Have you attended any of the Game of Thrones concerts featuring its composer Ramin Djawadi, perhaps in Portland or Chicago or in Vancouver? Ramin Djawadi is one of the finest music composers of the era and yet he uses footage from the show and also live props to engage the audience. The compositions of Djawadi are enticing enough. The montages, the iron throne and other props are a valuable additional component that further captivates an audience.

No matter what type of event you are planning to organize, you ought to entice the audience, enough to captivate them immediately and then to keep them engaged throughout the course of the event. User generated content will not only entice attendees but will also drive the course of the event. For some it may be unnerving to not know where the event is headed but that’s where the real engagement begins.

• User generated content can be anything. It could be blogs written by a few of those in attendance, it could be videos or some kind of content that has been generated by the attendees before or during the event. The content may not be the absolute best that one can create but as long as it is user generated, there will be an organic impact.

• There can be live polls to trigger conversations. Having apps or some kind of tool that can be used live during the event will provide you the medium to connect with your audience. You can conduct these polls leading up to the event, just before the event or during the event. Check the poll results and start the conversation. You can let the audience decide which topic they want to talk about first, you can have questions rated or voted for so you can pick on the most popular ones, you can have the audience decide the course of the event and much more.

• You can also use surveys and contests or live quizzes to engage the audience. Share some information, allow the audience to test their amassed knowledge and you could also gather data through the surveys. This kind of engagement will get you user generated content, the event will progress with a dedicated audience and the outcome would be a resounding engagement of both the organizers and the attendees. From determining hot trends to changing the course of live topics, there is enormous potential in engaging the audience before and during an event.