Younas, CEO vFairs (00:00)
Hello everyone. Thank you for joining Epic Events Podcast. Today I'm honored to welcome someone who has been at the forefront of experiential marketing for nearly two decades, Kat Thule, VP of Global Events and Experiential Marketing at HubSpot. I attend a lot of events. I attend a lot of conferences. That's the business I am in. But if I have to say even my best event I attended in 2024, that was inbound conference. That was my first time.

you know, attending a HubSpot Inbound Conference and it was absolutely amazing. And I'm super excited to ask a lot of questions to cat about that. But at HubSpot, Katherine now oversees a global portfolio of events, including Inbound, one of the most recognized conference in the industry, which in 2024 drew over 12,500 in-person attendees and earned international acclaim for its creativity and impact. Our leadership has not only elevated HubSpot's event presence, but also earned her a long list of accolades from

BizBash 500 to Top Women and B2B Marketing to 40 under 40 in events. Kat, I'm so honored to have you in the podcast today. Thank you for being on the show.

Kat Tooley (01:00)
Thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to talking.

Younas, CEO vFairs (01:02)
⁓ So, ⁓ I said, I attend a lot of events and when I was there at HubSpot inbound, see, it's a huge conference, 12,500, yet it felt something that was not exhausting or something that was not overwhelming. ⁓ I attend a lot of others, SESTER, et cetera, and they all have, they're all amazing, know, like, you know, I know the kind of effort it takes in running an event like that, but never, ever I felt something that was just...

very easy to handle also. Tell me what goes behind running a conference like HubSpot inbound because when I run even my daughter's birthday party is a lot of pressure. The kind of pressure, the kind of preparation goes into running something like inbound. ⁓

Kat Tooley (01:46)
I mean, it's definitely, I would say, 18-month timeline to really start planning another inbound. I mean, as we're even speaking, inbound 2025 is, yes, happening in September, but we're already planning 2026 behind the scenes. So ⁓ it is definitely ⁓ a very long labor of love to ⁓ finally produce one of these events just because

of the sheer kind of magnitude and the effort and the coordination that it takes to have 13,000 people gather on site and for it to feel ⁓ seamless and well built and well constructed. ⁓ I personally think the reason why InBeyond doesn't feel overwhelming is because ⁓ the overall event experience and production as well as the

programming is built in a way that it's really easy for our attendee ⁓ to find value and know what they want out of the event. We do a really great job programming the overall content curation to make sure that there's something for everyone there. ⁓ While we certainly have a focus on more enterprise or upmarket decision makers,

We also recognize that people are not monoliths, right? And that even if they're gonna invest a week of time with us, then they also wanna experience great food and beverage, learn about wellness. Maybe they have an interest in improving their managerial skills. Maybe they wanna hear from ⁓ really great people, operations leaders about turning their workforce more into a hybrid ⁓ element. So we realized that

you know, it goes beyond just CS sales, service and marketing ⁓ that people if they're going to invest their time with you, they want to experience a whole breadth of content related to them as a as a human being and and the decision maker in a career kind of mover and shaker. So I would say very early on, we try to ⁓ plan really strong content that has a lot of different avenues for exploration. ⁓

very early on. In addition, we make that very easy for people to understand the agenda. So topic tags, utilization of AI for personalization. We try to have as seamless of a registration process as possible for some of our smaller capacity controlled sessions. So a lot of that work is done before you even get on site about what you're gonna experience once you get on site. And then once you get on site, we try to make it very simple.

with the navigation, the line control. We have really great elevated food and beverage that's reflective of the community or the city that we're producing. And we sprinkle on elements of entertainment. have really great comedians. I've joined this year over year. So we really try to make it like not a hard day. I think like if you come in and you're just listening to like,

business based content and like content that you need to like learn and translate back to your boss or your team when you return that is a huge cognitive load. ⁓ And we recognize that there needs to be breaks in the day and a variety of activities to keep at the end of the day, the human engaged with the event. So I would say all those elements go into the planning and make inbound feel

very easy to navigate, ⁓ attainable, and like ends up being a really fun experience the whole week forever.

Younas, CEO vFairs (05:35)
And I felt that firsthand up. See, I have done almost 50 of these podcasts now. Yeah. And I'm going to ask that question to you also, but I always ask this question, pick up your top three conferences that you have ever attended. And I would say every other person would have said inbound HubSpot. So that's extremely, just just powerful from an impact perspective.

Just a few set of questions for the conference in general and then, of course, in your case, that example applies to HubSpot Inbound. But let's start with the first thing first, the location. ⁓ How much the city, the location matters in general? This is a generic question, but then for HubSpot Inbound, of course, it has been happening in Boston and now it's not going to happen in Boston, at least this year. So tell me just a bit of a...

bit of kind of thought process around that.

Kat Tooley (06:32)
there are three big elements that you have to consider when you're picking the city or the location that you're going to host an event of this size. think number one is certainly like, is it a city that that meets your business profile, right? Like, do you have a large subset of customers, partners, kind of ecosphere? ⁓

in that area, right? Like the event as easy as poss some people, a lot of peo into Boston or into San want to make sure that we market regionally in that goes for our internationa to make sure that we're p or cities that you know, strong presence from a h

So I would say number one, that's the first thing that you need to investigate is like whether or not your audience is in and around that region and whether or not you have a story for why you're in that region. I would say the second thing is you certainly want to pick a city that is cost effective, but is also has an element of tourism or support that they can give you.

