We are organising events for people who are not going to attend! And that is frustrating.

# tags: Brand Activation , Events

In our industry, we’ve become accustomed to measuring success by polite applause, well edited videos, and satisfied customers. And yes, that’s important. But is it enough?

After more than 100 activations, I’ve learned a hard lesson: we often hold events to please those who pay, not to surprise those who participate. How many times have we heard or said, “if the client is happy, everything is fine”? But if we stop to think about it, that’s the same as forgetting who really matters, the people who experience the event.

Twenty years ago, I founded Torke with a clear purpose: to fight for difference. I have always believed that creativity should disrupt the system, not feed it. But I know how pressure works: marketing directors afraid to take risks, agencies afraid of losing contracts, teams hiding behind what is safe. Without realising it, we get caught up in the cycle of sameness. And when we realise it, we are repeating formulas that no longer excite anyone.

The problem is that routine is comfortable, but not memorable. Events cannot be just beautiful stages, photogenic coffee breaks, ever-larger LEDs and posts for social media. That creates records, but it doesn’t create memories.

Today, most events are not made for those who are there, they are made for those who did not attend. They are for the photo taken from the middle of the audience, for the recap video on LinkedIn, for the Instagram story that lasts seconds in this new era in search of attention. We create more edited narratives than lived experiences.

And, without realising it, we trade the opportunity to make an impression on people for the goal of generating beautiful content to show later.

And that’s where the risk comes in. I’m not talking about logistical or financial risk, but creative risk: daring to stray from the script, trying something unexpected, delivering an experience that doesn’t fit on a checklist. A memorable event doesn’t have to be huge or perfect, it has to be true, courageous and human. It has to be the kind of experience that people tell each other about, not because they saw it on social media, but because they felt it first-hand.

I believe that the future of events lies in returning them to their essence: encounters that transform those who are present. And when that happens, the brand and the agency are also transformed. Because the only metric that really matters is the memory we create in people.

So this is an invitation. An invitation for every agency and every professional to rethink: have I fallen into the trap of sameness? Am I hiding behind what is safe, instead of proposing something different? If the answer is yes, that’s okay, it’s good to have agencies like that so others can be better. Lol

We don’t need to do bigger events. We need to do bolder events. We don’t need to please everyone all the time. We need to leave a lasting impression. (That sentence turned out pretty nice.)

I asked ChatGPT to remove the motivational swear words, but if you want, you can imagine this text full of them.