How do event planners use technology?

Technology is transforming every industry in every sector, for their good. The added personal touch is possible only now. We are able to interact in ways unimaginable earlier and this has allowed offering customers an awesome experience. Some of the categories that have seen extensive use of technology in event management are as follows.

1. Venue inspections – this is being transformed by virtual reality. A lot of people are showing their property through VR. Before you send Request for Proposal, you could just get people familiar with your venue in order to avoid any surprises later on.
2. Temporary staff – artificial intelligence comes into play here. Use of chatbots and concierge services creates a lot of resources for your team. You could collect feedback through them in an easy and efficient manner. There might be certain things that we can’t share with humans, but with chatbots one can give their honest opinion and experience which gives correct data to the analyzing team and helps them to get a clear vision of the success or failure of an event.
3. Check-in – use of facial recognition and beacons speed up the process of registration. It lets them avoid long waiting queues.
4. Q and A session – throwable mics, live Q and A as audience response systems can be used to enhance the productivity of an event. Most events end up with the speakers giving their speech and no audience interaction is witnessed. This is really upsetting. Engaging the audience is highly recommended and this could be possible with the use of latest technology that allows people to interact with the speakers, sponsors and the event organizers also.
5. Live interpreters – live stream has made the presence of human interpreters redundant. People now could have the option of watching the live event in any language that they prefer.

Let us see some of the latest technology trends and how are they going to be utilized by event managers.

• Facial recognition in trade shows, concerts, music festivals, sporting events, conferences etc. Forget the long queues outside the registration area. Facial recognition is definitely going to speed up the process of registration and also it can efficiently handle a large volume of data, which is really handy for large scale events. You could even pre upload or synchronize your photograph to speed up the registration process. Whether it’s a standalone application or a set of tools, facial recognition is making waves. You can authenticate your presence just by showing your face. You don’t need to bother with any additional identification documents, which are really cumbersome for people coming to enjoy the event. Speeding up the registration process is a real time saver and thus, it proves to be a crowd puller. Nobody wants to wait in line, especially at large scale events, where the turnout is going to be on a much larger scale than any other social gatherings. Another important reason why facial recognition is so essential in today’s times is security. Security is a mega trend affecting the event management industry, be it venues, destinations or marketing. Security is impacting events all across the world and facial recognition is a great tool to ensure just that. You can scan and match the faces from the police database to find out and filter the offenders before any mishap. It adds an extra layer of security. This could be a two way situation here, as facial recognition might be treated as being controversial by many. It could be taken as a violation of privacy but it is for the times to test the validity of facial recognition, whether it stays or not. But it is one futuristic technological tool that can change the game at large scale events, literally.
• Influencer marketing is the new buzzword in event management industry. This is the ability to use influential people on social media, specifically, on blogs, micro influencers on Instagram, Snapchat, and gather them to spread message about your event. This is a very interesting proposition because events are, by definition, concentration of influential people, be it in the form of speakers, attendees, sponsors etc. It is highly likely that they are the influencers of that particular industry, whether you plan conferences, associations, meetings, conventions, concerts etc. You will gather, in most cases, very influential people. You can use them to promote your event or get more people to sign up, you could use their reputation to improve your ticket sales. Technology has allowed us to have certain tools or applications that allow us to find such influential people pertaining to our area of interest. Spotting the real influencers is a tedious task though. The people that really make an impact are hard to come by. Hence, it is absolutely essential to have such tools in your marketing mix that help you filter out the real influencers from a crowd of boastful speakers. We would also want to focus on tools that help us build custom landing pages or create custom messages for influential people in the event industry. We will create custom pages for our speakers, exhibitors etc. and really get them to spread the good word.
• Chatbots – the ability to chat with a human like interface, that sounds like a person but is actually not one. But chatbots can, kind of, humanise a lot of communication that we have during an event. They are starting to become more specialized as in there are very specific functions that we can use them for. Having a general chatbots is great but it can be a very expensive exercise for a small or medium sized event. People want easy to understand interfaces. Chatbots are great for use as a feedback mechanism. Mostly people don’t care about filling out feedback forms, which were used earlier, after the event. The idea, with chatbots, is to provide human type interaction, not just a multiple choice objective feedback. A conversation might lead to a healthy feedback in the form of one on one questions and answers. These help increase the conversion rates dramatically. Also setting up the chatbot properly can have a really significant impact on your brand value.
• Treat everyone like a VIP – here we are looking at a set of technological tools that allow us to have deep customization and personalization of our communications and whatever is happening during an event as some layer of technology. There’s no excuse for multiple emails, without realizing the audience it is targeting is really annoying. So the tools which would allow us to segment our audience better and streamlines the process are appreciated. They have manifold advantages, on the marketing side and the logistics side as well. For instance, involving in targeted communication when a group of attendees or a VIP arrives at the airport. The extra personal service adds a detail oriented approach to your plan.

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