BizBash's 10 Most Innovative Meetings 2022 is sponsored by Quest Events, MyClearText, AccessLOOP, and GTHER.
The basics: Earlier this year, Vox Media brought the hit podcast franchise from hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway to life with the inaugural Pivot MIA event—a cross between a fan fest for listeners and a laid-back tech conference.
Over the course of three days, Feb. 14-16, at Miami's 1 Hotel South Beach and Faena Hotel Miami Beach, Swisher and Galloway chatted with some big names in media, finance, and tech, including Brian Chesky, CEO and co-founder of Airbnb; Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of WeWork; Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO of The New York Times; David M. Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, and more.
The event, produced by Liberty & Co, intended to incite conversations both on and off stage through features like 4K, life-sized holographic displays and even a free-flowing, “choose-your-own-adventure” after-party. 
Kara Swisher and Goldman Sachs CEO David M. Solomon chatted on stage.Photo: Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Vox Media
A conference-slash-retreat: Tara Reilly, vice president of experiential at Vox Media, said that this year’s inaugural event “felt like a good opportunity for us to think about a new type of conference, especially given everything that's been going on in the pandemic, and people looking for a little bit of an escape and also a new version of what work looks like for them. So it felt like a really great way for us to think of this as a combination of a conference, but also a little bit more of a retreat in feel.”
As for the programming, organizers took cues from the tone of the podcast itself, leaning on Swisher and Galloway for their input regarding guest speakers. “What is the point/counterpoint? What are the educational moments? What do we want that thought leadership and the provoking conversations to come out of this event to be and really to create that dynamic?” Reilly queried. "Sometimes that means putting people on the stage that we don't necessarily know where the conversation is going to go. But we really want to make sure that we're giving everyone an opportunity to have a voice on stage.”
Although the event didn’t include a virtual component, the conversations were repurposed as podcast content, which, Reilly said, was a natural fit. 
Attendees enjoyed an interactive dining experience presented by the Hygienic Dress League (HDL), followed by a choose-your-own-adventure-style after-party at the Faena Forum. The custom performance, titled “Museum of the Future,” immersed guests into a commentary on the future of the workplace with a gallery of objects from the “future.”Photo: Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Vox Media
During dinner, guests were seated at long rectangular tables in the center of the space with performers surrounding the perimeter of the room.Photo: Melody Timothee/Getty Images for Vox Media
HDL is an American art duo founded by Dorota and Steve Coy, who are known for creating fleeting projections, guerilla marketing campaigns, video holograms, and installation art critiquing society. The custom performance, titled “Museum of the Future,” immersed guests into a commentary on the future of the workplace with a gallery of objects from the “future.”
Featuring a dystopian tone, guests were seated at long rectangular tables in the center of the space with performers surrounding the perimeter of the room. Guests received notes “from the future” that contained a QR code that led to a special NFT offer. At the after-party, guests were able to wander between different setups, including a customized burlesque show.
“Creating an immersive dinner was such a huge objective for us to make sure that we could create those organic moments where attendees could network and have an experience that they've not had before,” Reilly said. 
Guests could record and stream their own holograms, courtesy of PORTL.Photo: Jason Koerner/Getty Images for Vox Media
Lessons learned: As organizers begin planning next year’s event, Reilly said that adapting to the needs of the attendees and their new way of working is key. “There is this sense that conferences and these types of events in the future will replace some of those one-on-one meetings that they schedule and will replace that work style that we had previously known,” she said. “How do we make this worthwhile for attendees? These live experiences have to be not only engaging during the event, but there has to be a long tail afterward as well. That's really important for us to think about for next year.”
Learn more about our sponsors:
Quest Events is a go-to event rental partner for industry professionals based in North America. With locations across the U.S. and service capabilities in Canada, look no further for effective and efficient pipe and drape services, as well as scenic, decor, and furnishing solutions across the AV, hospitality, corporate, wedding, and exhibition industries.
MyClearText elevates events no matter the format with high-quality human captioning in real-time. Thanks to the team’s 50-plus years of technical expertise, MyClearText captions are produced at the speed of up to 300 words per minute, delivered at 99% accuracy contextually and grammatically.
AccessLOOP is a leader in adding accessibility features to all livestreamed and virtual events (think: human captioning, live sign language, translations in more than 100 languages, and more). It’s a simple workflow—the browser-based software links to your source stream and stream destinations, loops in your preferred providers, and allows you to set your on-screen layout.
GTHER is a next-gen event experience platform that’s designed to evolve with the ever-changing industry by bringing virtual event functionalities into one place. Referred to as “the Swiss army knife of virtual experience platforms,” GTHER allows its users to chat, livestream, stream real-time content, host networking sessions, create a custom-branded space, and so much more.
