Tahira Endean, head of program at IMEX knows it’s the small, intentional touches at meetings that have the greatest impact.
During a session at the recent Skift Meetings Forum 2025 in New York City, she spoke about how, after most events, attendees experience an afterglow — the direct result of how they were made to feel. The excitement of the venue and the crowd, the way they are greeted at registration, the food, the conversation: All of these make an impression on what she calls “the remembering self.”
But little of that is permanent. “Those feelings will go on from about 8 a.m. until 7 or 8 p.m.,” she said. “After that, how much of the day are people going to remember? Not very much.”
Building Memories
She advised event planners to focus on the remembering self. One way is to build in ample space for connecting, such as roundtables where people can break from the bigger group and have more intimate conversations.
“So when they leave for the day, they’ve not only heard something that’s interesting, but they’ve had an opportunity to assimilate it because they’ve had a conversation with somebody who anchored that feeling.”
She called on planners to build joy into their events. “If you don’t, people aren’t going to come back next year.”
For example, at a SITE meeting she attended, the planners created a pub on the main stage. The destination host and SITE’s president donned aprons, and there was a bar and someone playing piano. “All the sponsors were invited to come up and we had a big singalong. That was our closing session — a massive, great end moment.”
It’s her role to build such memorable moments into the agenda at IMEX America, which will take place October 6-9 in Las Vegas. “We focus on balancing personal and professional education. There will be a Resilience Room for neurodivergent attendees, and the Circadian Cove, which is designed around people’s circadian rhythms.
“Anyone who’s been to IMEX knows it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” she said. “So if you can take 15 minutes to stretch, or write in a journal, or do push ups, you are going to have a different experience. It’s like a 15-minute reset.”
It all comes down to the audience and what’s important to them. “Think beyond just the logistics,” Endean said. “Think about the cracks in between, and how you can make those the best part of the experience.”
