The Tech Touch

Supercharge your event with tech worth talking about… 

A new week… another event technology trend.

Surrounded by this sea of possibilities, it can be hard to pinpoint which tools are right for you and your event.

What’s worth investing in when planning a luxury event? What will be yesterday's news tomorrow?

And, what can boost your event without blowing the budget?

“In the past 18 months, we have seen a huge upsurge in technology use at events,” says Ian Cummings, vice president, EMEA at CWT Meetings and Events. “My advice, focus on tech that makes it easier for people to interact and communicate in person. It’s easy to use and often a cost-effective way to make delegates feel special."

So, what does Ian recommend?

Pre-Event

Particularly with luxury incentives, virtual and augmented reality can build attendee excitement.

“Imagine experiencing through a virtual reality headset the Alpine or African views you will soon see,” says Ian. Or for an advance taster of the wow factor, make the most of hotel 360° virtual tours, which can be emailed to guests in advance.

Event registration apps are now widely used to gather flight or dietary info and can be fully branded. You can tailor CWT event apps to your needs and budget. The only limit (well, within reason) is your imagination. Pre-event scavenger hunt game anyone?

When the fun begins

"During an event, you want your tech to drive the power of face to face," says Ian. "It's hard to communicate with 200 people. With push messaging, you can send each one a personalised reminder that their meeting starts in 20 minutes, or where they need to be for dinner. Use technology to get people together.”

Photo competitions and event hashtags also engage attendees and – budget permitting – a screen running photos and social media posts at your event entrance is a fantastic talking point.

For brilliant – and brave – speakers, you can harness the audience for fast feedback via apps like Slido (slido.com). By crowd-sourcing questions from the audience, content evolves in real time to keep people interested.

"We also see the effectiveness of RFID tagging,” says Ian. “It’s especially useful for event sponsors, who harness instant information about stand traffic to understand hotspots and peak visitor times.”

Is all this sounding sky-high expensive? Worry not - tech is also a way to host a luxury-feel event on a basic budget.

A recent CWT UK/Ireland conference in London opened a live-stream to the company’s international network. “We were delighted when an extra 250 people from our global network joined our conference of 70 attendees,” explains Ian.

Audience numbers rocketed, and conference costs per person plummeted.  A win and a win.

Post-event engagement

Of course, your attendees will be praising your 'amazing’ event and block booking next year’s shindig.

A little techie helping hand works too. Keep event magic alive with shared insta-moments on event apps and event social media hashtags.

Sending attendee surveys with recap videos increases engagement and feedback, so you can fine-tune future events.

The Eyes Have It!

What’s next for the future of event tech. Are you sure you want to know?

“We test things for clients, and trialled facial recognition software at a CWT conference in France,” says Ian. They say the camera never lies – and it didn’t. Turns out you can’t fake having fun.

“We could see exactly the number of people emotionally committed to the speaker at any point - exceptional real-time information for post-event analysis,” Ian explains. “And it could help you decide whether you schedule that process and insurance talk right after lunch.”

Blog author: Sian Lewis

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