Event Technology 2021: Trends And Takeaways

Over the last few months, everything has been put on hold as the countries around the world have gone into lock down. Whilst physical events died down and a sudden demand for virtual events arose with this event technology also started evolving. This fast evolution has greatly impacted 90% of the event planners in the industry.

Before technology started unfolding, planning an event was a very manual process. Event professionals use to outline prospects contact by contact. Print and direct mail were the only ways to promote the event. Moreover, before immersive event technologies, event planners could only schedule live activities. Development of data analytics, on the other hand, have allowed event planners to monitor and quantify every aspect of their activities.

Today event marketers can select from a variety of tools to incorporate to their event tech deck.

Each component of the event tech stack contributes to the smooth transfer of the event life cycle from one step to the next. Event technology allows for the development of blogs, increased event submissions, and email marketing.

The advanced technology has also come with user friendly functionality to enhance their overall experience. Attendees can communicate with one another at the touch of a button thanks to networks, event participation, and networking technologies. With features like chat bots to have quick answers to their questions and layouts to help them navigate vast conference centers, event apps make it easy for visitors to explore the event. Another example is live streaming technology, which encourages participants to listen in to sessions from all around the world.

How to select the right event technology?

It’s important to keep those planning foundations in mind when selecting event technologies. Utilize your event priorities and overarching vision to help you decide which event technologies will be more beneficial to you and your attendees. In this part, we’ll go over the factors to weigh and best practises for selecting event technology.

Things that you may consider while evaluating event technology

The most effective way to choose event technologies is to consider how much it influences event priorities. Any technology is absolutely necessary, and organizers cannot afford to ignore it, whilst others will promote secondary targets that are “nice-to-have” solutions.

1- Features

Before you choose any tech it is important to evaluate what out-of-the-box features your service provider offers that meet your requirements. If not, can they fill the gap through armature.

To avoid any confusion, pen down all your requirements addressing the new technology, categorizing the one relevant to your event. Then mark each specification as a ‘ must-have,’ should-have,’ or a ‘could-have,’ and make sure it’s explained well enough. This aspect is vital as your entire event will be relied on these factors.

2- User-friendly

While you should have mixed feelings on this criteria, end consumers are the right people to judge it. It’s critical to consider user-friendliness from each technological perspective. User-friendliness is often assessed solely from the viewpoint of end-users doing data processing or capturing — while this is an essential lens, the technology’s friendliness for data mining, data interpretation, and data visualization can be equally essential.

3- Safety and Security

Examine how effectively you’ll be able to monitor users’ accessibility and approvals through technology for internal security, so that only the right people see and do the relevant things. Aim for applications that let you manage permissions and access at the object/table, function, and field levels. You’ll still need an audit trail to keep track on who makes what improvements when (both for metadata and data). You want to make sure that your device is secure from the outside and that only authorized users have access. Single-sign-on, two-factor verification, and the option to enforce security specifications are all enhancements you may like. And, if you’re processing files in the database, you’ll want a tech vendor with a stellar reputation for how it handles its servers, both physically and virtually in terms of security.

4- Enhance attendees experience

Consider how much customization is possible when selecting event technologies. Is it necessary, for example, for a website visitor to escape the official page in order to register for an event? Can the agenda and homepage be tailored to your brand? Can the interface provide an event app? Will it be white-labeled in case of any issue?

5- Success and support of the customer

Ask your service provider about what all majors do they offer for customer success and customer support. Executives that are available to figure out how to fix unforeseen problems, such as technical assistance, are referred to as customer support. If your event registration is no longer running, you can call customer service to get the problem fixed. When you’re looking for event technology, you’ll want to find out what kind of service they have. For eg, is customer service providing 24–7* support? Is there a live chat option, an email address, or a phone number you can call if you need assistance? What is the typical answer time for a help ticket?

Customer satisfaction leads to a committed brand manager that can show you how to leverage the app and support you with tactical and constructive advice. They will be your champion and help you achieve your targets and target event outcome.

Although most (but not all) event technology companies have any standard of service, many do not provide customer satisfaction. Having all kinds of resources will help in making a huge impact in achieving the event goals.

6- Reliability

An event planner’s worst nightmare is downtime. People can begin to abandon the event if the live-stream or event page is unavailable (even for a few seconds). This can indicate lost sales, overlooked chances, bad coverage, and disappointed attendees. The quality of your events hinges on the use of accurate event technologies.

Event technology — Takeaway

Event technology has been a standard for new productivity, supplying event planning with data-backed analytics, simplified integrations, and improved participant interaction.

Here are some key ideas to always remember before we wrap up:

• Choose wisely. There are several multiple kinds of event technology, each with their own combination of advantages and disadvantages. Create a software stack based on your objectives and the usability of the technology involved.
• Look for hybrid readiness We’re on the verge of a hybrid event phase, so make sure the event infrastructure is long term and has plans to adapt to fulfill future hybrid needs.
• Concentrate about your previous experiences. Ensure that the event technologies you choose have a positive customer experience for you, your staff, and your guests.
• Innovation is key.Look for businesses that are innovative; you will be able to get years ahead of the market with cutting-edge technological solutions.
• Sort out the clatter. In general, review pages are a good place to start while sifting through the various choices open to you. Take the time when testing the app and think about it from both angles before making a final decision.

Over to you

The influence of event technologies allows event planners to help to progress their art by providing them with effective resources that remove the guesswork from the factor. With the support of this reference and the event industry’s many revelatory technologies, you can open the opportunity of your next events in 2021 and beyond.