Month: April 2020

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Recently, myConferenceSuite supported a large industry tradeshow, CSAE’s annual Tete-a-Tete held in Ottawa, Canada.  The show attracts approximately 1300 exhibitors and delegates from the meetings and association market.  This year a full conference app was used with some key engagement features. 

Replacing standard lead retrieval on the show floor with universal delegate scanning in the app allowed everyone to exchange contacts-Exhibitor to Delegate or vice Versa, even delegate to delegate and exhibitor to exhibitor.  Extending this functionality to all stakeholders in the show and including it in the event app makes sense as business relationships often cross traditional channels. 

To enhance activations for exhibitors, a monopoly type game was created for all event sponsors to participate in.  Each exhibiting sponsor received a free property card that delegates could scan when they visited their booth.  All scans of each delegate were tracked in the event app and a leaderboard was provided to see who had the most scans.  Data can also be supplied back to the exhibiting sponsor on who scanned their property cards. 

Key Outcomes of the Monopoly Gamification:

• Increased visits for Exhibiting sponsors
• Increased Sponsor benefit
• Gamification for Delegates kept them engaged on the show floor longer
• Unique game format provided differentiation for the tradeshow from other similar events.

In addition, to lead generation and gamification, Event apps in a tradeshow setting also serve to provide maps, provide an in-depth speaker and event information, detailed exhibitor information, surveys, social feed, messaging and scheduling.  One of the key objectives with any event technology is to streamline the process and enhance communication and engagement, not replace it.

There is no doubt the events of 2020 have turned the conference and events industry upside down and inside out.  The road to recovery will be a slow one and Conference organizers are faced with a huge degree of uncertainty revolving around their event. 

With all the uncertainty, contingencies need to be planned.   Pivoting to a virtual experience can be a daunting task.  How can you replace those face to face conversations, those networking opportunities, and the education; the key elements that make a conference so enticing to its delegates and stakeholders.  Understanding your primary objectives is step one.  And as such, ensure your event management and content management platform can provide a cloud-based experience for accessing your educational content:

• Create a Virtual Schedule with access to educational content
• Eposters-ensure your eposters are accessible through your conference web portal
• Webinar sessions
• Digital Live Stream
• Zoom and Gotomeeting interactive sessions
• Live polling

myConferenceSuite’s digital platform accommodates a complete rollout of your conference content-abstracts, sessions, eposters can all be dynamically displayed through a secure conference portal.  Our registration platform can authenticate and provide access to webinar content.  myConferenceSuite also works with Audio Visual providers to authenticate and provide access to Live Streams. 

Access to session rooms can also be managed through myConferenceSuite’s registration portal.    A virtual event probably can never fully replace the synergy of a live setting but in these times of drastic change, giving your delegates and stakeholders a medium to provide education and interaction can ensure important research and educational content continues to be shared.  And certainly, moving forward, offering users access to digital content as an alternative to attending in person will probably become a mainstream option for conferences and events.  So a pivot to virtual will be a mainstay in the conference industry for some time to come and will provide delegates with a choice in how to access the content.  Contact myConferenceSuite to discuss how we can assist you in pivoting to virtual.

This week SnapupTickets as a division of D. E. Systems, had the unique opportunity to attend Meeting Professional International’s World Education Congress in San Francisco.  The theme for this year’s conference was “Find Your Professional Edge”.  MPI is a fantastic organization for event and meeting planners and suppliers of all types to gain education, network and connect with each other.  With chapters across the globe, the World Education Congress was no small affair.  Content centred on education topics ranging from the practical-registration, engagement, marketing, industry analysis to the more Inspirational-personal stories of challenge and success.  One of the most innovative topics brought to the forefront of this year’s conference was the sharing or collaborative economy.  Speakers such as Airbnb, Bookalokal and Jeremiah Owyang brough this transformative and in some ways disruptive business model to the limelight.  Panel discussions discussed the advantages these new economies bring like creating new demand.  But discussions also touched on the challenges-taxation, the lack of regulation-all minefields that the sharing economy will navigate in one way shape or form.