⁓ Hotels obviously is a big one. Like you need to pick a city that has enough hotel coverage and hotel variety to meet your attendees needs. ⁓ I always like to try to pick a city that has an international airport, right? Like we want to make sure that we are global friendly and that we make it as simple as possible for our international customers to be able to travel in and be with us.

And then I would say the third thing that we really think about is like, can the Department of Tourism, what can the Convention Center and what can the various, I would say, governmental departments in the region help offer us to help us host the best event possible? And that goes into cost, right? the, what is the cost of the Convention Center rental? What does it cover? What's the cost of the labor? Because for us,

we want to make sure that we are certainly investing in the infrastructure, but not investing so much that we can't provide a really amazing attendee experience. Every dollar that we take from the attendee experience to pay for labor or pay for the venue rental is a dollar that we take away from that attendee experience. So we want to make sure that there's a balance there. So I would say those are like three big factors that go into it. But I would say number one,

everyone needs to decide before they start investigating the city is like, do they have business in that city? And like, do they have a story for why they're there for us? It was really simple. Boston is our hometown. We were born and bred in Boston, East Coast tech mentality. We love that. And then San Francisco made a ton of sense to we have a huge customer base in San Francisco. AI is a big topic for us adoption of AI integration of AI tools within the HubSpot platform. And a lot of those AI companies are obviously based in Silicon Valley. So, and you can kind of see that reflected in the schedule and the agenda this year for San Francisco. We are very kind of, ⁓ I would say startup VC ⁓ AI tech forward, very ⁓ kind of an entrepreneurial energy at the San Francisco event. Whereas in Boston, we have ⁓ a lot of discussions around thought leadership kind of steeped in

the rich history of the education and the research and like kind of what's happening next, especially around like organizational thought leadership ⁓ in our Boston ⁓ agenda. So ⁓ we love both cities. We're returning to Boston next year. You know, we wanted to try something different, throw everyone a curve ball, do something in San Francisco, especially because we're double-danning on that AI messaging. San

Cisco just felt really strong this year, but we're also really excited to go back to Boston.

Younas, CEO vFairs (10:36)
Perfect. ⁓ So we started with the city and the venue. The next thing then is when to do the event. And see for some reason I see HubSpot doing their event around the September, October timeline. Sester doing their major event around September, October timeline. And then I don't want to name a lot of other people, but a lot of them.

pick up this September, October, mostly September as the event month. Is there something that I don't know what's with this month that guarantees a certain amount of business or attendance that no other month typically do so.

Kat Tooley (11:19)
Yeah, there's definitely a method to pick in the day. So ⁓ September and October just are optimal kind of business event industry months for a number of reasons. One, you you never want to produce an event ⁓ at quarter close. So because there are so many people from your sales, marketing and CS teams that are attending, who are so focused on

closing out the quarter or giving, know, supporting their customers and closing out the quarter. Remember, it's not just about the HubSpot business. Our customers are also, you know, trying to close out their quarter strong. So we never want to produce an event that's too close to the end of a quarter. ⁓ For us also, we, HubSpot is a really strong Q4 business. We love that messaging. think our

Our campaign two years ago for brand was all about like winning Q4, right? And we know that that is such an important quarter for so many of our customers. They really want to go into Q4 extremely strong, not only in closing out their year, but starting to strategize and plan out what their following year is going to be. So we want to make sure that they're receiving all of our content, our expertise, new features to the product.

before they launch into that quarter. like either, you know, at the beginning of September or sometime around October is like such a great time to do that because it's just top of mind for everyone. How can I close out this year strong and what tools and best practices can I implement for next year to be even better? So ⁓ that's like from a business standpoint, why we picked those months. I would say from a personal standpoint, we like to avoid the summertime. You know, there's a lot of

Travel going on, kids at home, ⁓ especially for our international customers. July is really kind of ⁓ an off month for a lot of ⁓ countries. So we want to make sure that we're global friendly. ⁓ And then we'd like to avoid the travel woes of the winter time, right? Producing an event in Boston in January or February is always going to have some risks to it in terms of snow, flight cancellations.

So after it's all said and done, there's really only like four great months to produce an industry event, business industry event. And that would probably be, you know, April, part of May, September, October. So that's the logic behind it.

Younas, CEO vFairs (13:58)
Finally, I understand it and I think it makes all the sense. So thank you for sharing that with me because again, said I was in industry for over a decade, but I didn't know exactly that science and math behind it. So, but it does make a lot of sense.

Kat Tooley (14:11)
it out loud. think that there's also some really great events that get planned in early June. You know, I'm not saying totally avoid the you know, the month at the end of quarter for us September like right at the end of q3. But I would never, ⁓ I would never try to pressure my customers to 10 to attend an event the last week of the quarter. That's really hard to try to go to your

leader or someone and explain to them why you have to miss the last week of quarter. I get it. We try to avoid those days.

Younas, CEO vFairs (14:48)
Just as I don't know if like I think in general, of course, it won't maybe maybe for HubSpot, that's not so common. But I'm just thinking from an attendee perspective. Yeah, purely that, you you, you, you, of course, you learn about a really important conference like inbound that you want to attend as one. But then you also see some of these other really good events that you want to attend.

Kat Tooley (15:11)
Yeah.

Younas, CEO vFairs (15:11)
Do you guys have ever felt that, ⁓ just because September is the month that we have to run events and everyone is thinking exactly the same way, that also mean that these competing events sometimes will just divide the attendees because one person won't want to travel for both of those conferences just one week apart, right? So just from that perspective.

