This is the third part of our blog series on Engaging Attendees Inside and Outside Sessions. Inspired by our round table discussions at the UK Associations Congress, we’ve put together four easy to read guides giving great tips on how to keep attendees on side and on track. Having reviewed the importance of pre-event communication and attendee networking, it’s time to look at the serious side of having fun with event app gaming!
Gaming
Using gaming before and during events is a proven way to engage attendees. You can read more here about how some of our clients have used gaming to achieve some incredible results.
Digital signage can boost the outcome of event app gaming. Displaying the game’s real time leaderboard helps build the competition between contestants. Another key component is the prize or (even better) the prizes. And when it comes to challenges less is more.
Make sure to take into account the amount of time attendees have available in determining how many challenges to include in the game.
Event app gaming can be used to engage attendees and achieve very specific event outcomes.
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Learning
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Encouraging attendees behaviour
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Create memorable experiences/have fun
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Provide value to sponsors
When it comes to learning, quiz style questions are a simple but effective way to disseminate or reinforce key messages. You can choose to give contestants a single shot at the answer or to let them keep trying until they arrive at the correct answer.
Driving Behaviour
You can use event app gaming to reward attendees for their participation in event content, for example speakers can distribute points for valuable questions or contributions during the session Q&A, or authors of the most insightful tweets could be sent bonus points.
Or, as one event did, you could give bonus points to all attendees who showed up on time the morning after the conference dinner!
Attendee Networking
Gaming at events are often used to encourage attendee networking. Here’s a terrific example of an event where the attendee networking was a huge success thanks to an event app game.
Memorable Experiences
You can’t beat making people laugh when it comes to creating a memorable event. We had lots of fun at a recent event with this!
We invited game participants to tweet us a picture of themselves showing how happy they would be if they won the prize. They had fun, and we created a social media storm. A win win as they say.
Sponsor Value
One of the most popular reasons to run gaming at events is to add value to sponsors.
This can be as simple as visiting exhibition stands to receive codes to earn points, much like the passport games from the pre-event app world. Or the game can be designed to facilitate discussion about the exhibitor’s or sponsor’s key messages.
However you design the game, here are my top tips:
– Ask each participating sponsor to contribute a prize. The better the prizes and more chance of winning the more engaging the game will be.
– Print the codes for each sponsor and them decide to display it prominently or keep out of sight so a discussion must take place.
– Limit the number of participating sponsors, a game that requires contestants to visit 50+ stands will soon stop being fun
– Have the MC talk highlight the leaders in the game and egg on the competitors.
– Use digital signage displaying the game’s real time leaderboard on large screens around the event.
– Plant a code in some pre-event comms to get the game going before the event begins.
