OTT Executive Summit Postponed; Will Revolutionize the Post-Pandemic Event Model in 2023

Westford, MA. September 3, 2022. — Citing the desire to “blow up” and completely redefine the post-pandemic conference and event experience, Trender Research announced today that the 10th Annual OTT Executive Summit (www.OTTexec.com) will be postponed until 2023.

Brian Mahony (www.linkedin.com/in/brianjmahony), CEO of Trender Research and President of the 50,000+ strong OTT Executive Community including the largest OTT group on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1994425), provided several reasons for this big change:

“I want to thank our Advisory Board for helping us think through what we originally thought was a difficult decision but turned out to be an easy choice to make. In short, we want to completely overhaul the post-pandemic format, value, and experience for our executive level attendees, speakers, and sponsors. After almost a decade of providing an engaging format through interactive discussions, audience participation, custom research, shared meals, exclusive receptions, boat cruises, fun surprises such as our mid-afternoon cocktails, and of course our signature “Trender Panel” focus groups of ordinary viewers, we want to continue innovating in the post-pandemic world. In the past two years we were proud to trail-blaze a virtual format for the OTT Executive Summit that saw our intimate gathering of 250 executives meeting in New York City blow up into a global online conference ten times that size— and most importantly maintain 90%+ approval ratings— and now we want to “level up” once again and not simply go back to what we were doing before.”

Mr. Mahony went on to give several glimpses of what the new format will look like:

“I don’t want to reveal too much at this time, but let’s just say the old model of smart speakers separated from the audience onstage, expounding on their areas of expertise, needs to be updated. There will be more interaction. And it needs to be more fun and collaborative, providing increased value for speakers, attendees, and sponsors. I would argue especially for our senior executive attendees who are already very well informed on industry trends, that one of the biggest reasons to attend is the collegial networking that happens during the Summit. Yes, we want to learn from each other and we will still bring in the best speakers from across the Media & Entertainment industry and across the globe, but we’ll do it in a way that provides substantial interactivity for both in-person and virtual attendees. Think gamification, shared fun activities, instructive demos, real-time problem solving and case studies, friendly competition among peers, and more team-based interactions— and less few-to-many speaking sessions. We want to turn our conference format into a destination event everyone will be talking about. It will be informative, fun, and totally engaging for everyone. The boring old conference format is dead.”

The part of the new plan that will remain is moving out of New York City to a “destination event” worthy location such as the beautiful Tampa, Florida area.

“Not only have costs skyrocketed and service levels declined in the Big City,” continued Mr. Mahony, “but this move reflects the ongoing global growth of OTT Executive Summit from one that was once comprised 80% of local New York executives to one where now 80% of attendees hail from global destinations such as Los Angeles, Bangalore, Seoul, London, and Paris.”

In parallel to these expected changes, the postponement will give Trender Research time to launch new OTT Executive Community initiatives and hire key new events team members.

“We’re excited to be launching our new podcast community soon”, said Mr. Mahony. “And let’s be honest, most of our live events staff from three years ago have moved on, so we want to make sure we have a well-trained team to provide the quality experience our executive level attendees have come to expect.”

As for the location and timing of the 10th annual OTT Executive Summit, the Trender Research Advisory Board will consider returning to the pre-pandemic late Spring timeframe or continue to hold the event during the week before Thanksgiving in the Fall. Location has not been announced but discussions have already commenced with top venues such as the JW Marriott in Tampa, Florida.

Trender Research will be expanding the OTT Executive Summit Advisory Board to include interested sponsors who will be able to help shape the new format to achieve the above goals.

Please send speaker or sponsor inquiries to “2023@OTTexec.com.”