Event Marketing: Redefined

Hosted by Matt Kleinrock

Business Marketing

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Episodes

216

Latest episode

Oct 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

Welcome to the go-to resource for event marketers. With each episode, we dive deep into the world of event marketing, bringing in industry leaders to discuss trends, strategies, and success stories. We're not just talking about creating trade show booths; we're exploring how to craft success stories that drive tangible results. We believe trade shows and events are not just a cost of doing business but an essential sales and marketing strategy, and have the potential to propel your brand growth and significantly impact your bottom line. We understand the industry can be complex, with challenges around under-resourced staff, budget allocation, and much more. That's why we're here—to provide guidance and expertise so you can do better, be better, and expand your career. Join us on this journey to get results, grow your brand, and experience the revolution of event marketing! “Event Marketing: Redefined'' is hosted by trade show and event marketing expert, Matt Kleinrock, CEO of Rockway Exhibits + Events.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 28, 2026Episode 19848 min

EP 198 | When to Push Back, When to Pivot: The Event Leadership Debate

You’ve probably been in the meeting where you knew it was time to push back, but doing so carried its own risk. Or the moment mid-event when something changed and you had to decide whether to hold the line or pivot. What we get into: ✅ A Sales Kickoff plan Bethany challenged because the cheaper option still didn’t solve the experience problem. ✅ Jeanine’s unconventional booth strategy and what makes a bold idea worth defending before it’s proven. ✅ Two different approaches to handling the unexpected: Bethany assigning ownership in the moment, and Jeanine preparing her team in advance to pivot calmly. Jeanine Charity of FARO Technologies and Bethany Gustafson of ACTIVE Network bring two different paths to event leadership and decision-making authority. Together, they unpack how to know when you have enough evidence to challenge a recommendation, when a bold idea deserves your backing, and how preparation helps you pivot without creating panic for your team. They also get into what happens after the decision, including how strong judgment, documented lessons, and a track record of good calls can build stakeholder trust over time. Take the conversation into your next high-stakes event or stakeholder decision and pressure-test the call before you walk into the room. ---------------------------------- Connect with Jeanine Charity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcharity/ Connect with Bethany Gustafson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethany-gustafson/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://eventmarketingredefined.com

October 14, 2026Episode 19748 min

EP 197 | Can One Event Change a Company's Trajectory?

Vendoroo went into its biggest industry event this year needing to reverse a real downward trend in momentum. Pablo Gonzalez breaks down the “lightning strike” strategy they built around it. What we get into: ✅ The “lightning strike” framework: one narrative, one attendee realization, and every touchpoint built around it ✅ How a unified event narrative can shape messaging, booth design, and the attendee experience ✅ Why performing well on the show floor isn’t the same as earning real credibility with leadership Pablo Gonzalez, Chief Evangelist at Vendoroo, joins Matt Kleinrock to explore what changes when an event has to do more than perform well on the show floor. At Vendoroo’s biggest industry show this April, the focus wasn’t simply on showing up with a bigger presence. Pablo walks through how a single, deliberate narrative can connect messaging, booth design, and the attendee experience around one idea people actually remember. If your biggest event is currently a line item instead of a strategic bet, this conversation might change how you approach it. ---------------------------------- Connect with Pablo Gonzalez LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablotheconnector/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://eventmarketingredefined.com

September 23, 2026Episode 19645 min

EP 196 | Your Event ROI Is a Sales Problem

Event ROI keeps getting blamed on the event team, but the real breakdown often starts once leads land in sales' hands. This episode traces exactly where that handoff falls apart, and who should actually own it. What we get into: ✅ The sales handoff moment where most event pipeline quietly dies ✅ Burnout as a structural failure, not a personal one ✅ A one-line test for whether your team is actually ready to exhibit Event marketers are asked to prove revenue impact from programs they don't fully control, and this episode goes straight at that tension. Matt is joined by Annalee Addesso (Global Experiential Marketing Manager at Caterpillar) and Erin Lease Hall (Director, Event Strategy and Experience at DrFirst). Erin's take is blunt: marketing can hand over the numbers, but if sales doesn't track or follow up on the leads, "our hands are tied." Annalee adds the leadership layer, describing executives who love events but keep asking teams to do "less with more." Together they dig into what it actually takes to turn event ROI into a shared business metric instead of a line item event teams defend alone. If your post-event debriefs keep landing on the event team, this episode makes the case for asking a different question first.

