The last few years have been difficult for everyone. We’re venturing into our third year of near isolation, and the lack of interpersonal experiences weighs heavily on us all. That’s why we’re so excited for h+h Americas in June and why we prepared a quick primer on How To Attend Live Events During a Pandemic —because we can’t wait to see all of our crafty cohorts, and we want to do it as safely as possible.

Live events are essential for several reasons. Zoom and video conferencing fatigue aside, there are numerous benefits to attending live conferences personally and in business. If you’re still on the fence about attending h+h Americas in June (join us!), we hope the following reasons will convince you the event can’t and shouldn’t be missed!

Sense of Community

You can’t beat the sense of community at a live event. Chance encounters, the ability to mix and mingle with people you’ve never met before, impromptu conversations that occur because you bump into someone—these things don’t happen as efficiently online. People converse around booths and meals, make business deals over a quick cup of coffee, and forge connections seemingly at random.

In an online chat, you’re consigned to the conversation happening in the discussion—you can’t overhear an exciting and potentially relevant conversation happening in a different chat room. At live events, information is moving at the speed of sound, and the potential to connect with people could be as simple as overhearing an exciting conversation and making that connection. At h+h Americas, you might attend a workshop and find the person sitting next to you has similar interests, and suddenly you’re strategizing the next steps in a new business deal.

There is nothing like the energy and momentum of a live event. It’s a beautiful way to reinvigorate your sense of community and show you you’re not alone in your passions.

Opportunity for Discovery

You never know what you might discover at a live event. It isn’t like browsing a website or googling a search query and looking over the results. The internet is a wonderful tool, but it’s also an overwhelming amount of information to parse. A live event curates that information for you, delivering exactly what you want to discover.

You genuinely don’t know what you might find wandering the convention room floor of h+h Americas. Conventions gather new brands and businesses, novel tools and crafting workshops, hot trends, and rising talents to discover and inspire your business. You might learn new things that don’t necessarily apply to your business, per se, but that inspire the next moves you make as a business owner. It’s a live event not just because it happens in person but also because it’s a living experience that inspires new pursuits.

Fewer Distractions

We’ve become a very online society, for better or for worse. Instant connectivity eased the isolation of the pandemic, but it also created circumstances in which we rarely look up from our screens.

In this day and age, we should relish any opportunity to disconnect from our screens and connect in real life. It’s the perfect time to put away our phones and make real, lasting connections, even if we’ll have to maintain those new relationships online until the next in-person opportunity. This is especially important for businesses and people in the crafting sphere because our realm is tactile, which brings us to our next point.

Forced Refresh

Taking yourself out of your comfort zone, simply transporting yourself into a new environment, reaps untold benefits. It automatically unlocks a unique perspective, creating opportunities for fresh ideas and innovations. It’s a subconscious shift and one that you can’t replicate with online interactions.

Consider the old advice to take a walk when you have trouble solving a problem. Our brains perform a lot of valuable work when we’re doing other things. As you walk the convention floor of h+h Americas, you may not realize that while taking in the booths and meeting new people, your brain is planting the seeds of new ideas in the background.

Your brain is always busy processing and building on new information. Consider attending live events like planting a garden of ideas to harvest later.

The Tactile Experience

A live event engages all the senses, but the tactile experience might be the most important for crafters. Our business is tactile—you can’t get a sense of the feel of a bolt of cloth or a skein of yarn through a computer screen.

Live crafting events are hands-on affairs. Experimenting with new trade tools, witnessing a loom in action, feeling the fibers, and seeing colors that can’t be universally accurate when captured for a computer screen—these are all the sensory experiences we miss when attending a virtual event.

Face to Face Networking

Studies show in-person interactions are far more beneficial at establishing long-lasting relationships than online interactions. A Forbes study shows 85% of people believe in-person meetings “build stronger, more meaningful business relationships.” In-person interactions reveal more about individual personalities and mentalities—we take for granted all the social cues and subtle facial expressions that get lost in virtual meetings.

h+h Americas will gather all the makers and businesses—large and small—you want to engage with into a single space. How many emails have you sent that have gone unanswered? We’re all busy, and connecting with harried makers and businesses can be challenging. h+h Americas offers the opportunity to engage with people you might not otherwise have the ability to reach. Live events level the playing field for everyone. It doesn’t matter how large or small your business is; we’re all there to network and create lasting, mutually beneficial connections.

Have we convinced you h+h Americas is the must-attend event of the year? Book your reservations now to reserve your spot!

Link to other blog post, which should publish first so that this blog post can be linked.