" on hundreds, maybe thousands of participants - attendees, exhibitors, speakers - who know your event first-hand and love it. 

So make it stupid easy for them to spread the word. Before, during, and after.

It's simply not enough that YOU know these positive stories exist - give your participants the tools, the moments, and the timely nudges to get them moving and spreading.

taplio

The Battle

Shawn (Yih-Hsiang) Cheng

Tamar Beck

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taplio

The Battle

Shawn (Yih-Hsiang) Cheng

Tamar Beck

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tamar Beck's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreTamar Beck's LinkedIn Performance