AI Is My Right Arm, Not My Replacement

Lisa Collins used to fill a room with a flyer showing a picture of breakfast. Now she needs personalization data, pre-event teaser content, and an AI running quietly in the background just to get people through the door.Lisa Collins is founder and managing director of Dovetail Creative Limited, a consultancy working primarily with not-for-profits and membership organizations on event strategy and delegate experience. She and Tim Arthur cover her start running UK-wide tech roadshows, founding the Corporate Star Awards, and how content capture and AI now shape event marketing before, during, and after the event itself.What You'll LearnPersonalization replaced volume: A generic mailer with a photo of breakfast on it used to reliably fill a room, and that no longer works given today's competition for attention.Roadshows taught distribution at scale: Early in her career, Lisa helped run a UK-wide tech roadshow that moved by coach and truck convoy through five cities, drawing 500 to 800 attendees a day.Awards events build community, not just recognition: Lisa's favorite event format brings people who share a cause into one room and gives them a reason to network as well as celebrate.The Corporate Star Awards grew from nothing: Lisa founded and ran the awards for four years, focused on ESG and sustainability in the broadcast, media, and entertainment industry, growing from a standing start to 300 to 400 attendees.Pre-event content drives registration: Short interviews with speakers before an event, teasing what they'll cover, help build the case for people to show up.On-site content creates FOMO for next year: Capturing sessions live gives people who missed the event a reason to book earlier the following year.Session recordings outlive the event: Filmed conference content becomes standalone educational material long after the event has ended.AI supports execution, not creative judgment: Lisa uses AI daily for data enrichment, checking the tone of outbound emails, and building event programs and timing grids, but keeps the creative decisions about an event human.Time-Stamped Highlights(0:00) Cold open: turning a conference into 365 days of content(0:58) Lisa's start in events: an apprenticeship and a UK-wide tech roadshow(1:28) Inside the roadshow: five cities, a convoy of trucks, 800 people a day(2:36) Lisa's favorite kind of event: awards nights(3:36) Founding the Corporate Star Awards from scratch(3:53) Building an ESG platform inside broadcast and media(4:19) What Dovetail Creative actually does(5:06) The breakfast mailer problem: why volume marketing stopped working(5:40) Capturing content before the event to drive registration(6:19) Creating FOMO with on-site content, and turning sessions into evergreen education(7:50) Where AI fits into Lisa's daily workflow(9:47) Closing thought: put a podcast studio on-siteGuest bio Lisa Collins is founder and managing director of Dovetail Creative Limited, an events consultancy working primarily with not-for-profit and membership organizations. She began her career on an apprenticeship running UK-wide tech roadshows, spent 15 years working in broadcasting, and founded and ran the Corporate Star Awards, an ESG-focused awards program in the broadcast, media, and entertainment industry, for four years. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisacollins78 — Company: Dovetail Creative LimitedAbout the Podcast The podcast features conversations with event industry professionals about the strategy, content, and technology decisions behind building events that reach audiences beyond the room.Host bio Tim Arthur is a film and video production professional with 20+ years of experience producing video around the globe, with a background spanning marketing, technology, production, and event coordination. He approaches each project with a focus on increasing a client or partner's reach and value through creative, discerning production.