By: Diane Lyerly
Guest Blog #3
In the event industry, as in society in general, hot trends pop up seemingly overnight and take the industry by storm. The reasons for hot trends are myriad: political, environmental, current events or any one of many other reasons. These trends become all the rage. Everyone wants to incorporate them in their events. These hot trends morph in one of two ways: either they die a spectacularly fast death or they go from being a trend to being a staple in business.
One example of the latter, is the green movement. Two years ago, every event was trying to be green (think environmentally clean, not the color). Every industry wide meeting was about being green. By last year, the individual event holders had jumped on the band wagon and they wanted their events to be green. This translated in many ways. In the rental industry it was a boon for the tabletop products because people wanted dishes that would be used again. (think recycle!) In linens, brides began requesting neutral colors such as soft brown, ivory & sage green. They wanted linens with texture similar to burlap. Never mind that none of these linens is “green”. This was just how the brides interpreted the green movement. Now “green” is not really a trend. It has worked its way into being a basic, or staple way of doing business. The event holders now expect that every “green” way of creating the event is being utilized by their planner, caterer, rental company, etc.
Some other examples of hot trends that became basics after the furor for them died down are turquoise jewelry in the mid-first decade of the 21st century, mini skirts in the late 1960’s and exercise & personal training after Dr Kenneth Cooper’s books finally fell off of the bestseller lists. All of these formerly hot trends are now regular part of the fabric of our society.
Examples of trends that skyrocket to success and then disappear just as fast as they appeared are Pet Rocks, fat-free diets, & The Religious Right.
A very hot trend right now is social networking. Event holders can find out so much information by logging onto sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Social networking offers a plethora of free information to create any event. It also is a quick way to get personal reviews of businesses the event holder may be planning to hire.
Current hot trends in events are flaming desserts, s’mores bars, and the colors purple & silver. Colors themselves often follow fashion and are usually a year or two behind fashion. Looking at women’s fashions right now, it would be easy to predict that in the next year or so yellow, blue & green will all be popular colors for brides.
Event trends that are no longer trendy and need to be retired are Candy Bars & Bling. These have been done over and over and it is time to move on.
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