FindAConferenceVenueFind a Conference Venue

  • Home
  • Let us Help
  • Testimonials
  • Contact Us
  • Blog
Find Your Venue

Conference Venues Cork

Conference Venues Galway

Conference Venues Limerick

Conference Venues Dublin



GREEN VENUES

The Stillorgan Park Hotel

The 4 Star Stillorgan Park Hotel is located on the periphery of can cater from 2- 500 delegates with 20..

Silver Springs Moran Hotel

Silver Springs Moran Hotel combines contemporary design with traditional elegance. Each of our 109 deluxe bedrooms, including five luxurious suites..

Improve Your Next Conference – 5 Really Easy Tips

On 18 April, 2014 by Ciara Feely Comments (0), leave your own!
Categories: Book more conference business, Conference Hotels, Conference Planning, Conference Sales Toolkit, Conference Venue Tips, hotel sales professionals

Tips to make your delegates conference experience easier and dramatically improve networking.

Today’s blog post is written by Kevin Newman who organises BrightonSEO.com conferences as posted in Event Managers Blog. You will love these tips – they just make sense!!

Improve the Usability of Your Name Badges.

Why do you give people name badges at events? It’s probably to make sure you’ve got no freeloaders.
Why are they useful to attendees? To help them remember the name of someone they’ve forgotten or to spot people they’d like to speak to. Yet the badges at most events are tiny, with minuscule fonts that might be on brand but are a nightmare to read at distance.

We take a different approach, that seems to work well for us.
Our badges are huge. A double sided sheet of A6. We do get comments about how huge they are, but making them bigger makes it much easier for them to be useful.
We also use the font Blue Highway. This is not one of our brand fonts. It’s a free font based upon the fonts used on American road signs. That means it’s designed to be clearly read from a distance.
If you can’t read the name of the attendee from 20ft away, we have failed on our badge designs.
Also think about what extra information you could put on the badge with the extra space a bigger badge allows. In the past we’ve included Twitter handles. Sometimes people are more familiar with people’s names on Twitter than their ‘real name’.
Though don’t be afraid to exclude things, on badges whitespace is your friend!

Programme More breaks.

I’ve struggled with this one over the years. I’ve always wanted to cram as much content into a conference as I can, so I was always nibbling away at the breaks.
Then I had a proper read through our feedback. I got the message that the opportunity to network was one of the main reasons people attended our events. So we made more time for exactly that.
Having healthy breaks does mean when a speaker inevitably runs over time, there is still plenty of time for attendees to stock up on caffeine, fresh air and industry gossip.

Arrange More Power Sockets
You can spot who the conference veteran is. They are the first person in the auditorium scoping out the seat nearest a power socket. They will even get charging early in the day to ensure their fully juiced for the whole day.
The reality is at most events your audience will be spending time on their mobile, tablet and/or phone. They will want power to keep them charged.
You can never have enough power sockets at a conference.
Use this opportunity. There are some great off the shelf charging solutions and it’s a great thing to get sponsored or branded. Chargebar is a great service where charging stations can be rented. It becomes the centre for connecting and like the “watering hole” of the conference. Chargers are the most forgotten item at a conference, if you are providing a solution to someones panic of almost running out of juice on their phone or notebook, then you are a saviour.

Send out a ‘What to Expect’ Email

Early on in my conference organising days it amazed me the number of emails I used to get about dress codes. I was organising marketing conferences not gala dinners. It’s one of the things people legitimately get concerned about in the run up to events.
One way to fight this anxiety in your delegates is to send round a ‘What to expect email’ a few days before the event. Talk about dress codes, what types of food and drink are going to be available, whether there will be wi-fi etc.
Think about every small question your attendees have asked ahead of your events. Turn then into a helpful piece of communication. You’ll save your attendees a lot of mental energy fretting.

Schedule Tweets to Pre-empt Problems
There are certain problems we know we are going to have at our events. People arrive early, they can’t find the wifi password, their running out of battery and are looking for a charger.
We know to expect these things so ahead of an event we schedule tweets covering exactly these issues.
It leaves us the time to concentrate on other things on the day but allows people on the back-channel to answer their own questions. You’ll also find other attendees retweeting these ‘Public Service Announcements’. Spreading the message for you.

In Conclusion.
A successful event is all about the details.
These are just a few of the things that have helped make our events more successful. Useful badges, more networking time that you might expect, extensive power sockets, allaying people’s fears with a what to expect email and pre-scheduling tweets to pre-empt problems.

You probably do lots of your own, I hope these tweaks will help you run your event better.

If you like this blog post, you will love these related topics:
One Brilliant Question to Ask When Organising a Conference
How to Effectively Analyze Your Conference – Survey Questions

Feel free to Contact Ciara if you have any questions on how to get the biggest results from your Conference or Event.

Tagged: arranging conferences, charging stations at conference, conference experience, conference organisers, conference planning tips, conference technology. conference apps, networking tips, tips on planning an event
No Comments

 

Leave a comment

  • Welcome!

    Ciara Feely

    Welcome to the blog of Ciara Feely, the founder of FindaConferenceVenue.com, Ireland's expert on Conference Venues in Ireland. Ciara offers a free service researching and giving advice on venues in Ireland for Conferences, Meetings and Events. Just call or email her. The website is a comprehensive listing of over 500 venues in Ireland – independently search for venues and send an enquiry directly through to the venue.
  • Connect with Ciara

    LinkedIN Twitter Facebook YouTube RSS

  • Subscribe via Email

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

  • Categories
    • Amusing (6)
    • Book more conference business (10)
    • Business Network International (7)
    • Company BBQ (2)
    • Conference Event Technology (9)
    • Conference Hotels (19)
    • Conference Planning (25)
    • Conference Sales Toolkit (3)
    • Conference Survey Questions (1)
    • Conference Venue Tips (25)
    • Conference Venues (13)
    • Conferences on a budget (8)
    • Dublin Conference Facilities (2)
    • Event Reviews (5)
    • Festival Planning Tips (2)
    • Festivals (2)
    • Golf Venues (2)
    • Green Venues (4)
    • Hotel and Venue VAT rates (2)
    • Hotel Sales (1)
    • hotel sales professionals (1)
    • Hotel Sales Tips (7)
    • Hotel Site Inspection (2)
    • how to negotiate (1)
    • Incentive Trip Ideas (2)
    • International Trade Shows (1)
    • Marketing Events (3)
    • Meeting Rooms (2)
    • My Events (3)
    • Negotiating Rates (7)
    • Networking in General (5)
    • Smart organising tips (13)
    • Team Building (7)
    • Team Building Ideas (7)
    • Testimonials (1)
    • Twitter and Events (3)
    • Uncategorized (14)
    • Venue Reviews (16)
Home | Let Us Help | Testimonials | Planning Tips | Contact Us | Reward Program | My venues
answers@findaconferencevenue.com | phone 353 (0) 26 21015 | Privacy Policy | Copyright 2009 | Company Registration No: 329483