Event Technology
How to use event technology for your conference
Feb 17, 2023 / 9 min read
By: Nicholas Royal, Customer Success
In the past couple of years, the events industry has faced the most dramatic changes it has ever seen. The overnight appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the industry's reliance on technology to deliver full virtual experiences. Digital meetings, conferences and concerts have become the new face of the industry we thought we knew so well. Suddenly, event technology became critical to the industry’s survival. Event organizers had to adapt continuously to new sets of rules, month after month. What made that possible? Event technology!
According to its definition, event technology combines tools that help plan, execute, and measure event outcomes. More importantly, event technology can be accessed as a standalone tech stack or combined into an event management software that includes different tools grouped into features contributing to event success:
Event marketing tools: website builder, stakeholder email marketing solution, personalized registration flows, promo codes
Event content tools: agenda builder, speaker management, content submission
Event engagement tools: mobile apps, chat channels, in-session polls, social media integrations
Networking tools: 1:1 messaging, community search, meeting bookings
Streaming tools: Recording sessions for on-demand access
On-site tools: Badge scanning, lead management, sponsor management
Event intelligence tools: various analytic materials related to registration, networking, sessions and cross-event analytics
In the aftermath of the pandemic, event technology is evolving faster than ever. Event organizers are mostly aware of the latest technology trends rather than technology stack features.
At this stage, it's important to learn how to use event technology for your conference and where event management platforms can be extremely helpful.
1) Ticket sales
Selling tickets is the core business element for every event organizer. The ticket-purchasing experience must be excellent for all attendees and organizers. Event technology platforms like run.events enable organizers to track ticket sales in multiple steps. Organizers can choose beginning and end dates for sales, or whether the tickets are made public or are redeemable by vouchers. Organizers can use ticket add-ons to sell additional services that attendees can’t buy separately (e.g., train tickets).
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Define tickets
Define ticket add-ons and options
Sell individual or group tickets
Issue vouchers
2) Invoicing and tracking
Providing invoices for all paid goods and services is mandatory. Issuing an invoice is obligatory each time someone purchases conference tickets. Besides its invoicing feature, run.events allows organizers to apply various taxes to different customers depending on their location (e.g., in some countries, private and corporate customers are taxed differently; in the European Union, some countries allow you to apply the reverse charge rule when selling tickets), and issue e-invoices that can be imported into most modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Tracking payments is a useful feature as it requires different tracking models based on your attendees’ chosen payment method. Some payment models provide immediate transfers without delay (i.e., credit card payment), but with others, there may be a delay of several hours or days (i.e., wire transfers, debit charges). For most of these payments, run.events will provide automated tracking and update your payment data. There is always an option to use manual payment tracking.
Using this tool event, organizers can:
Issue invoices
Track payments automatically or manually
Define tax rates to suit various taxation systems
Customize invoices (i.e., text, footer, purchase order, reference number)
3) Sponsor management
Managing sponsors and sponsorship contracts is challenging. Event organizers have a specific event technology stack that supports initial negotiations, contact management and invoicing. They can also manage sponsor staff, enabling sponsors to have a great event experience. Using an event tech stack helps them decide which booth staff have permission to scan and gather leads. This enables lead classification fine-tuning. A platform like run.events allows organizers to provide sponsors with lead analytics and visual insights into leadership roles, companies and countries.
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Define sponsorship items and packages
Store and track data about sponsors (CRM)
Maintain contract management and invoices
Onboard sponsors and other types of pre-event activities
4) Managing content and speakers
Speakers, content managers and content teams define the content life cycle. From content submission, selection and rating, to defining the agenda and speaker management, covering content selection becomes crucial for event success. This is where event technology can help allow content submissions through the Call for Papers (CfP). Conference organizers can decide on the start and end date for the CfP and create customizable submission forms to gather desired pieces within speaker profiles. run.events offer two ways of managing submitted content: in the Kanban-style view, where sessions can be rated and moved between buckets, or in the ‘classic table outline’ with the same values. For conference agendas, organizers can drag and drop sessions from buckets to agenda builders where session rooms and time slots are presented. Once conference organizers define the content selection and the event agenda, they must deal with speaker communications and management. This is where event technology is extremely beneficial, as it enables the creation of speaker groups for separate communication.
