Omar Zenhom says the biggest event mistake is inviting the wrong people. One negative participant can kill the room's chemistry and stop people from sharing openly. He recommends curating ruthlessly: the audience itself is the product.
I wanna share with you critical mistakes you wanna avoid when it comes to running a live event. And listen, I know because I made all those mistakes and I wanna share with you what to do instead so that you are successful. The number one mistake, having the wrong people in the room. Your job is to curate the room, is to curate the people because that is actually the value of the event. Not just talking about the attendees, the speakers have to be aligned. The sponsors have to resonate with the audience. Now, I got this wrong in other past events where I had a wrong person, and that one person actually changed the whole chemistry of the room. They were quite negative, not very productive, not very vulnerable, not sharing any experiences or even mistakes they made in their career. And it kind of brought the whole tone down. And I realized, oh, I gotta be more selective. Are they somebody that has the same spirit, the same attitude that we want to have in the room. So curate ruthlessly because that is the product.
