Posted by
Barry Siskind
UFI’s Community Manager

Attendees are now demanding to be active participants in the events and conversations that affect their lives and businesses.

Engaged participants are the centerpiece of meetings and exhibitions. It’s happily engaged participants who will attend the event again and recommend the event to colleagues.
On March 25th I posted a UFILive.org blog titled, Data Mining to Increase the Visitor’s Experience. In that post I examined the similarities and differences between retail and events. But as there is so much more that can be added to the conversation, I turned to an expert. Thorsten Kolbinger, the General Manager of Ungerboeck Software International. Ungerboech has developed products that help organizers create the interactivity that visitors want through web design and mobile devices. I asked Thorsten to clarify in simple terms how event technology can be used to encourage engagement between attendees and exhibitors before, during and long after a show.

He said, “Today’s event technology offers great possibilities to interact with the audience across all devices. Interactive exhibition platforms enable exhibitors to upload information about their products and services, market to attendees, upload videos and documents, and interact through social media. This is a great benefit for the attendees as they can easily obtain relevant information on the exhibitors, see where they are located through a dynamic, interactive floor plan and get in touch with them to make a stand appointment.

“Based on the personalized agenda and the sessions the attendees are able to set up, the system can suggest specific sessions they might be interested in, significantly contributing to a valuable and improved event experience. Thanks to responsive web design technologies, the user experience can be on every device the attendees work with. They can plan their attendance from their computers, then switch to their tablet and access the information through the same user interface – regardless of whether they are at their desk, at home, the airport, on the plane, in the hotel, at a session or walking the show floor.

“Every trade show’s online exhibitor zone offers private messaging functionalities, enabling attendees and exhibitors to communicate or schedule appointments. Although this is not new, the great thing about modern, sophisticated apps is they are capable of tracking and predicting people’s actions as well as suggesting people the attendees could be interested in meeting. Matchmaking has never been easier! This raises the probability of meeting the right people and making the event attendance even more rewarding.”