Kat Tooley (15:35)
It's an interesting question. will say I kind of come from and what I've seen also just in kind of our ticket sale trajectory and in history is I kind of have an all ships rise mentality. Whereas like more events, or I would say more high quality events actually don't hurt us. It helps us because ⁓ I think that when people attend one really great

business event where they learned something really meaningful or of value that they were able to apply to their career or to their business. ⁓ It perks them up to want to attend more, right? So I actually kind of cheer for for more higher quality events because I think it actually helps the entire event industry. Everyone get a lot better and to see attendance rise once like, you know,

when are especially coming out of COVID, I think that there was a lack of confidence around events, people had to engage with them in a few years, they were expensive. ⁓ You know, people were a little unsure of like, well, hold on, I've been getting this content and building these relationships online for three years. Like, why are you asking me to return in person now? And I think that in general, there was some hesitancy around that. In 2022, I think that they're also

wasn't a lot of people who were really double-danning again on in-person events. So, you know, I think that we were still seeing a lack of confidence just in the event industry at large and a hesitancy to attending. And then in 2023 and 2024, people started kind of coming back into the picture, new events, old events, bigger, better. And we've seen...

a big rise in overall event attendance. And I think people really see how valuable they are when they attend one really great event. And they're like, Oh, wow, that $1,500 I spent earlier this year attending that event provided so much value to me. I'm going to go talk to my boss or my manager and try to get more funding so I can attend more events this year. I actually think it like helps. It's funny, we we

when we started doing inbound and like that September, October timeframe, know, dream force also does it in September, October, there was a lot of other, you know, kind of events in that periphery. We were a little bit worried, like, how does this affect inbound? ⁓ and I don't think it does. Like there's, we had, there's millions, billions of people in the world. And I think at the end of the day, a lot of them want the same thing, which is

this strong desire to ⁓ be with other people, to learn face to face, to network, ⁓ to be surprised and delighted and to spend their week around really amazing people. So there is more than enough people to go around. ⁓ I think what you're really fighting for is budget, but I think if you can really demonstrate that value. ⁓

disguise the limit on the number of events that you should attend, right? So I actually, that all ships rise mentality. Like I'm cheering for everyone. I don't think it hurts in bail to our events. I think it actually helps.

Younas, CEO vFairs (18:55)
Perfect. So we discussed a city slash venue, we discussed the month. Let's come to the conference itself. Just a few, like one by one, question. The first one is celebrity speakers, you know, I was so happy attending some of those, you know, celebrity speakers sessions during the HubSpot Inbound. this question is not for HubSpot Inbound, but just in general, but you can apply that.

sometimes within the event professional network, you get to see or you get to hear, teach this other opinion that celebrity speakers don't matter anymore. really about the networking or really what the value that you get out of it. What's your take on celebrity speakers? Do they attract a certain amount of audience? And does it have anything to do with ticket sales? Just your logic behind.

Kat Tooley (19:46)
Yeah, think it depends on your goals for the event. So ⁓ do I think you need a celebrity speaker for an end user conference? No. Do I think that you need higher profile speakers for like an industry for an event where you're trying to kind of expand your net of awareness for not only your event, but your brand?

it helps a lot. And and I don't want people to feel like that they can't enter into the experiential event marketing world if they don't have the budget for a celebrity speaker. ⁓ There's a lot of like prolific speakers out there that I wouldn't put in like the traditional celebrity slot that like command and demand a lot of attention. So ⁓ I think it depends on what the end goal is for your audience.

⁓ for us for inbound, ⁓ that kind of element of celebrity ⁓ still has a lot of meaningful engagement and works for us. ⁓ It was it's interesting, someone I think posted on LinkedIn a few weeks ago saying like, no one wants celebrity speakers anymore. No one care. Like, you know, the attendees don't care about it when they're on site. And I was like,

agree, like maybe once they get on site at inbound, like seeing a celebrity like an Amy Poehler, you know, like a, you know, former President Barack Obama falls a little bit lower on their list. After they've built their agenda, and they're like, wow, I want to go to this session on AI marketing, I want to go to this session on marketing and sales integration and how to better communicate. So those sessions rise up.

But a lot of times the reason why especially new attendees bought a ticket to the event or at least went to the website is because of those names, right? Like that's really intriguing to say, wow, I'm going to go to inbound this year and I'm going to get the opportunity to see president Barack Obama speak, right? Like that's incredible. A former president, very prolific person, ⁓ once in a lifetime opportunity. But like,

All of the other content is really what's going to motivate me to buy a ticket. Like I came to inbound.com because of him. But ultimately I'm going to convert and attend because of all the well-roundedness and all the other content of the event. So I think that like, that is your goal is to drive, you know, some net new awareness to drive. ⁓

that new attendees to really kind of expand your nets and open up your funnel wider. I think of those like celebrity or like more, I'd say prolific speakers still have carry a lot of weight. ⁓ But then I go back to earlier what I said, a user, if your end goal is to get as many of your customers at an event to like,

really be embedded and ingrained in your product and kind of learn the like end user roadmap of like what you're planning, how you know what you just rolled out, how you can really use the product to help influence and grow your business. ⁓ I don't think it's as necessary, right? They want to hear from people who are like living and breathing the product. They want to hear about use cases and case studies and like I used X and got Y right.

And then I don't think it holds as much weight. So I think it really just depends on what your event goals are.