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Handle content submission and selection
Monitor agenda development and publication
Handle speaker management
Manage content ratings
5) Reporting and finances
Event technology provides organizers with a continuous overview of different event aspects, such as earnings. It can provide exact data about how many tickets and sponsorships have been sold in real-time or what has been paid and which payments are still outstanding. run.events enable event organizers to analyze who their largest customers are and how many tickets they have purchased. As the second biggest revenue stream, sponsorship insights are essential for event organizers. run.events can provide a live data feed on multiple signed sponsorships throughout the negotiation process and for those who have already been invoiced.
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Create ticket reports
Create sponsorship reports
Create invoice and payment reports
6) Better resource allocation
Inflation and economic downturn present another set of challenges for conference organizers, as many event aspects become more expensive. Event technology can help save money by offering a comprehensive digital solution that combines multiple services in one place. The mobile app from run.events is the primary all-in-one solution offering attendees a great experience and a main event networking tool. It allows attendees to look for others (who have accepted to be publicly searched), send connection requests and establish pre-event networking. The event app has two modes automatically applied depending on the events the user attends and when the event is happening.
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Access the agenda and select sessions
Network
Communicate internally or externally
7) Communication and collaboration
Successful internal communication and collaboration between event team members can make or break your event. From the planning to the execution phase, increasing amounts of data circulate among event team members, making it crucial to provide an accurate data flow and make all known documents easily accessible. run.events event technology enables teams to communicate easily based on their role and the context in which they operate. Documents can be uploaded using the chat mode as a core feature. You can post and reply to messages, send emojis, upload documents and pictures in various formats or take notes for team members. Everything can be accessed at all times using different tabs.
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Benefit from a fully-fledged, chat-based communication and collaboration
Send and access documents, pictures and notes
Create special topics and channels for each sponsor or session
8) Centralized reporting
Event technology doesn’t just provide large quantities of data to organizers and exhibitors but also to sponsors who are able to access it according to its relevancy. This can help better understand stakeholder performance regarding lead generation and qualification at an event. run.events also provides valuable data and analytics about your events, including ticket and sponsor sales reports, attendee demographics and other types of feedback. This information helps event organizers to understand their audience and improve future events.
Using this tool, event organizers can:
Analyze expenses and profitability
Report to sponsors and other stakeholders
Get help with lead tracking
Analyse attendee demographics and consumer behavior
This blog has presented important event technology tools and features that might suit your next event. However, event organizers must be able to distinguish how to use event technology that is crucial to success from tools and features that are nice to have.
Event technology evaluation starts with knowing every aspect of your business and what you want to achieve by organizing events. It’s good to think about the following aspects:
Choose a company focused on innovation
Remember, innovation is critical for the event industry! Ignoring it leads to missing out on innovative new functions vendors can provide. Event organizers are mostly aware of tech tools but do not have detailed knowledge about their essential aspects.
Don't overlook hybrid readiness
Even though we are back to in-person daily life, event organizers remember many lessons learned during the pandemic. Always look for solutions that can evolve with your events in a hybrid era.
Ease of use
Event technology that describes itself as easy to use targets all stakeholders (i.e., event organizers, sponsors, attendees, speakers and vendors) who should be able to learn and use the platform quickly. This will bring significant ROI and efficiency to your event. When selecting a vendor, a seamless experience for all stakeholders should be an important consideration, as it emphasizes levels of customization. Organizers shouldn’t forget reliability since downtime is an event organizer’s worst nightmare, affects revenue and leads to missed opportunities and bad press.
Customer support
Event technology with best-in-class support allows organizers to react to specific issues or request immediate updates to resolve bottlenecks. Customer support and success tools are critical for quickly resolving issues once your event starts. If a module doesn’t work correctly (e.g., registration), you will want to contact customer support to resolve it.
Event technology simplifies all aspects of the event-organizing process, streamlines the attendee experience and generates leads. Its unique feature of combining a comprehensive set of tools helps to know how to use event technology for your conference. Before investing in standalone tools, event organizers must develop a deep understanding of the event’s key features and requirements. A tech stack consolidated in one place saves valuable time and money.