8 Reasons A Virtual Prize Wheel Is Better Than A Regular Prize Wheel

Hey, it’s no secret: an old-fashioned prize wheel costs less than our Virtual Prize Wheel interactive game.  So why bother going digital?  Turns out there are many reasons our Virtual Prize Wheel is the real deal:

1. Prize Inventory Management

As people spin and win prizes, your inventory of prizes changes all day long.  Eventually some of the choices you offer on a regular prize wheel can run out, but attendees would still think they won them.  Awkward moments ensue!  Fortunately, with our Virtual Prize Wheel interactive game, your attendees will never know that you ran out of a prize, because our game keeps track of declining inventory as more people win, and then takes a prize off the wheel once it runs out.

2. Emphasize Your Grand Prize

It’s common for an exhibitor or event marketer to offer up a grand prize that makes attendees say “Wow!” and get them to play.  With a regular prize wheel, that grand prize is just one more sliver on the visual pie of the wheel, easy to get lost in the visual shuffle.  However, with our Virtual Prize Wheel, you can add a headline and photos on the screen to help promote your big prize, and make it more enticing for attendees to play.

3. Planned Distribution of Prize Levels

Most marketers offer up multiple prizes with their prize wheel drawing – think of all those pie pieces with different prizes that you’ve seen. But do they offer the same number of each?  Think about it – do you want attendees to have as many chances to win the Grand Prize as they do the $10 prize, and as many chances to win the $10 prize as the $1 prize?  Probably not – you would go broke.  Well, unlike with a regular prize wheel, our Virtual Prize Wheel lets you tell how many of each prize you want to give away, and then automatically does the math to award prizes in the exact proportions you want.  So, you can give away one grand prize, five $20 prizes, ten $10 prizes, and a hundred $1 prizes.  Or whatever you want.

Trade show prizes for an interactive trade show game

4. Show It But Not Award It

Imagine this – you have a single big prize that you’re using as a draw to bring in more traffic and get people to talk to you.  But, because it’s right there on your regular prize wheel, someone gets lucky and wins it the first hour of the show.  Then you spend the rest of the show saying “Sorry!  It’s gone!” to attendees – as they walk away disappointed.  But with our Virtual Prize Wheel, if you want, you can include a prize on the wheel, but block it from being awarded.  They will still win a prize, just not the big one.  But they are much more likely to play.  Then you can set the game to award the grand prize on the last day, and have a celebration when they do!

5. More Modern Image

A prize wheel is fun, and it gets people to come into your booth or participate in your event because they have a chance to win something, be it a small treat or a big toy. But a regular prize wheel has a bit of the carnival feel about it, just a bit on the cheesy side.  With a Virtual Prize Wheel, you bring the prize wheel into the digital age, which helps project a more modern image for your company.

6. Match Your Brand

Everything you bring into your booth either reinforces or muddles your brand.  It’s that simple.  With a regular prize wheel, you are adding a visual focal point that may (or, more likely, not) match your company colors, fonts, and logo.  With our Virtual Prize Wheel, you have complete control over the entire digital screen, ensuring that the colors match your brand, the font matches your corporate personality, and the visuals, including your logo, are on point.  That’s especially important if you use a large flat screen to show the Virtual Prize Wheel.

7. Capture Lead & Survey Data

A prize wheel of any kind can draw a crowd.  At one event our client (with a Virtual Prize Wheel) was right next to another booth that had a regular prize wheel.  Both had lines of attendees waiting to play.  But at the end of the day, only our client had a list over 1,000 people who had played their games – including their answers to a few, key qualifying questions that allowed them to rank the leads. Only our client had exportable lead & survey data they could export and bring into their marketing system to follow up on.

Lead reporting from interactive trade show games 8. Performance Analytics Dashboard

This is one of the biggest differences between the analog and the digital world.  A regular prize wheel can spin and help you award prizes.  But then what?  How well did you do at that event?  Or, compared to yesterday? Or to last month’s event?  In the analog world, that’s nearly impossible to keep track.  But with our Virtual Prize Wheel, the game is tied to our robust back-end analytics dashboard that lets you track and see your results, by day, by event, and even by game (if you use other SocialPoint games like our Trivia Game). And you, or others on your team can even log in to see results, even if you’re not at the show!

There you have it – 8 reasons our Virtual Prize Wheel is better than a regular, analog prize wheel.  I invite you to take our Virtual Prize Wheel for a spin at your next event.  Not only will your attendees win, but you will too!

Learn More About Our Prize Wheel Games

Virtual Prize Wheel

Attendees provide contact info to play for your prizes! Customizable or use our graphic templates. Game tracks remaining prize inventory. After the show, you get easily exported leads. 

Name Picker & Raffle Wheel

Collect contest player names throughout a trade show, then at the end, award prizes in dramatic fashion! Choose to display names of players or prizes. Great for small shows without badge scanners. Customizable or use our graphic templates.

Written by

Samuel J. Smith is a thought leader, researcher, speaker and award winning innovator on event technology. In 2011, BizBash Magazine added Sam to its annual innovators list. Since then, Sam has won awards from Exhibitor Magazine, IBTM World, RSVP MN, International Live Events Association and MPI for innovation in event technology.