About isla
isla is a non-profit organisation founded by event professionals and industry leaders focusing on a sustainable future for events. Its core message of ‘collaboration over competition’ highlights the need for organisations involved in the events sector to come together and re-think the way events are designed and delivered and how we can embrace and embed sustainable practices into an industry that has historically been synonymous with high emissions impact – think single-use consumables and high levels of air travel.
isla’s aims of facilitating knowledge sharing, educating companies to translate intentions into actions and reporting on industry-wide activity for the purpose of target setting are the building blocks of a movement developed to drive change.
With its members ranging from brands, agencies and suppliers through to venues, exhibition organisers and in-house teams, it has the full complement of sectors on board to make meaningful shifts towards sustainability in the events industry.
About Transform: The Community
Transform: The Community, an event exclusively for isla members, which took place virtually on the 25th of May 2023, was a purpose-led celebration of the first industry Temperature Check Report Launch.
A year’s worth of insight gathering via isla’s carbon measurement platform, TRACE, and the collective effort of the isla community went into producing this highly anticipated report. Not only was isla focused on celebrating the report’s launch and highlighting its importance in helping guide the shape of the future event sustainability landscape, but also as an opportunity to communicate huge gratitude to the isla community for being an integral part of the journey. Their contributing event data and case studies helped bring the challenges and opportunities presented by event decarbonisation to life.
The event organisers needed a virtual platform that could, for the first time, bring together 200 attendees from both its TRACE and isla communities: An intuitive, secure and brandable virtual space that would extend the reach beyond the isla member community to connect event professionals and deliver the key messages and content synonymous with the isla movement.
CrowdComms was the first event technology company to join isla as a member, and we stand proudly amongst many prominent brands committed to more sustainable practices. When the event organisers needed to move to a solution beyond a basic online meeting, we were delighted they chose our technology to support the event.
“We were surprised how far we could stretch the template. It looked like a purpose-built platform.”
One Virtual Space with Ultimate Flexibility
“We needed one space for everyone, and the CrowdComms platform was the ideal solution.”
As well as connecting two separate audiences for the first time in one space, the organisers of Transform: The Community also required the functionality for attendees to download the Temperature Check Report, gain access to important member resources such as training badges, and enjoy the wide range of content, both live and on-demand. Organising the content into streams enabled the attendees to pick and choose between different sustainability workshops and drop them into their agenda to create their own personalised programme for the event. Facilitating a more bespoke experience in this way encourages greater attendee participation and gives participants control over how they want to digest and interact with the content most relevant to their organisation.
isla’s previous pre-event communications were solely delivered over their social media channels and via email. By utilising the CrowdComms platform, the event organisers could make good use of timely push notifications to direct people to take action or encourage them to interact with the space prior to the start of the event, reinforcing the sense of community.
Hosting an event virtually provides event organisers with limitless possibilities to engage with participants and deliver content outside the boundaries of the event day itself. The event team at isla ensured that there was pre-event content available early, such as welcome videos and pre-reads, and opportunities to connect with other event participants. Last-minute registrations could be dealt with easily on the day of the event, and as a virtual event has much fewer restrictions on attendee capacity, this enabled isla’s message to reach a wider audience.
“We were able to reach new contacts by running the event in this way, which is really important for raising awareness around the sustainability message.”
Support from the Experts
“The live chat support is no chatbot. It was amazing how responsive the CrowdComms team were.”
The event organisers of Transform: The Community were happy to get inside the CMS of the CrowdComms platform and build it out to their requirements. Whether our clients opt for self-build or a fully managed service, we always want to ensure that they feel supported and have familiarisation training with our support specialists, enabling them to hit the ground running. The team at isla appreciated the time that was taken to go through the platform’s back end and for the opportunity to ask questions so that they felt completely at ease using the technology.
In the run-up to the event, the organisers made good use of our live chat support. This feature provides a fast and efficient solution for any queries and is manned by our support staff. Using this service, we can provide on-going training throughout the build process, answer those last-minute questions, send screenshots and links to essential documents, as well as providing the reassuring presence that we’re known for.
When the time came to finalise the running order and delivery options for the live event, our Production Managers were on hand to advise on possible ways forward and to make any last-minute changes to ensure the event day ran smoothly.
“Our live event team was fairly lean, so CrowdComms became an extension of our team and stepped in to support us whenever we needed it. ”
Thank you to isla for providing us with their feedback for this case study. Please take a look at their website to learn more about them and their mission.
In addition, if you’d like to read more about creating collaboration through online communities, visit Henry Hall’s guest blog on the isla website here.
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