What became fairly clear was that this is a new economic model, centered on underutilized and shared assets that isn’t going away.  One that carries some distinct economic and structural advantages over traditional economies but also one that presents a sometimes distruptive model as it may relate to taxation, regulation and other issues.  The sharing economy empowers its users and changes the landscape of commerce in a profound way.  Examples such as AirBnb and Uber show just how powerful and how controversial the model is.

Every year in September, Ottawa becomes the centre of the Animation industry universe.  The Ottawa International Animation Festival, running from September 16-20 is one of the largest events of its kind, draws industry collegues from around the world and showcases the best in Animation film.  The Animation shown at the OIAF is so great, some of the competition winners have gone on to win Academy Award nominations.

OIAF will draw over 30,000 attendees during its 5 day run in September providing a big boost to the city’s Tourism sector.  The competition will feature 79 entries from 23 countries.  In addition to the film screenings, workshops and talks are held for industry collegues.

There will be 8 Canadian films screened in the festival and an additional 39 that are part of the event.

“This was without doubt one of the strongest years I can recall,” said Chris Robinson, the festival’s artistic director. “The quality of almost every category was high. We could have easily added another one or two competition screenings.”

The National Film Board has three short films in the best narrative short category, which are Focus by director Alex Boya, Autos Portraits by Claude Cloutier and Sweet Talk by Esteban Azuela.

“I’m really excited to see how audiences react to this year’s competitors,” Robinson said. “It was also a particularly good year for Canadian animators, demonstrating yet again just how diverse, unique and talented we are as an animation nation.”

Other highlights include Ernie Biscuit by Academy Award winner Ada

m Elliot, World of Tomorrow by Academy Award nominee Don Hertzfeldt and Wave ’98, the winner of the 2015 Cannes Palme D’or, which was directed by Ely Dagher.

Tickets for individual events will go on sale in late August via Snap up Tickets at www.animationfestival.ca

For over 20 years, Incentive Works has been Canada’s largest tradeshow for meeting and incentive travel professionals.  This year, over 3000 meeting professionals and 700 industry suppliers will meet at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre August 18-20. Sessions focused on education and networking events such as MPI Foundation Canada Rocks bring Canada’s meeting industry together for 3 days.

The tradeshow floor exhibitors range from travel destinations, meeting services suppliers, hotel properties and a host of other meetings and travel related businesses.

Other events revolving around the Incentive Works show include MPI Foundation’s Canada Rocks event in support of the MPI Foundation.  This year’s event will be held at the Carlu, a renovated 1930′s venue in the heart of Midtown.  Proceeds from the event will go to the MPI Foundation.  Says MPI Foundation Representative Trevor Lui “the mission of the MPI Foundation is to fund education and pan-industry research that drive the success of meeting professionals”.   This year marks the 10th installment of Canada Rocks.

Snapup Tickets has developed a quick and easy way to verify ticket sales on-site at your event with our new Snapup Tickets iOS mobile app.  The app provides functionality for event organizers to scan and verify tickets for any of their live events on the Snapup ticket platform.

Scan rates as quick as 2 seconds per scan combined with real-time database updates mean that multiple check-in staff can use the app simultaneously while ensuring no duplicate entries can be made from any ticket.

This ticket verification solution is geared for any public event including festivals, bars and lounge special events, sporting events and tradeshows though it will address verification for any type of event used on the Snapup Tickets platform.

About Snapup Tickets:

Snap Up Tickets is an online ticket selling and registration system designed to allow the user full access to create, manage and share their very own event. This website based application comes with useful administrative tools to help manage, track and query event activities and registrant data. With online registration forms that are immediately available and secure online payment services, your online event will be ready to go in a snap.  Snapup Tickets is a wholly owned product developed by D. E. Systems Ltd.