Bag the Bags

If you've been to a number of conferences and conventions, it's likely that you have a collection of logo-ridden, medium-to-low quality bags hanging in a remote area of your closet. Or sitting in a box in your basement. Or both.

Mike Swanson, a member of Microsoft's Tier 1 Events Council, recently blogged about a discovery they made while discussing the greening of one of their events:

In today's meeting, I was fascinated to learn that the hotels we use for our events report finding bags and backpacks that have been left behind by our conference attendees. It made sense when I thought about it: you bring your stuff to the event in last year's backpack, and because you receive a brand new backpack at this year's event, you "upgrade" and leave the old bag behind since it won't easily fit in your luggage.

Event hosts looking to build sustainability into their practices should bag the bags. If they do, they might even see another benefit beyond cutting down on waste.

Meeting Strategies Worldwide posted yesterday that event planners who ask attendees to bring their own bags (or, BYOB) are actually enhancing the on-site networking opportunities for those attendees:

Because, what is actually happening is participants are showing up with:

-Bags from earlier conferences,
-Bags from organizations they belong to in their personal lives,
-Bags they have imprinted with personal messages such as “Ask me about…”,
-Bags from their favorite vacation spot,

And it has become a whole social networking game that really has participants enrolled.

The more personal bags let the attendees make a statement (and most of us like to make statements, don't we?) and are actually functioning as conversation-starters.

Has anyone else tried this (as an attendee or as a host)?

Comments

[Shannon]

I agree that bags are unnecessary. I've seen a few different ways of handling it. It's a tricky subject because sponsorship of registration bags is still highly coveted for large conferences.
In some instances, I've seen bag drop-off stations in the hotel lobbies -- the bags are then either recycled or donated to charities who support low-income people in finding higher wage jobs.
Another tactic, when our company considers sponsoring the bag for a conference we ask the association to switch to a organic cotton or recycled canvas tote. One association even included a brief snippet in their reg materials reminding people that the bag is perfect for groceries. Because it's a pliable material, it's easier for people to pack, even in their carry-on. And, an added bonus for the association, it's much cheaper than the traditional laptop/briefcase/messenger bags.

[AlliG]

Shannon--you really bring up a great point with the sponsorships and I like the approach you have taken with the canvas bags.

One thing I have considered is the possibility of having a "paperless sponsor," which would get its name on a reusable jump drive that has the conference materials loaded to it. Of course, you still lose the future impact the bags offer when others see people using them.

Or, if we wanted to do away with the jump drive, too, the "paperless sponsor(s)" could get top billing in all e-marketing efforts, including a featured section that discloses statistics and information on the impact of going paperless (made possible by the sponsors).

Could something like that lure sponsors?