How To Prioritise Attendee Wellness At Corporate Events

Thought leadership
With wellness growing as a trend for event planners in 2024, here’s how organisers can create a wellbeing focused event agenda. 

According to the Global Wellness Institute, wellness is a multi-dimensional state that encompasses, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, social and environmental health. And, this isn’t just a social media trend …

Consumers care deeply about wellness, and this interest is only growing. 79 percent say they believe that wellness is important, and 42 percent consider it a top priority. In fact the wellness market is estimated at $1.5 trillion, as consumers invest in products with broad ranging benefits across sleep, nutrition, fitness, mindfulness, and health.

As guests and employees alike are increasingly seeking to prioritise wellness, organisers have been responding successfully to the trend and moving away from inherent challenges that negatively impact event experiences and are avoided by attendees such as content fatigue and carbon footprint.

Take IMEX Frankfurt for example, who have implemented a Be Well At IMEX’ campaign encouraging attendees to look after themselves, and ultimately leave the experience feeling positive and refreshed — looking forward to attending next year! This included a quiet lounge, a 5km run, and a wellbeing points challenge.

For corporate and B2E events in particular, attendee wellbeing will be crucial to a successful experience. With an average 9–5 working employee spending 1/​3rd of their life behind a desk, an event should be treated as an opportunity to reward, boost, and give back to employees. As more off-sites are organised than ever, 60% of away day enquiries also include a request to incorporate mindfulness and wellbeing elements.

Here’s how to weave wellness into your event:

Venue choice

The venue sets the tone for your event. Nobody wants to spend their day sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair staring at an LED screen in a dark room with no sunlight. 

To create a better attendee experience, start with getting to the event itself. Opt for a central venue location that is easy to get to via public transport or even walking and cycling so attendees can travel safely and comfortably. Provide guidance on getting there via your event website for some extra ease for attendees and inspiration on how to travel sustainably.

A healthy event environment should have natural daylight rather than artificial lighting, outdoor space where attendees can head to for breaks for some fresh air, sufficient space so attendees don’t feel overcrowded, and additional rooms away from the main event for break outs and quiet spaces.

In addition, you can add in plants throughout the venue, which can have a powerful impact on mood and stress levels within minutes.

If you are providing hotel rooms to your attendees, consider choosing one with access to spa, health club facilities, or outdoor activities — and give out treatment vouchers in swag bags. This allows attendees that are travelling to maintain a routine and look after themselves (there’s a reason sleep tourism is becoming a thing).

Nutritional and alcohol-free catering

The complementary food at events is often seen as a highlight but guests want to eat healthier. Trying to win them over with an overindulgence in sugary goodies can cause a slump in energy, discomfort, and reduced concentration.

To instead boost and sustain mood and energy offer hydration stations and an energising menu with fresh fruits and veggies and high protein bites (going plant-based also supports environmental health).

In terms of health, the shift to mindful drinking and the decrease in alcohol consumption has been clear in the events industry encouraging planners to implement alcohol-free options.

Bite-sized content

Ever wonder why TED-talks are 18 minutes long? It’s because this is one unit of optimal attention span. When we are interested and engaged by listening to a speaker, our attention span it’s about this long but it’s even less if we aren’t engaged (only a few minutes) and after this time our focus is depleted and will continue to dwindle until we literally aren’t listening.

One way to combat this is a balanced agenda that is split into varied presentations, each focusing on different central ideas, and is interspersed with regular breaks to digest lots of information in a short space of time.

Just sitting and listening for long periods of time isn’t particularly natural (or energising) so promoting low-pressure social interaction through ice-breakers, networking areas, and interactive sessions can create an incredibly more positive environment. Q&As and break outs can help keep engagement and interaction high and live feedback (such as virtual reactions) can track this.

The rap-up’ at Canva Create was a perfect example of creating more entertaining and organic content to resonate and get the attention of your audience.

Wellness Experiences

Incorporating workshops such as guided meditation, breathing exercises, drumming, tapping sessions, and even terrarium making, can be a perfect way to unwind and destress after a busy schedule as well as collaborate as a team.

In particular, opportunities for physical activity and movement such as yoga, stretching and guided walks can be one of the easiest ways to improve wellbeing. With speaker sessions and keynote addresses, some time away from sitting is key to release feel-good endorphins, increase blood flow, and maintain active brains. 

If you don’t have time for a dedicated session, storing a short takeaway stretching guide for attendees in your event app and sending reminders on this throughout the day reminds attendees to take a flexible approach to their wellbeing.


In Summary

Event wellness has the potential to make a real and important impact from hosting people and planet sessions and offering resources and support on mental health to providing stress-free and inclusive environments to neurodiverse guests. 

Wellness is a holistic approach that allows organisers to leave attendees feeling good and demonstrate a positive message about their values. 

As one of the UN’s Social Development Goals, Health and wellness is a measurable and responsible goal event organisers can work towards as we continue to prioritise people and planet. 

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