Events, Empathy, and the Craft of Connection

I’ve managed events where every minute mattered: from EU science outreach programs (with budgets exceeding €1 million) to international conferences that brought together scientists, policymakers, and citizens in one room. Over the years, I’ve come to realise that the craft of event management isn’t about control, it’s about orchestration. You prepare for chaos, and you learn to make it look like choreography. Managing events for public institutions, research centres, and international consortia taught me that communication isn’t a makeup layer; it’s an act of empathy.

The Geography of Collaboration

My path, from North Africa to Indonesia, from Brussels to San Francisco, has taught me that communication is more than mere translation. It’s empathy expressed through form and tone; it’s what gives flesh to the humanity you want your brand identity to reflect.

This perspective shaped my approach to stakeholder engagement, international logistics, and institutional representation. Whether I was working with scientists on fusion research or curators on heritage projects, the same truth applied: The efforts you put in enhancing clarity and improving hospitality are a form of respect. Our planet has become quite small, and people all over the world are now used to these events; it’s not a rare moment in a career but a banality. This is why your efforts and respect will not go unnoticed.

Event Craft and Brand Identity

Public institutions don’t talk about “brand identity” the way private companies do, yet they have one. Every museum, research institute, or EU project has a voice, an image, and a degree of public trust to protect, enhance, or create. My job is often to make that identity coherent, recognisable, and credible. Working in the public sector taught me discipline: every euro is taxpayer money, every decision is accountable. That sense of responsibility sharpens your craft. It taught me to help institutions shape communication that feels both rigorous and human. The brand, in this sense, is not a logo; it’s a reputation built one interaction at a time.

The Art of Coordination

No event runs perfectly, and that’s the point. The craft lies in how you make it feel seamless. You prepare, then stay on the watchtower until you hand the space back to the organiser, or the conference hall to its landlord. My coordination work combines practical logistics with narrative design. I manage budgets, stakeholders, and deadlines, but I also focus on the intangibles: atmosphere, pacing, and emotional coherence. Because what people remember isn’t the programme, it’s how the day felt. Cross-cultural logistics, multilingual communication, and empathy-based leadership hold everything together when plans shift. You can have the best software, the best budget, the best plan, but the real tool is still the quality of your presence.

Measuring Success

Every event leaves traces, though not all are visible in photos or headlines.

To measure success, I look at the metrics both quantitatively and qualitatively:

• Attendance : it’ not just numbers, but diversity: who came that hadn’t before?

• Feedback:  the tone of comments, the stories visitors tell when they leave.

• Engagement: the quality of online conversations, not only the quantity of likes.

• Impact: what remained after the lights went out: collaborations formed, teachers inspired, research made visible.

These measures help refine the next event, but they also build institutional memory. Evaluation isn’t bureaucracy; it’s part of the storytelling loop that preserves the memory of your audience and nurtures a shared culture within your team.

The Future of Event Management

Technology keeps reshaping the field.

Virtual events now extend reach beyond traditional structures and have become a normalised means of interaction. COVID-19 was a turning point for event culture: an accelerationist moment for event-related technology and software. AR and immersive experiences will soon transform audiences even further, providing more and more intervention means and active roles to all participants.

Sustainability has evolved from an ethical choice into an operational standard. In this changing landscape, event management goes beyond traditional logistics and becomes the art of designing new experiences. Hybrid formats, data-driven insights, and immersive layers all hold potential, but the old recipes still matter: The essential question remains: how do these tools serve our goals of empathy, learning, and dialogue?

Final Thoughts

Strategic event management is no longer just an administrative or project-based skill; it’s cultural engineering. Whether for a museum, a university, or a research consortium, the goal remains the same: to craft experiences that people carry home. Experiences that inform and move them.

The future of communication will belong to those who can combine precision with generosity, data with narrative, and logistics with empathy. That’s the craft I keep refining: one event, one conversation, one shared rhythm at a time.

Co-organizing an ECSITE workshop day, combining both in-person and live-virtual activities.