It is never easy to stage an event, especially a large-scale and international one. This is especially true for teams with less than five people who work on two to five events each year. It is also the same for organizers who put together more than 25 gatherings annually, who make up over 25% of the respondents in a 2019 Pulse Report by Eventbrite.
Small teams work on two to five events each year while other planners take care of 25 events per year.
Imagine doing all those manually--no smartphones or tablets and no apps. It would be more than just a challenge to any organizer, even to veteran ones.
Thankfully, there are numerous different technologies that contribute to the simplification of event management from scouting for a venue, capturing event-goers' information, and facilitating secure online payments to providing instant customer support and ushering in guests to the venue.
Finding the right venue can make a difference in the success of an event. However, the process is more than just listing potential sites and creating a shortlist. In the same way, event management does not just require a single platform but it involves multiple tools to pull off. One such solution that is complementary to event management software is Request For Proposal (RFP) applications. This technology allows you to ask venue managers or proprietors for quotes with ease. Because of this, you do not have to lift your phone or compose an email just to ask how much it would cost your organization to hold an event at a location.
Location checks are time-consuming and costly yet a necessary step in making certain that you hold your event in the right place. There is a way to evaluate sites without shelling out big bucks and spending a lot of time on the go and that is through video conferencing.
Every smartphone today makes it easy to setup a video tour with the venue staff. As a result, venue managers or owners can go around the site and show you, the event organizer, what it would be like if you hold your event in that place. This also allows you to look closely into every nook and cranny without being overly conscious of the time and the traffic situation. Therefore, you can be as inquisitive and meticulous as you need. There are even some augmented reality tools you can use to virtualize what your event will look like once you stage it.
It is all about expediting processes in a world that is becoming more connected. The events industry is not exempt from this change. Using an online registration and ticketing system is no longer optional. People are done with waiting on hold or mailing in checks - online registration has become an expectation for all attendees. These can be standalone tools or integrated event management software features. With these, you can capture the information you need from participants because you can create bespoke forms. What’s more, an intelligent software would have conditional logic, which can obtain additional data from customers depending on their answers or what type of ticket they are buying.
By including this technology in your toolbox, you can better personalize your services to participants as well as any communications that might follow.
Online event ticketing is also growing. A Grand View Research shows that the market value was $46.59 billion in 2017 and is projected to grow at the rate of 4.8% up to 2025. Since customers nowadays prefer the hassle-free method of online booking for event tickets, it has become imperative for organizations and web-based ticketing platforms to secure transactions for themselves and for clients.
The online ticketing market is expected to grow at a rate of 4.8% up to 2025.
This is where payment gateways come in. PayPal, Authorize.net, Square, Stripe, and the like are only a few examples of such. These have multiple layers of protection that ensure every individual or organization’s financial details are safe from theft. With this technology, you can provide a safe place for your event goers to purchase tickets, merchandise, add-ons, and more. As the event organizer, your choice in payment provider and ticketing vendor will impact when you get paid. If you will be making down payments to vendors than a platform that offers instant payouts will provide you the cash flow you need.
Do you expect to have attendees coming in from faraway places? If yes, you might want to arrange air and ground transportation for them and even include those arrangements to your ticketing packages.
While event booking software may not have these tools, they usually allow integration with third-party systems that do. This would enable you to oversee flights, bus, train, and car transports for event participants, sponsors, and speakers with your ticketing system.
By doing so, you can attract more people to attend your gathering and even gain income from a new revenue stream.
Customers are becoming increasingly demanding with the advent of new technologies and they expect companies to be aware of their requirements. This is reflected in the State of the Connected Customer report by Salesforce, which shows that 75% of surveyees expect an instant response when asked what they expect from commercial entities.
For event organizations to meet those demands, innovation is a must (another factor for increased business according to the report). You also have to go beyond ticket booking and look into the customer service aspect of event management.
When you have AI as part of your technology stack, you can automate customer service. This is advantageous when you only have a few staff members putting on a huge event with a lot of moving parts. What’s more, this can help you reduce costs since you do not have to hire additional team members or a call center. You can easily set this up with popular messaging platforms such as Facebook to provide instant replies to potential event participants.
There are numerous chatbots on the market these days. To find the one that makes the most sense for you we suggest searching for artificial intelligence in the B2B solution categories here to see examples of automated customer support agents and other AI-powered platforms. Be sure to check the reviews!
Beacons for instant guest check-in
Have you ever experienced standing for a long time in the queue to check-in for an event? If you have, then you would know how tiring and frustrating this can be. As a modern event organizer, you have the option not to let your event-goers undergo the same ordeal. That is because you can now rely on beacons that can automate guest check-in as soon as they enter a specified space. You can pair these devices with NFC and RFID tickets or badges to expedite guests’ entry into the venue.
Additionally, you can accelerate check-in using facial recognition software. If you have gathered the photos of your participants during the online registration and ticketing process, you can use that data to usher them into the event space. Thus, you can do away with lengthy check-in processes and avoid having to deal with irate customers.
Innovative pieces of technology do not have to be too complicated for the layperson to use. You can see this in the examples mentioned above, which take away the pains from the process of setting up and executing an event. They not only accelerate the workflow but they also offer convenience to customers from ticketing all the way to event check-in. Thus, you can remove any friction guests may have with the queueing and checking in procedures and let them focus fully on the event instead.
