Happy Monday everyone! We hope you had a great weekend.

As always we are helping ease you back into the working week with a round-up of last week’s main event industry news, including any interesting stories and insights that can help you improve yourself, your company, or your events.

Enjoy!

EVENT NEWS

The Event Trends That Will Shape Your 2017: Over 50 Expert Predictions [Eventbrite Blog]

A lot of us are finished with 2016 and already in 2017 mode. To find out more about changes we can expect in the event industry next year, we asked over 50 event experts ‘What one trend, challenge or opportunity are you predicting will impact the events industry most in 2017?’. Click through above to see what they said.

Ebay to open world’s first ’emotion-powered’ pop-up [Event Magazine]

Last week, eBay hosted the  world’s first emotion-powered pop-up. eBay collaborated with US-based emotion technology company Lightwave to install the facial coding technology and ambient biometric sensors, which identify and record which products provoke the strongest feelings of giving. Visitors entered biometric booths, as well as receiving personalised emotion reports, to hone in on the items they connect with.

MARKETING

The Whisky Exchange increased prices on Black Friday: Did it work? [eConsultancy]

Whilst most companies were busy slashing their prices for Black Friday, The Whisky Exchange did the exact opposite and put their prices up. You may be wondering why they did this? And, more importantly, did it work? Find out all about it in this eConsultancy post.

TECHNOLOGY

While We Weren’t Looking, Snapchat Revolutionized Social Networks [The New York Times]

If you’re still not convinced that you should be using Snapchat, we suggest you read this great report, which dissects some assumptions we make on who uses Snapchat, as well as discussing how Snapchat has revolutionised social networks.

Facebook wants to teach you all about how AI works [Mashable]

‘Artificial Intelligence’ has been a hot topic this year, especially with the ground-breaking news that Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft have come together to create the Partnership on AI. You’ve probably had some kind of contact with AI without even noticing, which is why Facebook want to educate you on the topic.

They released six videos walking the viewer through the basic steps of a simple AI system. From machine learning to neural nets, they cover the basics to bring you up to speed. If you haven’t got time to watch them, this post provides a summary of what the videos discuss.

PRODUCTIVITY

How to Get Great Event Photography On Your Phone [Eventbrite blog]

Visually depicting the look and feel of your event is so important for effective marketing, but professional photography is one of the line items organisers are least likely to invest in.

When we conducted our 2016 Pulse Report, we found that nearly 40% of all event organisers spend nothing at all on video and photography. So we decided to share some top tips on taking great snaps using your phone, as well as sharing some must-have apps and tools to help you out.

How to Turn a Bad Day Around [HubSpot]

If you find yourself having a lot of bad days, whether it’s from negative co-workers, a lack of recognition, or generally poor work-life balance, HubSpot have created an infographic to help you turn that bad day around.

IN OTHER NEWS…

Cadbury’s release #Cadvent campaign soon after it is found they are dropping Fairtrade, people’s reactions follow.

Controlling any company announcements that could receive bad press is essential when you have key marketing campaigns about to be released. Cadbury’s found this out the hard way during their #Cadvent campaign, as many people took to comment on their recent announcement of dropping Fairtrade.

Their sponsored ad on Twitter (above) carries with it a chain of messages criticising the company. Cadbury’s have responded to each message but for a lot of people, it’s too little too late. There is a lesson to be learnt here. Control your announcements and prepare for possible criticism, be aware of any campaigns that follow that could antagonise your audience further.