Quest Shares Pro Tips on Leveraging a Host City as an Event Theme -

When it comes to choosing a host city, some event marketers are taking a cue from the real estate industry’s No. 1 priority: location, location, location. Consider Quest Software, which this year presented NXT, its annual internal sales kickoff, in Boston at the historic Park Plaza Hotel. The locale wasn’t just selected out of convenience or budget; it was the perfect place to bring to life Quest’s core messaging around honoring its legacy while celebrating the future of software innovation.

Between its rich history and position as one of the U.S.’s most advanced cities, Boston became the centerpiece of the aesthetic and engagement strategy at NXT, with an edgy, modern twist on classical artworks serving as the foundation of the event design. One example? The conference took place across the street from Boston Commons, the oldest public park in the country, so Quest reimagined statues from the Commons and presented them in print and digital art across breakout rooms, general sessions and throughout the hotel’s public spaces.

“Using the host city to anchor [an event] is such a great idea,” says Jennifer LuPiba, director-product marketing at Quest Software. “It really creates an immersive experience. There were a lot of grumblings from the sales going into Boston in February. But we got a great week of weather and it was also like, this is a cool city; there’s so much history. Some of the people that were able to come in ahead of time and tour the city were just blown away. So I think it should be considered, especially if it’s such a historical city with something very unique going on there because it continues to build that excitement.”

For more intel on leveraging a host city as an event theme, we sat down with Jennifer LuPiba, director-product marketing at Quest Software, for her top tips. Here’s the lowdown. (Agency: edgefactory)

Map Back to Event Messaging

Selecting a host city as even event theme requires a little soul-searching. It’s critical to consider your brand’s values, personality and the key messaging you’re aiming to deliver at the event when vetting locations. For Quest, Boston was a prime city for communicating its vision for celebrating the company’s history while embracing progress in a way that invigorated its sales teams.

At the NXT opening “Welcome pARTy,” the ballroom was transformed into a technological spectacle that blended renowned artworks with contemporary design through projection-mapped canvases and framed artworks that were animated to create moving portraits. Think: George Washington reaching out of his frame to interact with another painting, or the ballroom ceiling, which featured a famous Sistine Chapel artwork, reimagined with Adam reaching out for a hamburger. To boot, classical music was remixed with a modern twist designed to get attendees dancing.

“It was incorporating the historical feel of the hotel and the history of Boston, but also making it NXT, taking those pictures of Ben Franklin and doing some spray paint across his eyes and some fun phrase that references Quest and the direction we’re going,” says LuPiba. “… We’ve taken all of the experience that we have as a software company and we’re continuing to iterate on it. So I liked that visual representation of the history, the experience we bring, but it’s new, it’s fresh, and that meshed well with what we were trying to accomplish from a messaging perspective.”

Keep Branding Consistent

Every inch of the Boston Park Plaza Hotel was covered in Quest’s reimagined artwork and event décor, with experiences and engagements to match. But at the same time, it was important to ensure that the brand itself wasn’t lost in the mix. It’s a bit of a delicate dance.

“[Boston] was definitely a big part of the that overall theme, and anchoring it, but it’s [about] still keeping an element of NXT that they remember,” LuPiba says. “We’re still incorporating our brand colors. So there’s still kind of a familiar feel, but it’s new. It’s funky. And I think NXT is a great place to do that… This was a point in time where we’re all together and we can do something fun without it conflicting with our branding.”

Weave the Theme into Every Touchpoint

Consistency is critical to carrying out an event theme, and that makes incorporating the motif into every aspect of the show paramount. At NXT, “everything was branded, every square inch of the walls, even the revolving doors,” LuPiba says.

During the larger meeting, attendees split up into business units for off-site team-building experiences in the evenings. But leaving the venue didn’t mean leaving the theme behind. During an off-site food hall event, Quest enlisted a Revolutionary War-style drum and fife band, dressed in full era-appropriate garb, to greet attendees with live music as they walked in.

And during the opening general session, before the ceo addressed the audience, a live classical violinist took the stage, surrounded by animated NXT-branded pop-art imagery. Utlimately, she was joined by a guitarist who rocked an electric guitar, and played to an electronic remix of Bach’s “Toccata.”

“Everywhere you looked, it was so immersive. It was that immersing into that brand, into that idea, that legacy,” she says. “It’s a good feeling for an employee that’s coming in. And it’s not like we just slapped together a couple things on the wall and put a projector at the front. This was very well thought out. We’re investing in this event because we’re investing in them.”