Last week I had the joy of documenting Synergy - The Retreat Show in Mexico on its social channels.
It was fabulous to get out of my home office and work in such an inspiring, breathtaking setting at the wellness resort Palmaia The House of Aia.
What Synergy is doing is unique and I think they’ve discovered how trade shows should really be done. It’s an event for retreat and wellness travel leaders and venues, and it’s far from a stuffy exhibition hall.
It’s a retreat for the retreat industry, set in a gorgeous wellness resort where attendees can immerse themselves in exciting emerging wellness experiences, alongside talks, workshops and meetings.
I manage social media channels for Synergy - The Retreat Show on a daily basis and my work at the show involved creating daily highlight reels, attendee testimonials, live stories and engaging with user-generated content shared by event attendees.
Highlights included creating an Instagram reel of Charlotte Church of The Dreaming's awe-inspiring sound journey performance (close to 20K views so far - see below) and capturing a Sanctum movement class.
The activity made me reflect on how there are many trade shows and other events that fail to use social media in a way that gives a live feel of the event while it's happening.
Using social media in this way can showcase the event to non-attendees and generate a feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out) to help generate even more interest and attendance when the next event happens.
I also found that attendees loved to see and engage with the live content I was sharing and it encouraged them to share their own posts about the event.