(1) Provide at least a box lunch. 400+ senior citizens is a lot to unleash on a hotel restaurant at one time - this was a holiday weekend and other area restaurants were closed. (2) People pay a lot of money for this conference and gave up an entire holiday weekend to be here. Every session should be value-add. To that end: (A) Laypeople/expats are maybe OK for the speed-dating portion but their deeper-dive talks were almost always a verbatim repeat - waste of time. (B) The in-depth talks on countries should be the attorneys etc. who can talk knowledgeably about what is required to move there. (C) There was a LOT of duplication (oil&gas, Ronan and Jeff in particular stand out here). Remove the overlap, have them make their spiel only once and use the extra time from their 2nd/3rd/4th spiels to give more time to complex topics like tax, social security, Medicare, finances. 10-15 minutes is not enough for those. (D) We all felt for the Thai expat who is not a public speaker, but that should have been vetted ahead of time. (E) The presentations should be rehearsed to run to time. France’s expat ran long and didn’t care, which gave short shrift to the immigration attorney whose content was actually useful. (F) The slide decks were almost always illegible. Too small font, white text on patterned background, too much text, and then the speaker flipped through them without speaking to them - wasted slide. You need to provide coaching and guidance ahead of time, break up the slides yourself if you have to. (G) The nuts and bolts of moving - 1st speaker had 10 minutes and spent 7 of them on his life story. Otherwise all we learned from him was “be careful.” 2nd speaker was more of a sum-up of what we’d already been told - if it’s “nuts and bolts” of moving, I expected to hear about actually moving stuff overseas - customs? Packing? Things to consider? None of that was covered. (H) Pet session didn’t discuss bringing pets back to the US from overseas - that is different and harder. (I) Medicare presenter was MAGA and it showed. Biden was “crafty” and the OBBB “isn’t going to change Medicare next year” (when everyone but Fox News viewers knows the changes won’t hit till after the midterms). If he’s an expert he should have more to offer than Fox’s talking points. It hurt his credibility. His talk also assumed a level of familiarity with the subject matter that I at least didn’t have - less breezy chitchat and more step-by-step explanation. (J) Jeff’s session on Schengen hopping didn’t actually explain the mechanics of how to hop or what that is accomplishing. (3) Bottom line: IL is in the business of communication. Many of these sessions did not have good communicators. There were useful tidbits scattered throughout, but more rehearsal, more focus on polished and professional presentations with less overlap and repetition would enhance your brand rather than detract from it. I recognize there will be some sales pitches like crypto, oil&gas, RETA, etc, but there was a very heavy emphasis on those and less on information that would be more useful to your attendees.
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