Younas, CEO vFairs (23:20)
That's absolutely brilliant. And I'm just thinking, see, I'll tell you just because a lot of what you said, like, I'm just thinking like, you what I I'll walk you through my experience. Right. So of course we were there because we wanted to attend HubSpot inbound. And I would like to tell myself I'm not a celebrity guy. You know, you know, I'm there for the content. That's what I want to tell myself. But once I was there, there was a session happening at five p.m. by one of the celebrities. I'm already here.

let me go ahead and attend it, right? Why not? Exactly. Yeah. I to say I attended all of them. Like there were three celebrities in the last one. I attended all three sessions just because you you're there anyways. And that's the time also when you're not running those parallel sessions. It's not that by attending that I'm missing out on it. really create. I did attend it and it, you know, it felt good, you know, that you attended one of those sessions and you know, you can, you can later on.

Kat Tooley (24:01)
other stuff.

Younas, CEO vFairs (24:10)
think about it, whether that was valuable or not, but more often than not, they were also very valuable from a learning slash business perspective because these people, you know, have this amazing experience that no one else have within what they have done, right? So you get to hear that very, very, very unique perspective that's impossible to get otherwise unless coming from such a celebrity. So

Kat Tooley (24:29)
Yeah. And we always try not to book celebrities for the sake of celebrity, right? Like we try to book, we call it like, you know, celebutainment or edutainment. ⁓ It actually has a relevant business case that can ladder up to the work that our customers and attendees are doing.

you know, a lot of we've had Ryan Reynolds, we've had Reese Witherspoon, both of them ⁓ running behind the scenes, very successful brands, ⁓ you know, ⁓ Hello Sunshine, ⁓ with the Wexham soccer team, ⁓ Mountain, you know, his past creative SaaS company. So like, they were all running businesses and working with VCs, working with collecting capital.

working with the selling of those companies, working with the marketing of those brands, like they, they in themselves are really like master marketers and business men and women. So it's like, ⁓ like, we always try to make sure that everyone we book has a story that they can tell on stage that is relevant for the people in our audience, not just like, I'm going to get up here and talk to you about, you know, the movie I just released or

the book I just wrote and like promote that like, no, tell us about the business of getting the book written. Tell us about the business of the production company and the marketing of the movie that made it incredibly successful. ⁓ So we always try to make sure that there is ⁓ that that kind of through line story to tell.

Younas, CEO vFairs (26:09)
Just one last question around that one. Is there a process to get celebrities on board? Because there are only very few companies who of course can think about going through this process. then, and I said all the three sessions I attended, they added tons of value one way or the other, whether it was entertainment or actual session.

And I'm just thinking like I'm putting myself in your shoe. And that's that's where I want to learn from that. I'm trying to get a celebrity. But then also I'm going to be a bit picky about who can come in and not. Is there an interview process by which they get selected? Because I'm just finding it. Yeah, I know. I would not want to hurt a celebrity feeling that ⁓ you didn't get selected. just if you can do that purely for my own learning. This is podcast listeners. I don't know. This is me.

I'm not sure how much it's relevant for others.

Kat Tooley (27:03)
Yeah, well, a couple things we so we have an internal programming team that like does a ton of research, you know, throughout, kind of after inbound concludes kind of looking at the next year, like who who are kind of the movers and shakers right now in that world, like who's doing, you know, something really cool is about to announce something has a, you know, a big initiative being launched.

you know, has a lot of buzz around them. So we'll do a lot of research there. ⁓ There are a lot of really amazing for someone who's trying to just like get started working with ⁓ not only celebrities, but I would also say just creators in general, there's also like

big podcasters, there's really prolific, interesting YouTube creators, there's, you know, obviously Instagram and TikTok and you know, even LinkedIn influencers now that command big audiences. So I would say like the first part is just like really doing your research and understanding the like type of profiles that you want to go after, and really having a strong POV and vision. I would say the second part is like there, there are lot of really ⁓

⁓ really smart and well connected ⁓ talent bookers that like focus on speaking engagement, right? And you don't have to pay them money upfront, right? Like they want to partner with you to make sure that ⁓ their speakers are being looked at ⁓ and considered for, you know, your, for your event. So I would say do your research also about like the different types of companies out there.

that can help ⁓ leverage those like celebrity hours. Very, all of them work with agents. There's a very few of them that like are self ⁓ agent or self managed, like even in the like YouTube, you know, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, influencer world, they all now have agents. So a lot of them, it's like, you're not cheating by like, also working with an agent.

Like that's literally how the industry is built. Like agents speak to agents, managers speak to managers. So ⁓ I'd say, you know, first, just establish your POV, do your research, see what companies are representing these speakers, and then do some outreach to those agents and say, Hey, I'm interested. And a lot of times they'll also have good ideas. They may say, that person's not available. They're not doing the speaking engagements right now. But have you considered, you know, these five people?

And they also have insight ⁓ into things that you may not through your research of, hey, they have a new book coming out next October. ⁓ That's about this business topic. That would be really interesting to interview. ⁓ would say the third thing is not everyone needs to be booked through an agent when it comes to business. So ⁓ I think everyone knows this. ⁓

Typically, you are in, if you're a business leader, you're in a C-suite, you work for a publicly traded company, heck, most of the private companies, they, a lot of their leadership speaks at events or earmarks time every single year to be able to speak at events because they know that it's good for their company, the brand, their personal brand.

They may have a big initiative that they're trying to go vocalize ⁓ and get out there. And it's part of their marketing plans for the year. So don't be hesitant to reach out to even people who are in C suites to ask them, would you be interested in speaking at our event and really position it, its overall value and what they're going to get from it. ⁓ And a lot of times ⁓ those speakers will

travel there on their own to speak because, you know, it is part of their marketing output for the year. They want to be in front of those audiences. So have a little bit of swagger around your event and say like, hey, this is a great event. Like it's for X amount of people. It's your core audience. Like, you know, here are past speakers that we've had. We know that this is going to be a good thing for you.

because our audience says that they use your tool 80 % of the time, really develop your elevator pitch and those materials to really draw in speakers who want to be there from a marketing standpoint as well.

