It’s no longer a question of whether businesses want their events onsite as most events prepare to be in-person. However, an event can’t occur if no one is willing to attend. Nowadays, the event industry faces the question of how to get attendees’ buy-in to return. Presently, attendees are more cautious about interacting with others and what they touch. Since the pandemic, people have become more aware of their social interactions. Even if attendees want to go to events in-person, they want to return safely. To ensure that attendees come back to your events, you must meet today’s industry expectations. Have you thought about going contactless for your next event?
Today, the word “contactless” has become an excepted procedure incorporated into our everyday lives. In fact, some businesses are now alerting patrons that they will be phasing out their old technology of swiping cards for payment. As a result, visitors’ only option will be to use contactless payment in exchange for the business’ services. With that purpose in mind, attendees will not blink an eye to using this new form of contactless technology.
Consequently, event planners will want to adopt this use of technology for its ability to increase safety. What are the benefits of going contactless? Contactless methods eliminate the need for manual action and perhaps physical contact. Thus, attendees will be more willing to go to an event that uses contactless technology because it will help improve their chances of staying safe. Below are some ways to apply contactless methods at your next event.
Work with your sponsors and exhibitors virtually
Do you know that you can prepare nearly all your sponsorship items virtually? In other words, you can use event management software to communicate with attendees and exhibitors to sell sponsorships and upgrades. Easily offer web banners, e-newsletters, and advertising for purchase. Furthermore, you can manage exhibitor assets like organization contacts, invoices, outstanding payments, booth assets, and more from a single platform.
Immediately start the planning process for your exhibit hall by automatically assigning exhibitors to booths during registration. In addition, create an interactive digital floor plan and manage exhibitor directory listings all from your home office. As a result, this eliminates the need to visit your venue or get together with your vendors. At the same time, you can offer your exhibitors a “self-service” model to give them the ability to manage their content. This virtual experience makes it easy for sponsors and exhibitors to purchase booth space, list upgrades and promotional/sponsorship opportunities, and more.
Lastly, going contactless with your communications allows your exhibitors to start building out relationships with attendees ahead of time. Attendees can search for products and services to get matched with exhibitors. Moreover, they can schedule appointments with their exhibitor matches using real-time calendar availability information.
Increase safety with contactless check-in
Immediately get attendees on board with you hosting an onsite event by going contactless at check-in. In general, an attendee’s first stop once they arrive at your event’s site is to check in to receive their badge. Provide peace of mind that your team is putting your attendees’ safety first by applying a contactless method right away. Thus, using contactless technology at the beginning sets the tone for the rest of your event. Attendees are more likely to relax and start to enjoy themselves at your event if they already know you are taking steps to enhance their safety experience.
With this intention, you can implement contactless check-in by first applying a barcode on the attendees’ confirmation tickets. Next, you’ll want to work with a vendor that can pair the barcode with a scanner and an on-demand badge printer. Therefore, an attendee can use their barcode to walk up to a scanner to receive their badge automatically. This self-service solution allows attendees to collect their welcome materials without needing a staff member. Thus, this removes the extra handling of badges or the close contact of speaking to a staff member. In addition, going contactless with an on-demand badge system helps reduce wait times and long onsite entry lines. In other words, the on-demand badges printer is so fast that there will be little to no line congestion. Furthermore, attendees will spend less time around others.
Keep track of attendees
Are you worried about how you will ensure that your session or networking rooms are not overcrowded? There are simple and contactless technologies that can help you keep track of your room capacity and more. For instance, you can download an attendee tracking app to your device. Then, use this app to scan attendees’ badges to see if they have access to certain locations. After scanning an attendee’s badge, a notification will appear in the attendee tracking app. The information will alert you if the attendee can be in the room. If you previously required gated access but now have more space available, you can override the attendee on the spot. Thus, you can easily manage access down to the individual.
Furthermore, you can go completely contactless by having attendees check in themselves. As a result, you can do away with having a member of your staff scanning attendees. Instead, attendees can scan their badges onsite for room check-in and check-out. Give attendees the gift of convenience and safety at your next event.
In addition, you can collect all of your attendee data through a digital portal. You can use this data to monitor where attendees are gathering through your personal computer. Moreover, this data can help you plan whether you need more space to spread out attendees.
Incorporate Contactless Payment
At your event, you may offer activities, luxuries, or food items available for purchase. Both consumers and vendors are rapidly adopting the contactless payment method. Likewise, Forbes found that, “in 2021, only 19% of transactions in the U.S. were cash transactions.” In addition, they predict that, “cashless payment volumes are expected to further increase by 43% between now and 2025.” Going contactless for your onsite payments will not only improve safety but also make attendees feel that your event embraces the latest technology trends. Android and Apple both provide instructions on how to set up contactless payment for your personal devices.
Offer digital lead capture
Put a stop to the old-fashioned method of exhibitors whipping their business cards to hand to a prospect. Not only is this concept outdated, but it also increases contact through the physical exchange of the card. In order to remove this direct contact, exhibitors can download a lead retrieval app to their devices. If an attendee has a barcode on their badge, an exhibitor can quickly scan the badge from a short distance to capture the attendee’s information. As a result, exhibitors don’t have to hand attendees a card that they touched, or an attendee doesn’t have to write down their information. Furthermore, exhibitors can keep notes about the attendees they meet directly in the app.
