Where Does Event Planning Creativity Come From?

Coming up with a completely original event idea with no reference points is something only extremely talented people can do. Geniuses are rare; for ordinary people, the best source of creativity is integration and processing. In plain terms, it's borrowing, but not copying verbatim.

For example, there's a mineral water ad online where a girl waits for a bicycle to generate electricity, and then a light-painted muscular man appears and does a striptease. I adapted this for an event's launch ceremony: leaders pedaled a bicycle to generate electricity and light up the event's theme logo. This fit the client's brand because one of their products is green and eco-friendly, aligning with their brand tone. Another example is Jaguar's daring创意 of climbing the Ferris wheel on the Bund, or the Chevrolet Equinox launch event—these are creative ideas we can learn from but are hard to replicate.

How to Improve Your Creative Ability

First, we need to know where creativity is needed to stand out—the answer can be found above. Second, maintain a mindset of continuous learning. Personally, whenever I see an event while shopping that has distinctive features, I stop and take photos for reference. I also enjoy watching online videos in my spare time. This answer might be a bit general, so let me use my own experience to illustrate how I accumulate creative ideas.

Learn from Industry Events

Pay attention to outdoor events in malls or commercial streets. Some companies do product roadshows, usually in popular malls and commercial areas. In most cases, the stage design and activity setup of national roadshows are quite good. For a second-tier city like Shenyang, you can directly copy them without any changes.

Follow Clients' or Peers' WeChat and Weibo

For beginners, I recommend following the official accounts of your industry. In the real estate sector, a strongly recommended brand is Wanda. Wanda has many offline events, and although their creativity is average, they cover almost all types of real estate event cases, making them a good initial knowledge base. For the automotive industry, I suggest following Junwei and Chetuteng, among other major accounts.

Follow Hot Topics

This is easy to understand: topics with buzz tend to win clients' favor. For example, when "Little Apple" became popular, we quickly recommended the Little Apple dance; when "The Avengers" was released, we suggested an Avengers cosplay parade; when "Eternal Love" (Three Lives Three Worlds) was hot, we organized a themed exhibition with the same name. Of course, there are also many hot IPs like Whale Island, Little Yellow Duck, GG Bond, and Wo Huang.

Watch More Videos

What helped me the most were videos shared on Renren's video sharing section. The majority of users are college students, so the content is very trendy, especially some foreign videos. Bringing them back to China still feels fresh. Examples include symphony flash mobs, the bicycle-powered mineral water ad, and fresh acts from foreign talent shows—these all provided inspiration for my creative ideas. Some of the creative ideas I mentioned earlier referenced the movie "Terminator" and Michael Jackson's music videos. These videos may not directly relate to events, so you need to use your imagination to integrate them into your events. Of course, to see more videos and images, you might need to cross the firewall; only those who are determined will find them.

Communicate More with People in the Industry

This doesn't just mean communicating with peers, but also with clients and suppliers. Everyone is impressed by new things, and through communication, you can learn many new ideas and creative concepts. Join more industry communities and professional circles, like the Heimao Hui app community.