Younas, CEO vFairs (31:39)
Yeah, that's extremely helpful. Catherine, so the next one is a question, but also kind of a note slash request from from our side. Attending a celebrity session was easy, primarily because that was the only session happening at that time. Right. But then sometimes there are so many great sessions happening exactly at the same time. Sometimes in most cases, they were

they were at different times. So as you're going through the agenda, you can literally pick what I'm gonna do at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. But there was a certain point where we felt, like these three absolutely amazing sessions, exactly the same time. the question is, as you're trying to create the agenda,

Kat Tooley (32:23)
Right.

Younas, CEO vFairs (32:29)
Do you go through and internally mark themselves? Let's call it like a, know, one, two and three, one being the absolutely amazing session, two being really great session and three being, you know, still a great session, not. And do you try to keep one, two and three in the same one? Because that just makes it easy for a person to always attend one. Did you have, like, how do you go about programming that part? Because at a certain point we felt

why some of these sessions are just at the same time. does not. Yeah.

Kat Tooley (33:00)
wish it was that easy. ⁓ I like a ranking system and you say, Okay, like here are here's like the best session, the middle tier session, the worst session, we're gonna put them all against each other. That can't be the case if I had every if I if I had every because what would ultimately happen is everyone would try to attend the best session, I want to have seats for it.

then they try to attend the second session, I wouldn't have seats for them. And then the third session, and then they'd be angry because they didn't want the third session. So it's like, there's, there's, there's a number of factors that kind of go into the programming. ⁓ One is the format of the session. So some sessions require a longer amount of time, 90 minutes sometimes, because they may have ⁓ an interactive component or q &a added onto it. So we have to kind of

you know, take that into account. ⁓ Some sessions are fireside chats, some sessions are presentational keynotes, some are case studies, some are educational sessions. So it really depends on the format. ⁓ And then it depends on the day that the speaker can also speak, right? Like a lot of times what I said before, a lot of times, these are C-suite executives that are ⁓ spending their own time and money to come to inbound or one of our events to speak.

⁓ And so, you know, as good partners, we need to also schedule them on the day that they can speak. Some of them may only come for one day because that's the only time they can do it. So we have to be respectful of their schedule as well and make sure that we're slotting them into a time that works. ⁓ And then I would say the last piece is kind of looking at the overall calendar and starting to move stuff around.

We don't have any idea whether or not a session is going to be like well liked or not. Like ⁓ we try to do a really good diligence around the curation ⁓ during the speaker application process or the speaker outreach process. We get their preliminary materials. We evaluate it. We see, hey, you know, this looks like this is a marketing based session. How many marketing based sessions do we have, ⁓ you know, still available?

⁓ We want to make sure that we're providing a variety too. But we don't have like, we have a, we have a feeling based off of those preliminary materials, how well the session is going to be accepted. But I got to be honest, we get so many applications, we're picking all winners. So like all the sessions are great. But we do have an idea just off past history of certain speakers that are just going to command a larger audience because they have a larger following, or they, you know, it's just a highly rated session that happens year over year.

We've got a handful of speakers like that. Jay Shwindleson is one, Kyle Jepson from HubSpot, really great academy professor that does really great HubSpot based content at NBAM, Nancy Harhutch, really great marketer. So we know that like, they are going to need to be in bigger rooms. So there and that's the other thing you're also, you have a variety of different

capacity rooms, right? Like you've got some rooms that are ballrooms that you need to fit a session that can draw in 2500 people, you've got your main stage, we need, we need to at least have it half full 4000 people, then you've got your smaller, more intimate education sessions that might be really long, like 90 minutes. ⁓ But but that's in a smaller room and can only command about 90 people just because of the format, the interactive format wouldn't be good for more than 150.

So there's a lot that you're kind of weighing in and in the schedule. And you try to kind of abide by those layers of best practices, the best that you can and not have too many similar topics competing against each other. But ultimately, sometimes it happens just because there's a number of factors at play.

Younas, CEO vFairs (36:58)
Thank you so much, that's extremely helpful. So you're at the conference and again, I'll tell you like, again, what I hear from a lot of event professionals and then your take on it in general and then, know, specifically for HubSpot, but a lot of what event professionals say nowadays is that attendees used to attend events for the content.

Kat Tooley (37:17)
learning.

Younas, CEO vFairs (37:19)
attendees

are their first priority is to network during that event. Your take on it in journal, like, you know, if you have to prioritize one over the other in journal, you know, for for an event that you yourself is attending, are you going more for the content or networking? And why? Yeah. And then for HubSpot, what's the primary focus? I'm the content person, you know, I like, I know, maybe maybe I network

doing just regular days a lot that when I go and attend an event, I'm there to learn. but but just, yeah, I'm a very different person altogether. But yeah, go ahead and your take on it.