September 9, 2026Episode 19541 min

EP 195 | Running Global Events with a Small Team and Bigger Expectations

Your CMO wants strategy. Your trade show is in three weeks. Your team just lost a headcount. Sound familiar? Ashley Keating runs the entire events and field marketing function at CallMiner: trade shows across the US, Canada, UK, and now Central Europe after a 2025 acquisition, plus webinars, field accelerators, and a newly expanded multi-city customer conference. All of it with a team of three. In this episode, she gets specific about the tension most senior event marketers live in daily: expected to think at the CMO level, but still deep in execution. She and Matt talk about how that reality shapes everything—who you hire, how you measure success, and how you keep your seat at the table when budgets are scrutinized. Learn: ✅ What "agile" actually means when hiring for a lean events team and why traditional event experience can work against you ✅ The field accelerator model: how Ashley uses intimate, targeted micro-events to move key accounts and protect her budget ✅ Why strict pre- and post-event process is the only thing standing between your program and a budget cut Stop running events. Start running outcomes. ---------------------------------- Connect with Ashley Keating LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeating7/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined

August 26, 2026Episode 19438 min

EP 194 | The One Line That Turns Order-Takers Into Advisors

Most event marketers know when a stakeholder's direction is off. Few have the line that turns that instinct into influence. In this episode: ✅ The strategy session Felicia interrupted to ask one question, and how it reshaped the entire agenda ✅ A hard number versus a changed conversation, and why she'll defend the second one to a room full of CFOs ✅ Her exact sentence for challenging stakeholder direction without starting a fight Felicia Kaban, Director of Event Experience & Production at Kenvue, spent years going along with stakeholder direction even when her instincts said no. That changed once she started asking a harder question in planning meetings: what are we actually trying to change? She tells Matt about the leadership strategy session that forced that shift, why she measures event ROI in decision speed instead of dashboard metrics, and the specific line she now hands to event professionals who want to move from stakeholder alignment as a checkbox to stakeholder alignment as a strategy. Tune in if your next planning meeting needs fewer order-takers and more advisors. ---------------------------------- Connect with Felicia Kaban LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feliciakaban/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://eventmarketingredefined.com

August 19, 202632 min

EP 193 | Your Event Isn't the Problem. Leadership Is.

Your event wasn't the problem. Ask any event marketer to be honest, and they'll tell you exactly how they'd build a stronger show if they had the budget, the runway, and the right people in the room saying yes at the right time. But shrinking resources, last minute executive pivots, and stakeholders who show up late with big opinions are quietly wrecking programs that were never broken to begin with. This conversation echoes what senior leaders spent two days saying out loud at Event Marketing Congress 2026. In this episode, Matt Kleinrock and Coty Adams get honest about: ✅ Why leadership keeps chasing the shiny object instead of sticking to a plan ✅ The sales and marketing gap nobody wants to name out loud ✅ Who actually owns event decisions and why the answer is usually nobody It's the conversation event marketers wish they could have with their own leadership team. Tune in live August 5 at 1 PM ET. Bring your own war stories, we're reading comments live. -------------------- Connect With Us Matt Kleinrock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Coty Adams: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cotykadams/ Our Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show here: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined

