Conditional Display of HTML Pending Database Field

I am trying to show different HTML pending whether a database field is empty or not and I cannot seem to get it to work. I have made several attempts, including the following. Can anyone offer advise on how to accomplish it? Basically I want the <a href> block to show only when the hyperlink field from the database is not empty; otherwise, to delete the <a href> block and show the eventtitle field without any <a href> tag.

Ok, found the answer with the addition of the "mtype=m+m" parameter. However, I'm still not sure why the other code would not work. If hyperlink field is not empty, why would the [eventsblock.eventtitle;block=span;when [eventsblock.hyperlink]=''] section even show? Obviously, the "mtype=m+m" is cleaner.