Kat Tooley (37:54)
If you had asked me three years ago, for sure, I would have said content. I think that we're seeing like a big shift to also, to more of our attendees wanting networking. ⁓ And the reason, or coming to events because they're focused on networking. And the reason why is because I think there are so many people who, especially in our kind of, in the tech business world, that, ⁓

are either still work from home, remote full time, or at least hybrid. ⁓ And I think that they see these events as an opportunity to kind of get out of their work environment and go meet people. It kind of brings kind of the energy of being in an office back for a week and having kind of the excitement of.

meeting new people, maybe bringing their teams to the event, being able to hang out with their teams there. So we are definitely seeing, you know, I would say more demand for guided networking and opportunities for people to meet other people ⁓ either in their like, ⁓ you know, I would say community of practice or community of identity. ⁓ And again, I think that goes back to, you know, a lot of people work from home. I think that

you know, a lot of people work online. ⁓ and there is just a growing sense of wanting human connection, ⁓ and wanting to find their people or their communities or expand their communities. and events are unique in that it gives, it is a guided opportunity where, know, kind of everyone birds of a feather comes in. Everyone is there kind of for.

the same purpose, which is want to grow their career or grow their business or be the best that they can at something. ⁓ And a lot of them are very high performers, high motivators. ⁓ And it's a built in community and they want to meet those people and get to know them. it may not even be for the purposes of like cutting a deal or hiring, you know, new clients or a new vendor. It could just be because they want more personal relationships within their workspace or their work world. So

I think we're seeing a big influx of that and a strong desire of that for sure. I still think content is king. I think that's why people ultimately decide to purchase a ticket or register or spend the money to go to an event. ⁓ However, I think networking is something that we're seeing a lot of desire for on site and that I would say building that sense of community is really important.

Younas, CEO vFairs (40:41)
I think I really love what you said, is people are going to say that, I'm spending $1,500 to go and network. They need something else to convince them to buy the ticket. Now, when they are there, course, networking become maybe the most important or at least important to kind of do that. But I agree, it's the content that drives definitely the registration to begin with.

Kat Tooley (41:04)
Absolutely. Yeah, if you don't have quality content, they're not or if the content really is the purpose, right? If there isn't a purpose for the event, ⁓ it's just not going to drive people to attend. I think the networking and the community building and the relationship building, you also have to provide that, but that is on site. And so I think you really have to have a strong balance of both.

Younas, CEO vFairs (41:26)
So we picked the venue, we picked the city, we again discussed the celebrity speakers, the bet behind the agenda program, networking over content. As I'm walking around or let's say you're walking around in any of those events, you see these amazing exhibitors and then you walk in there, you see all types of swags. And I have been an exhibitor in many of the events and you of course run

one of the biggest events out there. What's your take on swags and what's your suggestion to to exhibitors who already are spending this amount of money on the booth itself and then they also have to worry about the swags. Should they do it? Should they not do it? If they do it, what's like the the math or the science behind actually getting a swag that actually has any ROI attached with it?

Kat Tooley (42:16)
⁓ I am not a proponent of like swag for swag sake, right? Like I, I think it's like, if you've got to like, give away a sticker to entice someone to like take a demo or give away, you know, some, some sort of swag item that quite frankly is going to get lost in someone's but bag, for them to look at your product, then like, you're not actually deriving

explaining real value to them, right? I think that ⁓ it is better to spend money on your activation and making sure that your messaging around your product or your company is like clear and shows value to those attendees. And that that is well constructed. And if that is well constructed, then people will want to talk to you. If you're

If you are fitting a need that that audience has, like they will naturally come talk to you. You don't need to give them a koozie for that. Like they trust me, they're looking for, they're looking for you and you're looking for them. Like that will come naturally and organically if your message is clear and sound and you're actually showing the value of your product or your company for the attendee and the audience fit there. However, like

people have swag, they just do. I, for me, I would much rather invest in ⁓ swag pieces for surprise and delight moments ⁓ that actually kind of like relate back to your business, right? Is there like, I love it when people think of really smart ways ⁓ to have their business remembered through a piece of swag, right? So I've seen custom card decks.

done, I've seen, you know, people who, you know, may have do custom candy, things like that. Like I've seen a lot of really smart swag pieces that like directly correlates back to their business. I set HubSpot like we are taking the approach of like, really being more ⁓ cognizant of like not our swag spend not only from like a monetary fiduciary standpoint.

also from an environmental standpoint, like it's just there's a lot of waste out there. And we want to make sure that like we're not over contributing or contributing to that. ⁓ Also, like we want to make sure that we're giving quality products, like not only from the hubspot standpoint, but even from the swag standpoint, we want quality to come from HubSpot. ⁓ So that might mean that like we're spending more on certain swag items.

and producing less, but we're being more particular about how we're giving those items away, right? They may just be going to our strategic or, you loyal customers, it may be a surprise and delight moment for, you know, being a HubSpot subscriber for three years in a row, kind of bigger key touch points. And then it feels more special. ⁓ You're giving them something they actually want, like maybe it's

a really beautiful book bag that has their company logo embroidered in it, right? With like a really special like, you know, thank you from HubSpot, you know, card on the inside. ⁓ I think it's thinking about higher quality items that mean something to a customer or fills a gap or a need that they have. ⁓ And that they're used for real surprise, real surprise and delight moments, not just kind of thrown around.

And I think you'll see a stronger, you know, response from your customers. ⁓ And you'll certainly feel better about the budget. And I think you'll also feel better about the overall contribution ⁓ to the environment and your carbon footprint by kind of pulling back and thinking about that. However, like some swag items at conferences, people always need people always need pens, and they always love a good notebook. So I think those things.

If you want to do that, like that feels a need on site that people people always have. But I would really encourage everyone to kind of rethink their swag kind of giveaway. I just think there's so much of it. I don't know how effective it is anymore. So really think about about cutting your product messaging, your company messaging, making sure that's clear first. ⁓ And then it's saving those swag moments or their surprise and delight moments for really special opportunities.

