Early in November we set up for Event Tech Live 2016. We knew there would be be hundreds of attendees milling around. Plus heaps of exhibitors and a great conference programme to boot, so we really needed to come up with something special to attract attendees to our exhibition stand. So we rolled out an amazing prize, created a fun event app game, hired a fridge and filled it with alcohol! It worked a treat and I had the most fun I’ve ever had standing at an exhibition stand for eight hours straight in high heels.
The Prize
Our knock-out prize was a seven night villa holiday in tropical and exotic Nai Harn, on the southern tip of Phuket, Thailand. We used our Live Display digital signage product to showcase the luxurious villa and picture perfect location. That certainly got people’s attention. The Live Display also showcased a live leader board which added the key ingredient – a healthy dose of competition.
The Game
There were only four challenges in the event app game. That was very deliberate as we wanted to convince lots of passing attendees to participate. Each challenge was designed to showcase how gaming can be used to achieve a specific event outcome.
Event Outcome #1 – Learning
We started with an easy challenge, a quiz question. It entailed speaking to any of the CrowdComms team to become a little wiser about the range of products we offer whilst earning an easy hundred points to get going.
Event Outcome # 2 – Attendee Networking
Contestants simply needed to locate the person on the CrowdComms team with the ginger beard. ‘Ginger beard’ would then tell them the answer to a question about what secret ingredient makes our apps look really good. It was interesting to watch this in action, it provided an easy ice breaker and many attendees lingered on our stand far longer than if they had only engaged in conversation with the first person they spoke to.
Event Outcome # 3 – Driving Behaviour and Event Outcome #4 – Having Fun
We achieved both of these goals via a single challenge. Contestants were asked to take or share a photo of themselves showing how happy they would be if they won the prize and tweet or email it to us. There were lots excellent photos and plenty of laughs along the way. From a marketing perspective we had lots of great traffic on Twitter. The sight of so many attendees having fun certainly gained us attention on the hashtag for the event
Event Outcome # 5 – Providing Sponsor Value
In this case we were the sponsor and the game achieved exactly what it set out to do. It attracted people to our stand and kept them there for longer. We engaged in many more meaningful conversations that we have in the past and we feel we have made better connections with more people
This is down to the power of the event app game, perhaps helped along in some small part by the endlless supply of Proscecco and beer.
Dee Brannick – CrowdComms, Co-Founder
Working in Event Tech since 2003, Dee has made thousands of events shine by incorporating market leading technology into a diverse range of events. From boardroom meetings to multi-location conferences, Dee is passionate about finding the right solution for her clients. In 2011 she co-founded CrowdComms to maximise the explosion in smart phone usage at events and now works out of the UK office in sunny Dorset.
