How to use AI to ace your event planning

You know a topic is trending when they cover it in an episode of South Park. For those who didn’t catch the one about ChatGPT – you’ve surely heard of it elsewhere. This is the new media-dominating Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool with the ability to generate text that sounds eerily as though it were written by a human. The powerful language model was developed by Open AI, and has created quite the stir since it hit the mainstream. 

But of course, it’s not the first AI tool to have come to market and shaken up the way we do things. From image generators like Artssy, to chatbots, translation apps, data analytics tools and facial recognition software – machine learning is everywhere.

So, what does this mean for event planners? In short – it’s great news. We’re officially at a point where AI can be used to streamline operations and save money, rather than being implemented as a cumbersome and expensive novelty factor. Here, we cover some of the coolest ways you can use this kind of tech to create better events more efficiently. 

Let’s take a look 👀👇.

Using AI as a matchmaking tool

As an event planner, manually searching for venues and suppliers can turn out to be one of the most arduous tasks on your to-do list. Today, AI can cut these processes down to a fraction of the time, thanks to the use of intelligent algorithms which show you ideal solutions for your event in seconds. 

These matchmaking engines can also be used to enhance the experience of your attendees’ – especially at larger networking events. Not only can they be used to recommend specific parts of your event’s agenda to individual attendees, they can actually bring people together, based on their interests and behaviour. Impressive.

Using chatbots to offer 24/7 support

Chatbots have been around for a while but they’re getting more and more sophisticated by the day. And they’re an invaluable tool for event planners, as they can provide useful answers to attendees ‘round the clock – whether related to ticket prices, dates, times, disability access, refunds or simply to ask for the Wi-Fi password at your event. Heck, they can even be used to upsell products and experiences. 

Tip: Check out how the new Ticket Tailor Store feature enables you to sell merch and products year-round, even when you don’t have active events.

Another great thing about chatbots is that they can be integrated with messenger apps that people already use – like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and plain old SMS. So you don’t need to rely on attendees downloading your app or visiting your website. Instead, they can get the answers they’re looking for instantaneously, in a way that suits them. 

Using AI for marketing & ideation

This is where things start to get a bit scary. Gone are the days where AI was reserved for the most mundane and repetitive of activities. Now, these intelligence-welding tools are able to produce work that’s complex and creative. 

ChatGPT, for example, can be used to carry out a whole host of tasks – from writing in-depth articles through to generating event agendas, creating promotional emails, suggesting ad one-liners, writing up speaker bios and introductions, drafting website landing page content, and creating social media captions. You, the user, simply provide the tool with a prompt, as well as direction for tone, and you get your content in seconds. 

It’s far from a perfect solution though and the human touch is still very much needed. It’s unlikely at this stage, for example, that ChatGPT will be able to master your brand’s tone of voice – especially if your brand has a unique, clearly defined personality. And the tool can also make a bit of a mess of fact-finding, without a human brain to validate claims scraped from the vast, fake-news-ridden internet. Still, though, it can certainly save you a lot of time and can also help get the creative juices flowing by generating ideas; great for when the blank page taunts you at the start of a campaign. 

Other copywriting tools to check out include Jasper, Writecream, SEO Content Machine, and HypoTenuse AI. 

Tip: Check out the marketing trends all event planners should be aware of for 2023 >

Using AI to analyse data

Understanding your attendees’ likes, dislikes and behaviour is key to successful event planning. Which brings one word to mind: data. With such an abundance of it available thanks to the basically infinite number of data-crunching tools and tech out there – AI can come in very handy when it comes to analysing this stuff. And yep, you guessed it, it can do this in a fraction of the time it takes a human to… and more accurately, at that.

For example, AI can be used to segment your attendees into different groups, so you can get a better handle on the various behavioural patterns of your customer base. It can also be used to make predictions about customer behaviour – which can inform everything from how and when you release tickets, to your marketing strategy and website layout.

Closing thoughts

There’s no doubt that AI is changing the way we work – and, as the human writing this, I can relate to anyone who’s finding the whole thing a little bit… daunting. But the truth is, there’s no tech out there (yet) that can replace the human touch – whether you’re an event planner, graphic designer, social media manager or writer like me. It’s best to look at AI as a tool that can help you be even better at your job, by carrying out the tasks you usually find way too time-consuming or painstaking. This can be especially useful if you work solo or as part of a small team. 

To conclude: we’re advocating that, while AI can be a seriously helpful tool for event planners, nothing can beat the human mind’s capacity for original thought.

Having said that, we can’t help but wonder what ChatGPT would produce if we asked it to write an article about using AI to ace event planning, written in the tone and style of much-loved ticketing platform, Ticket Tailor…

Who knows.