August 5, 2026Episode 19230 min

EP 192 | Stop Measuring Customer Events Like Lead Gen

Customer events are not prospecting campaigns, so measuring them by leads alone misses their real business impact. The better questions are whether customers become more loyal, engage more deeply, and strengthen their relationship with your brand. Inside this episode: ✅ The customer-event metrics that reveal more than attendance and satisfaction scores ✅ How attendee-versus-nonattendee comparisons can uncover revenue, retention, and participation trends ✅ Why host books, peer interaction, and voice-of-customer sessions lead to more meaningful connections Ashley Claborn (Senior Manager, Events & Incentives at Lennox Residential HVAC) joins Matt to explain how customer feedback, attendee data, and thoughtful interactions can reveal an event’s influence on loyalty, retention, and business growth. From comparing attendees with similar non-attendees to preparing internal teams with meaningful customer insights, this conversation offers a smarter way to define success. ---------------------------------- Connect with Ashley Claborn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyclaborn/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined

July 29, 2026Episode 19111 min

EP 191 | Stop Asking For More Budget. Start Asking For This.

Your VP asks why events deserve more budget next year. You could defend every line item. Or ask for something else entirely. Matt says fighting for more money is usually the wrong fight. Alignment first, results second, budget third. That reframe is what separates event marketers who get taken seriously from the ones stuck justifying their existence every cycle. Part 2 of our summer Q&A series covers what event marketers actually lose sleep over: booth psychology, credibility with leadership, and which KPIs are real versus which just look good in a slide deck. Still poolside. Still surprisingly tactical. ✅ What Matt actually watches on a show floor once the booth design stops holding his attention ✅ Why leading metrics tell you the story while you're still in it, lagging metrics only tell you the ending ✅ The one detail from post-show debriefs most teams skip: pairing the numbers with what sales actually felt in the room Oh, and the hot dog versus hamburger debate. Some things matter as much as pipeline. ---------------------------------- Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined

July 15, 2026Episode 19032 min

EP 190 | Your Booth Is Only as Good as Your People

What's the point of a stunning trade show booth if nobody inside it knows why they're there? Casey Smalley, Director of Global Events at Avetta, joins Matt Kleinrock to make the case that the smartest line in your event budget isn't the build. It's the briefing. In this episode: ✅ Why treating booth staffing as a "scheduling exercise" quietly costs you pipeline, not just optics ✅ The one trait that separates a floor-ready team member from a liability (it has nothing to do with product knowledge) ✅ Inside a secret shopper program that graded booth staff posture with photos and why it worked Most event teams obsess over booth design, tech, and swag, then leave staffing decisions to the final 48 hours, if they think about them at all. Casey brings 20 years in event marketing to explain why that gap is more expensive than most marketers realize. She and Matt swap stories from the floor: a secret shopper program that once graded booth staff on posture, and the beautifully built booth with nobody working it. What surfaces is something every senior marketer already suspects but rarely says out loud. Attendees forget the screens. They remember the humans. Tune in to find out what actually separates a booth that converts from one that just looks good. ---------------------------------- Connect with Casey Smalley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywalkersmalley/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined

July 1, 2026Episode 18944 min

EP 189 | Safe Doesn’t Sell: Why Smart Event Marketers Create Demand

Too many events still rely on the same booths, the same activations, and the same “safe” playbook. The result: experiences people walk past, forget, or never meaningfully engage with in the first place. Ashley Nuske, Director of Field & Event Marketing at Goldcast (now Cvent), joins Matt Kleinrock for a candid conversation about what’s broken in event marketing today and why safe strategies rarely produce standout results. Ashley shares how she approaches audience-first event design, builds experiences around business outcomes instead of assumptions, and pushes teams beyond repetitive execution. The episode explores everything from creative field event concepts to executive buy-in, experiential trends, and why immersive experiences matter even more in an AI-saturated world. Learn: ✅ What stale event execution actually looks like in today’s market ✅ How thoughtful personalization creates stronger audience connection and recall ✅ Why event marketers need market awareness, not just internal opinions, to innovate Tune in for a practical conversation on how modern event marketers can create experiences people actually remember and results leadership can actually measure. ---------------------------------- Connect with Ashley Nuske LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleynuske-expmarketing/ Connect with Matt Kleinrock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/ 🚨 Register for the show: https://tinyurl.com/EventMarketingRedefined

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