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20 Reasons People Attend Conferences

why do people go to conferences

People come to meetings and conferences for lots and lots of reasons.  Here is my list of 20 reasons people come to conferences – in no particular order:

  1. Learn best practices
  2. Learn new skills – How to’s
  3. Learn about new trends
  4. See a vision of the future
  5. Listen to a “Star” speaker
  6. Earn continuing education credits
  7. Get new ideas
  8. Try new concepts
  9. Listen to industry experts
  10. Gain inspiration – from networking with peers in the industry
  11. Meet new people
  12. Re-connect with old friends
  13. Share war stories (stories of difficult challenges overcome)
  14. Share your experiences
  15. Meet with like-minded people
  16. Become re-energized as you become part of the larger whole
  17. Discuss common problems
  18. Realize that you are not alone with your thoughts and opinions
  19. Meet with several suppliers or customers in one place
  20. Had to go – the meeting was mandatory

Why do I think this list is important?

I like to look for “hidden” insights that might help me change my perspective and challenge me to think differently. If I can learn something new that changes my perspective – then I might be able to come up with better recommendations, new solutions, etc.

For example, once this list was assembled, the following words jumped out at me: Try, Share, Meet and Discuss. To me, these are action words used by people that like to engage in dialogue at conferences. They are not the words of people that want to sit and be entertained for 8 hours.

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41 Ways to Measure the Business Value of Meetings

41 metrics to measure the value of your meetings

In a recent study, 60% of trade show booth organizers said that “Closed Sales” is their #1 measure of success at their event.  Yet, there are many, many more ways that meetings add value beyond revenue generated. How are you measuring the business value that your meetings and events create for your organization?

In MPI’s Business Value of Meetings research, they identified 41 different metrics that can be used to help you measure and track the business value of your meetings. Take a look at the list below – you might be able to find a few new metrics for measuring your success:

So you see, there are many more ways to measure the business value of a meeting beyond sales (which was still the first item on the list!).  Most likely, some of these are measurement metrics you had not previously considered — yet are metrics you now find viable.  Perhaps now you can demonstrate even greater value from your meetings than you thought!

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Advice and Advantages for 7 Kinds of Popular Interactive Trade Show Games

There are many kinds of popular interactive games and contests you can do in your trade show booth.  Almost all will create more activity and booth traffic, and help you gather more data about your booth visitors.

Yet, there are differences that are worth considering, so you can best meet your own trade show goals. After hundreds of events, here is what are the strongest advantages of 7 kinds of game and contests, plus some strategic advice on creating more successful activations.

1. TRIVIA GAMES: Attendees self-educate, self-qualify

digital trivia games for trade shows and events
My favorite thing about trivia games is that you get to teach people about your products and services: End of story! That’s the best thing about trivia games. Your booth visitors are self-educating themselves. Trivia games allow you to connect people to your products and services. So, you can talk to them about trends, you can talk to them about new features, new benefits, challenges you solve, your company history whatever you want and you are giving the person the opportunity to learn more about you while they play this game.

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Beyond Polling: 10 Ways To Create Attendee Engagement in Your Meetings with Event Technology

interactive event technology creates greater audience engagement and makes people happy

Event technology, event apps and audience response apps are offering several new and improved ways to create conversations with your audience.

Here are some of the things you can do: poll, play, create, capture, share, vote, survey, comment and smile. Yes, smile, because you can share photos too.

With all of these capabilities at your disposal, here are 10 ways you can use event technology to create attendee engagement experiences

1. Energize Sessions & Create a Conversation

Caffeinate your audience by adding polling, interactive Q&A and online discussion to your conference session.

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Commonly Lost Trade Show Lead Data You Can Capture With Interactive Games

Capture trade show lead data with interactive trade show gamesTrade show games are not all just, well, fun and games.  They also help solve serious business problems, such as capturing data about your trade show leads that was getting lost before.

Here are 6 familiar challenges with getting all the data from trade show leads that we repeatedly hear about from our clients.  After that, we’ll talk about how interactive trade show games can help you capture that data.

Challenges With Trade Show Leads Today

1. Stacks of business cards slow down lead follow up

do you like to data enter stacks of business cards after your trade showI don’t know anyone that wants to go back to office after the show and enter stacks of business cards, right?  Yuck! Nobody wants to do that task.  And if you are that someone, you’re a saint.  Because it’s a slow, boring job. You want to follow up with hot trade show leads as fast as possible, but stacks of business card slow you down from starting your sales and marketing follow up process.  That allows your digitally-savvy competitors to reach your common prospects first.

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How SocialPoint Just Had A Great Trade Show – Using Our Own Interactive Trade Show Games

Interactive trade show games boosting booth traffic at ExhibitorLive 2017 for SocialPoint

SocialPoint just experienced ourselves what our clients experience in their own booths: The traffic-building, awareness-boosting, conversation-starting power of SocialPoint’s interactive trade show games and contests.

SocialPoint Exhibited at ExhibitorLive 2017

SocialPoint just finished exhibiting at our very first ExhibitorLive Show, March 13 to 15, 2017, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.  It was a huge success, because the audience of major trade show exhibitors quickly grasped and wanted the power of our interactive games to build booth traffic and foster attendee engagement.

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Are You Using Event Technology to Create, Collaborate and Share?

Digitally engaged event session attendee

The great thing about the social, mobile and smart phone revolution is that it is really easy for you to create conversations between your attendees and your brand.

In 2017, there are many ways for you to create, collaborate and share with your attendees. You can do so much more than polling.

Last month, we helped a US Pharmaceutical leadership conference create dialogue and exchange ideas between its top 200 leaders. The meeting was high stakes for the company, and our event technology was there to help them achieve their goals.

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How Human Emotions Make Interactive Trade Show Games Work

digital trade show games are fun and exciting

While we are proud of how strong the technology is behind our interactive trade show games, we fully understand that it isn’t the tech alone that makes them so successful.  What makes our games and contests really gather a crowd, and keep people engaged, is how well our games play on peoples’ very human emotions.

I’ve witnessed how people, individually or in groups, react when they play our games and contests.  I’ve seen players in the thrall of these 6 emotions again and again:

1. Excitement

Attendees get jazzed when they play our games.  It reminds me of a Las Vegas craps table when the dice are hot.  Groups of friends shout, dance around, and cheer as they really get into the games and contests.  This is especially true when they are playing our Virtual Prize Wheel, and they win a big prize.

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How to Manage Interactive Q&A With An Audience Response App

Event presentation app for successful question and answer experience

Several years ago, I was in Norway giving a presentation and using interactive Q&A for the first time in a conference. Previously, I had always used the microphone for my presentations. On this day, we had a new event technology that had a Q&A feature.

I discovered very quickly that if everyone had a chance to ask questions they would do it. I received dozens of questions via the interactive Q&A app.

Second, I learned that people were more willing to ask questions via the technology than stand up in front of the room with microphone.

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11 Social Media Wall Design Ideas for Events and Trade Shows

The concept of a Social Media Wall in of itself has great potential: Gather up all the relevant social media output around a company or organization at a trade show or special event, and put it on display for interested attendees to see!  Yet, clever design and execution are required to get the full value.

Here are 11 things that SocialPoint has built into the design of our Social Media Wall Event Displays, so that exhibit and event marketers can make a bigger impact:

1. Bring Content to Life

Instead of just showing content with traditional templates, we created templates that transform your attendees thoughts, ideas and photos into fun designs. Most companies are able to find a design template that fits their event theme or brand design.

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