Younas, CEO vFairs (46:46)
Love it. ⁓ Another thing that, again, we power almost 3000 events in a year. one trend that I have been noticing is that most of the ticket sales happened in the last month or quarter as compared to happening at ⁓

early and again, we haven't been in business for the last 10 years. And that's more of a post COVID thing versus a pre COVID thing.

Kat Tooley (47:21)
thousand percent. Yeah.

Younas, CEO vFairs (47:22)
Do you feel that? just, I think we all get it maybe now because you also mentioned how in one of your earlier answers that some people are working remote, if there are people who are working remote, et cetera. Like a lot of people don't know up until the last one, one and a half, two months what they'll be doing, they'll be going or not. But just, are you noticing that? And if yes, are there any magic tips and tricks that I'm not aware of how to drive it early? That ticket sales, yeah.

Kat Tooley (47:48)
⁓ We are definitely seeing more late purchasing patterns than we have previously. I would say definitely pre-COVID. ⁓ It's interesting. We're seeing different patterns from 2022 to 2025. I would say we saw a lot of late purchases in 2022 with people kind of not having that confidence of in-person events. Is it gonna get canceled? Is it safe? Like, what does this even?

feel like anymore. I think they were waiting until I definitely saw a pull where people were buying in 25. I'm definitely s patterns again. Um, and I that, know, macro fact do with that too. Right? L

in a curious, eyes wide open state about, ⁓ world economics, you know, domestic economics, tariffs, kind of where things are going. And I hate to say it, but a lot of times the first thing that gets pulled back and spending when companies are preparing to, you know, try to cut costs or try to balance a budget in anticipation of, you know, a possible, you know, ⁓ economic downturn.

or any type of change, ⁓ they end up kind of pulling back on event travel and budgets, right? So ⁓ I will say, know, 2025, we've seen kind of a teeter tottering and ⁓ started seeing later buying patterns as well, just because I think ⁓ there's just been a lot of things happening across the globe in the past several months. ⁓

I mean, that's I'm not revealing anything new. Everyone's feeling everyone's feeling it and seeing it and kind of saying what's going to happen in Q3, Q4, 2026 and 2027. So I think that whenever there's a lack of overall confidence, whether it is in, you know, COVID and you know, how people are being kept safe at events like from or how people are kind of emerging from the COVID haze to go to events, or whether it is

you know, macroeconomic pressures or political over world political pressures on people's businesses. ⁓ There is a pullback in a later buying pattern. So we are definitely, you know, we definitely see that across events. I always joke around the events are kind of the like, canary in the coal mine, like we always see things first. And like that has been happening.

for all 20 years of my career. in, before, you we saw in 2008, ⁓ you know, the economic downturn, we were already starting to feel that in some of the entertainment world, ⁓ live concerts, live festivals, that people were not spending as much money to go to those because they were getting nervous. ⁓ were holding onto their funding, their cash, things like that. So we definitely.

feel the I would say the ebbs and flows of ⁓ business across events there, I feel like events are always kind of the first to feel it. ⁓ On a positive side, like, I think 2005, like, we are seeing later buying patterns, but we're still seeing rapid purchasing of events, it's just happening later, right? Like people aren't. And that could also be I gotta be honest, that could also be related to

more events in the market, more options, more things to do and people are just taking those considerations later. So I think it's a multitude of factors, but we're definitely seeing that in 2025, but like, we're still seeing sold out events, they're just happening much later.

Younas, CEO vFairs (51:34)
Two questions. Your top three events that you personally like to attend and then two, again, we all ⁓ see how HubSpot is leaning all towards AI. ⁓ Again, we're big fan of Dharmesh and we're big fan of HubSpot itself and we see AI everywhere. But just purely from your own job role perspective, how are you making use of AI right now to make your job and your department role better?

as a HubSpot as a company, just you as individual.

Kat Tooley (52:06)
Yeah. ⁓ so I will say event technology is like notoriously kind of behind the curve when it comes to like, adoption of any kind of new ⁓ technology. I will say like us at HubSpot or me on the global events team and my team, we're using AI very heavily because like, we're just not seeing it really adopted by a lot of our vendors. I'll be I'll be Frank and ⁓

And the reason why is this is just it's part of event technology. It's always been this way. It's kind of a trickle down effect. Like digital marketers are always kind of the first to adopt these like widespread tech innovations. ⁓ And then I fully expect that like event tech tech companies or event tech focus companies will make a shift in the next year. They're just not quite there yet.

⁓ we are building a lot of our own proprietary kind of AI tools or utilizing AI on our own across our event team, because we just need to keep up with the pace of innovation. Like it's not a like, this is a nice to have. It is like a must have. Like we are at a toy and we're at an inflection that like either you disrupt or get disrupted. And so for us, ⁓

places that we're really putting a lot of emphasis on utilizing AI and building out our own AI systems is ⁓ internal enablement, really like providing kind of, I would say dynamic marketing materials or conversation touch points that our CS and sales teams can use to drive registrations to our event or to help our customers navigate the event, whether it's the registration process, the agenda process, what sessions they connect should attend.

what they can and can't bring to the event. So we're building a lot of AI tools ⁓ for our CS sales team to use because it's not their primary job to know every single thing about in-mail. We want to make a dynamic kind of evergreen always on ⁓ bot that they can use to get that information in real time if they're on the phone with a customer or writing an email to a customer. Obviously,

in marketing, we use AI technology all the time. ⁓ A lot of our video content ⁓ that we create, especially like quick kind of hits about, you know, in bands almost sold out or VIP tickets on sale now, we'll create those through AI so that we are investing our budget and kind of our larger creative bandwidth on ⁓

I would say more higher fidelity video or more creative video, long form video that we want to do. So we're finding a lot of places to use AI to help us do, you know, quicker hits and video, social media posts, writing, email marketing. ⁓ obviously we're, we run inbound on HubSpot. We build HubSpot on HubSpot.

