How to Boost Attendee Engagement at Your Next Event

An event organizer can work extremely hard to organize the perfect event, but they will not be able to maximize the results and increase event growth if their attendees are not fully engaged. Here is a quick list of some ways to boost attendee engagement at your next event:  

Face-to-Face Time
No matter how advance the technology, face-to-face is never going away in the event industry. One of the biggest opportunities an event can provide are real networking experiences. You can help support individual engagement at your event by providing attendees with the tools to create their own personalized agenda and ways to connect with their peers.

Personalization
It is important that attendees don’t feel like another number on the list at your event. Attendees are investing valuable time attending an event so they need to feel special and recognized in the massive crowds. When planning an event make sure to remember to not only cater to the massive groups, but think about how you can make it more personalized to individuals such as considering their interests, demographics, and specialties. Think about customizing your communication utilizing the data you already have on hand. Ask in advance the attendee’s favorite treat they like to have handy while traveling and then have it ready in their rooms upon hotel check-in. There are many creative ways to make your guests feel more at home at your event offering a more customized experience. Overall if the attendee feels like they have a more personalized experience, they will never forget the impact of the event.

Mobile Apps
Mobile apps are a great way to engage your attendees with many absorbing features and communication tools. Almost all events offer some type of mobile app today, but the ones that continue to stand out are the apps that offer full engagement features such as gamification, activity and photo feeds, social media contribution, networking and many other enriching capabilities to connect with other attendees at an event.

Surveys
The great thing about surveys and polls is that the majority of mobile apps already offer this feature and you will not have to outsource to another provider. Encourage your speakers to poll the audience- not all questions need to be about the content itself but they can utilize it as the feature as an ice breaker or attention-grabber. Not only are surveys and polls a great way to engage your attendees, they capture valuable data to help plan future events.