Purdue Conferences launches Event Design Lab, an engagement and event design center

Purdue Conferences partnered with Event Design Collective, a Switzerland-based event design company, to establish the Event Design Lab, the world’s first and only lab of its kind in a university. The lab is a space designed to help teams identify, address and overcome project barriers and organizational challenges. Using thoughtful design techniques and interactive tools, teams have space to collaborate, visualize and craft outcome-based events and objectives. 

“The vision for bringing an Event Design Lab to the university is to help engage the university and create partnerships with the community,” says Nick Bonora, senior director of engagement and the event design center. “This lab is a place where Boilermakers, community partners and anyone who is interested can come and utilize the lab to plan and organize events.

The lab is located in the Purdue Technology Center, and lab visitors can use the equipment and event canvas design methodology to visualize multiple aspects of an event and purposefully design how stakeholder and attendee behavior could change as a result of the event, thus constructing predictable and measurable impacts and outcomes. 

Purdue Conferences regularly hosts training programs in the space, and on Oct. 26, the lab will host a one-day training that introduces the event canvas design methodology and terms to those interested in learning more or applying the methodology to their event, project or organization. Similar trainings are planned to be hosted semiannually in the fall and spring.

The lab was initially developed to design events. Roel Frissen, co-founder of Event Design Collective, and Bonora both envision the canvas design methodology and the lab’s use being extended beyond events to help individuals and organizations create policies, programs and strategic plans around societal impact, workforce and economic development, recruitment and retention, capital campaigns, and fundraising. 

Bonora says this unique approach to collaboration could create a broader community of event designers and help the university foster new partnerships.

“I think every society in every location has varying degrees of the same problems, and one of the things about the event design methodology that excites us is the ability to apply a methodology to solve a problem at a local level. The projected design could potentially then be scaled up to a regional level and then a state level and a global level,” Bonora says. “We are fortunate to bring this lab to Purdue, a university that has resources available to help tackle those real-world problems.”

“You learn together with your community, and the community can then start applying the methodology,” Frissen says. “By applying it, you mix the networks, and then the networks can create the change. If we can make that work and prove that it works, that would be pretty phenomenal.”

To learn more about the lab, training and design process, visiting the Event Design Lab training registration or to book the lab, contact Bonora at nbonora@purdue.edu or 765-494-0243.

Purdue Conferences is part of the Administrative Operations organization. The organization supports the university by providing safe, reliable and transformative services. Providing the space and training for the Event Design Lab collaborative space is just one of the transformative services the organization provides to help power Purdue.