So we're using all of the Breeze AI tools and all of the AI functionality integrations that HubSpot offers within our portal. ⁓ you know, chat GPT and HubSpot just ⁓ announced a connector a few weeks ago. We've already started using that to better personalize our ⁓ email marketing campaigns, to learn more about our audience through our own portal. So, ⁓

I would say that's what we're using it for like externally internally, we use it all the time. We use it to help construct memos to help construct marketing briefs to, you know, better organize ourselves from a workflow standpoint, um, to look for insights that like maybe we're not seeing, uh, you know, based off of us reading NPS surveys, police surveys, things like that. So, um, we're using AI to really like up level and amplify.

the amount of information that we're like processing and also disseminating across, you know, our organization and cross functionally. ⁓ I would say that like we're, we're probably using AI more, whether it's chat, GPT, Claude, ⁓ HubGBT, Breeze tools. I would say those four tabs are open on my computer more than like Google is.

So it's just that is what we're really kind of moving towards. ⁓ that is our primary ⁓ source of research. We do a ton of research through AI because it can just those language models can just pull in way more in depth research and things that like we would not be able to find through a regular search or we would, but it would take us weeks. So ⁓

I mean, we're as an event team, we're so excited about using AI and we're always finding different ways to use it. We actually do a weekly global events AI case study where someone from our team ⁓ showcases a business use case and a personal use case for how they used AI that week. ⁓ And we're just like, we're just excited about the tool and getting in there and trying and failing and trying and succeeding and getting better with it.

But the sky's the limit. And I think I'm really eager for a lot of these event tech companies to really start putting it on their roadmap, how they're gonna utilize AI to better personalize our attendees or our customers' experiences. I think that there's so much we can do in the registration process, in the agenda curation process, in the on-site check-in process to make it faster, stronger, and more personalized to our customer.

So I'm eager for a lot of them to adopt those AI tools. I think they will. I think they're all excited to. They're just trying to understand what they can and can't do. ⁓ But yeah, we use it every day.

Younas, CEO vFairs (58:03)
⁓ your favorite event slash events that you personally like to attend.

Kat Tooley (58:08)
⁓ so I have like a lot of different events that I have loved attending. So I had the privilege of not only attending, but working on dub dub DC for a few years. And, I just think it's Apple. They do a phenomenal job with the overall branding, the kind of like fidelity of the events, the consistency of it. I think a lot of.

⁓ kind of those surprise and delight moments that we have at inbound were inspired by dub dub DC. think they do a really great job of like showcasing the event for human, not just the developer part of the human and making sure that they are just having a really amazing time front to back. And obviously like Tim Cook's product.

you know, a showcase is always something that you would want to emulate. So I think that they do a fantastic job. my team personally loves South by Southwest. Like we love it for networking, taking meetings, meeting, like brands do such a great job showing up there, kind of building out experiences that really showcase their product, their vision, you know, what's on the horizon for them for the upcoming year.

very easy to take meetings there to network. So love that from a networking standpoint. I still love going to concerts. I like I think live music is still such an inspiration. I went to like two of the Taylor Swift tour shows had a great time with my daughter. was like intergenerate. It was across generations. I think her you know, from a production standpoint did a phenomenal job. I think all the venues did an incredible job.

with the logistics of moving 100,000 people into a venue safely and like them having a great time. you know, it's those moments that, you know, you talk about with your child saying, remember when, you know, we went to this. So I think that, you know, they do a great job. I also think like this isn't an event per se, but it's experience. we, we are big Disney fans.

over on the global events team. We're always looking at Disney World, Disneyland, like what's Disney doing? We had Josh Tomorrow speak at Inbound last year, which was like such a highlight, I think, for all of us on the events team, because the approach that Disney has towards building experiences and experiential marketing is the best in the business. ⁓ we just found it so interesting, kind of the...

best practices and the filters that they put everything through to make sure that at the end of the day that they are building the best experience possible for their customer. So ⁓ for us, we always look for inspiration from that too. So I would say that those are those are the events. And I'll throw one more out there. I always appreciate Google IOs keynote. It's it's always I always love like kind of hunkering down and watching that online.

Sometimes it gets really wild, but like, that's you do. That's how you get it. Like they are not scared to try new things. So I will say they don't take themselves too seriously. I think their keynote like does is a perfect balance of like, fun, lightheartedness kind of showing the like culture of the company ⁓ with you know, being more serious about the product features, AI tools, kind of data legal.

⁓ security integrity. ⁓ But I love seeing what they do for their Google I. keynote. They always do a great job with that.

Younas, CEO vFairs (1:01:36)
especially the last one was absolutely amazing. one that did it. Yeah. Thank you so much. learned a lot and I am super excited for this particular, you know, just episode to go live. believe that everyone will learn a lot up if someone want to just I know, follow you learn from your experience is linked in the best place for them to go and connect.

Kat Tooley (1:01:58)
LinkedIn is the best for me. It's definitely find me on LinkedIn. Either I'm under Kat Tully or Catherine Tully, my longer first name. So definitely hit me up there. Yeah, VP of marketing at HubSpot ⁓ would love to chat there.

Younas, CEO vFairs (1:02:14)
Thank you so much, Kathleen, for being here today. Thank you everyone for listening in and we'll see you in the next episode.

Kat Tooley (1:02:20)
Thank you.