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AI can summarize your keynote in 30 seconds. So why would anyone spend four hours of their day to watch it live? On Episode 18 of Event Everything by Eventastic, host Kristin Nagle asks Brent Turner, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Solutions at Opus Agency, why participation is the answer. Brent comes at this from 15 years across digital, advertising, and live experience design. He breaks down the two questions every event leader needs to answer right now: why live, and why together. He also explains how voice interfaces and Google's AI Mode are shifting what audiences expect from a session, and what that means for the formats event leaders keep defaulting to.
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👤 Guest Bio
Brent Turner is Executive Vice President of Strategy and Solutions at Opus Agency, a global event and brand experience agency that works with companies including Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, and Google. Based in Boston, Brent moved into events about 15 years ago after a career across digital startups, advertising agencies including Ogilvy, and a stint as Chief Digital Officer at MIT. He writes about brand movements, dopamine culture, and AI's effect on event design.
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✅ The Event Question
Inspired by a recent Opus Agency post: why is the future of events participation, and why does that matter for event leaders right now?
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📌 What You'll Learn
- Use the "why live, why together" test on every session you're designing. If a format can't answer both, redesign it before it ships.
- Watch for the moment "this keynote could have been an AI summary" appears in your post-event survey. That comment is the signal your content design needs to shift toward participation.
- Build sessions where attendees ask questions, not just hear statements. That's where voice and Google's AI Mode are taking audience interaction next.
- Apply participation across the full agenda, not just one panel. From the keynote through every breakout, the design should assume the audience wants to be involved.
- Run the one-hand summary test: if a session can be summarized on one hand, you've made an expensive YouTube video, not a live event.
- Lean on participation when retention matters. People remember what they helped create more than what they sat through.
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🎭 The Ridiculous Question
If you had to survive on one gas station food for a month, what are you choosing? Brent picks peanut M&Ms: sweet, salty, chocolate-as-dairy logic, and peanut protein. He has firmly never had the gas station hot dog.
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🔗 Links / Resources Mentioned
- Opus Agency — Brent's company website
- XO — Opus Agency's monthly newsletter (mentioned by Brent)
- brentturner.is — Brent's personal site and newsletter
