Freeman 研究指出“晚报名”已成常态：84% 参会者提前四周已做决定，问题在信息不足而非时机

Skift Take

Event organizers keep asking why attendees are registering late. The real problem may be that they’re asking people to commit before giving them enough information, flexibility, or value to say yes.

Event organizers have spent years worrying about attendees registering closer and closer to the start of their event. Ken Holsinger thinks they should stop.

“We’ve got to quit calling it late registration,” said Holsinger, executive vice president, industry research and insights, Freeman. “It’s not late registration anymore. There’s no such thing as late registration. This is what registration is.”

New Freeman research suggests that attendees may not be making their decisions as late as organizers think. In fact, 84% decide to attend an event at least four weeks before they register.

That raises a more important question: If they’ve already decided to attend, why are they waiting to register?

The answer affects everything from event marketing and cancellation policies to hotel room blocks and the information organizers provide to prospective attendees.

It also suggests organizers may be contributing to the very behavior they've tried to change.

Attendees Need More Information Earlier

For years, people have blamed late registration on changing attendee behavior, shorter planning cycles and younger generations unwilling to commit.

Holsinger sees something else happening.

“The things that are holding people back are not timing; it’s lack of information,” he said.

Attendees increasingly want to understand an event's value before committing. They want to know which speakers will be there, what sessions will be offered, which companies will exhibit, and who they might be able to meet.

But major events often hold back some of that information until much closer to showtime.

Freeman's research found that more than half of attendees begin planning their onsite experience at least three weeks in advance, including identifying sessions, exhibitors, and people they want to meet.

In other words, attendees may mentally attend an event long before they financially commit.

That matters because many aren’t making the purchasing decision alone. Only 18% of attendees surveyed approve their own funding.

For organizers, that means marketing an event isn’t simply about persuading someone that it looks interesting. Prospective attendees may also need enough information to convince a manager that the expense is justified.

“The assumption by many planners is that the majority are being sent by their organization,” Holsinger said. “Instead, the decision is increasingly being made by the individual.”

“We’re advertising to people, not businesses,” he said.

Those individuals need tools to make the case internally, including evidence of what they will learn, which products or services they can evaluate, who they can meet, and how attending could benefit their organization.

Are Cancellation Policies Making the Problem Worse?

Another reason attendees may be reluctant to commit: They have grown accustomed to flexibility everywhere else.

Nearly seven in 10 attendees surveyed said a restrictive cancellation policy would cause them to register closer to the event.

That creates an uncomfortable contradiction for the events industry.

Organizers want attendees to register early because it makes forecasting easier. Hotels and venues also want earlier commitments as they manage room blocks, attrition, and other operational requirements.

Attendees, meanwhile, may see little advantage in committing months in advance to a purchase that could cost thousands of dollars and may be nonrefundable or even nontransferable.

Holsinger contrasts that with other parts of the travel experience.

Airline change fees have largely disappeared from many fares. Hotel reservations often can be canceled relatively close to arrival. Event registration can be considerably less forgiving.

“The attendee looks at that and says, ‘I’m going to register later as a result, because it gives me the flexibility I’m looking for,’” Holsinger said.

The disconnect can extend to hotel room blocks. As hotels and organizers seek earlier room commitments and stricter attrition terms, attendees may find more flexible options outside the official block.

“That’s not an attendee problem,” Holsinger said.

Your Deadline Is Not Their Deadline

The industry’s desire for earlier registration has a basic flaw: it largely benefits the organizer.

“Early registration doesn’t benefit the attendee,” Holsinger said.

Earlier commitments help planners forecast attendance, fill room blocks, and determine food-and-beverage requirements.

As Holsinger put it, early registration can help an organizer figure out “how many pots of coffee you need to order.”

But why should an attendee care?

“Your deadlines are not my deadlines,” he said.

Holsinger argues that if organizers want attendees to commit earlier, they need to offer something valuable in return.

That doesn’t necessarily mean another early-bird discount, either. Research shows fewer than one-quarter of attendees pay the full cost themselves, which limits the impact of a relatively small price break.

Instead, organizers could give early registrants preferential access to experiences that matter: better hotel options, VIP programs, networking lounges, earlier opportunities to connect with other attendees, and special content or access to speakers.

Holsinger calls it WIFM: “What’s in it for me?”

“If you want people to register earlier, if you want them to buy your booth sooner, if you want them to do whatever behavior, you’ve got to show what’s in it for them,” he said.

Stop Waiting for Perfection

When asked what he would stop doing immediately if he controlled a major trade show, Holsinger didn’t hesitate.

“Stop hoarding information.”

Organizers often wait until an agenda is complete, speakers are confirmed, the exhibit floor is full, or registration reaches an impressive number before releasing information.

Holsinger argues for the opposite approach: Release useful information as soon as it becomes available.

“Perfect is the enemy of good,” he said.

That also requires reconsidering what the industry has traditionally used to sell events.

For decades, event marketing has emphasized scale: tens of thousands of attendees, hundreds of exhibitors and enormous show floors.

But prospective attendees increasingly aren’t asking how big an event is.

They are asking: Who will I meet? What will I learn? What problem will this solve? Is it worth my time?

“They’re not looking at the volume, they’re looking at the quality,” Holsinger said.

That makes the industry’s so-called late-registration problem much bigger than registration.

Organizers can keep trying to persuade attendees to fit their timelines. Or they can give them more information, more flexibility, and more compelling reasons to commit.

“If everything — the questions you ask, the research you’re sharing, the prospectus you’re sharing — is about you as the organizer instead of about them, we’re doing it wrong,” Holsinger said.

“It’s not about you. It’s about them.”