LIVE: event wellness, agenda design, and the forgetting curve

LIVE: event wellness, agenda design, and the forgetting curve

From the weekly seattle by RC Productions

May 5, 2026 · 41 min · Episode 107

About this episode

Rachel Horgan discusses event wellness and its impact on business strategy with David T. Stevens at the Northwest Event Show.

If your conference agenda has back-to-back sessions with 10-minute breaks, you may be actively working against your own objectives. This week, Rachel sits down with event wellness strategist David T. Stevens live at the Northwest Event Show for a conversation on why wellness at events is actually business strategy. David breaks down his Four M's framework: mindfulness, movement, meals, and meaning. He explains how what you feed attendees at 8am directly determines whether they can pay attention by 10:30. He shares Oxford research linking employee wellbeing to stock performance, makes the case for cutting sessions from 60 to 40 minutes, and explains what the "forgetting curve" means for how your attendees retain (or don't retain) what they just heard. This episode is for anyone that gathers humans together, not just event professionals. About guest David T. Stevens: David T Stevens, PMED, WITT-AP is an event wellness architect. Founding member of the WITT Standards Advisory Committee. Harvard Medical School Lifestyle Medicine and Wellness Coach. Co-founder of Olympian Meeting and host of Return on Wellness. I have collaborated with Dr. Bettina Borisch, Executive Director of the…

People in this episode

Host: Rachel Horgan

Guest: David T. Stevens

Topics covered

  • event wellness
  • business strategy
  • conference design
  • mindfulness
  • attendee retention

Keywords

  • event wellness
  • conference agenda
  • forgetting curve
  • mindfulness
  • employee wellbeing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard Medical School, World Federation of Public Health Associations, Olympian Meeting

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