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The annual Thomson Reuters SYNERGY conference event showcases industry leading content and expertise to enable Thomson Reuters’ Corporates Legal, Tax & Accounting and Risk customers to uncover near and long-term growth opportunities. In November 2021, SYNERGY was the first hybrid conference in our 41 years of holding this event. We held the live portion of the meeting at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, TN.
With every intention to focus on producing an in-person event, due to the global pandemic, our strategy had to shift from a “nice to have” virtual pieces to generate more revenue, to a “must have” to maintain our thought leadership position, inform on Thomson Reuters product strategy and provide sales opportunities. The team produced the hybrid event in the same lead time as previous years – an amazing feat considering the challenge the business had presented them: two back-to-back events on two separate platforms each, in half the time with no additional headcount.
Our plan was simple: what no-fuss, valuable engagement opportunities could we offer customers to take a breath, connect with their colleagues in the industry again, and be inspired by experts applying real-life concepts to new ways of working?
We introduced a broadcast booth that engaged live and virtual attendees with content from our product teams, sponsors, and Thomson Reuters leaders. Our new virtual platform, Notified, gave virtual attendees access to interact with other attendees online.
We included a Women in Tech session and several high-profile guest speakers to round out the events. We had Linda Bernardi (former CIO at IBM), Mike Walsh (CEO of Tomorrow) and Jason Dorsey (Generation and Trends Researcher) join us to speak about the impact of digital/AI/Edge Computing on business. We also facilitated topical roundtable discussions to foster community engagement and networking between customers.
In addition, we introduced the Innovation Theater, that allowed Thomson Reuters staff to provide more detailed, product-based demos. To further delight our customers, we held a private concert with Dustin Lynch and Crystal Gayle at the Grand Old Opry. To be able to offer a social setting with Covid measures under the current global circumstances, this was an achievement in itself!
SYNERGY 2021 presented new challenges for Thomson Reuters. Despite the pressure of delivering four events in two weeks, we hosted one of our strongest events to date, with a total of 4104 attendees:
• Tax Professionals: 883 in-person, 1375 virtual = 2258 attendees
• Corporates: 583 in-person, 1263 virtual = 1846 attendees
62% of attendees reported they plan to attend SYNERGY 2022 in person compared to 50% in 2020, while 20% plan to attend virtually in 2022. Attendees also rated the conference 4/5 as valuable to them and their work.
There is often the pressure to offer more ‘wow’ in an event experience placing strain on budget, staffing and resources. Mindful of pandemic challenges and virtual fatigue, our aim was to deliver a meaningful streamlined event that focused on our customer.
The team had many great learnings from the hybrid model such as keeping in-person and virtual engagement activities simple, increasing thought leadership content, offering more influential speakers in the program, areas which we are planning to bring forward.
