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Insights on events, technology, and the future of gathering
Quick answer: Event gamification awards attendees points for the actions you want more of - attending sessions, booking meetings, answering polls, asking questions - and ranks them on real-time leaderboards. Prizes, badges and team challenges turn passive viewers into active participants, making it one of the most reliable ways to increase event engagement.
You have run one or more virtual events and discovered the benefits: lower costs, a more diverse audience, excellent data, time savings and a smaller carbon footprint. But the post-event analytics keep pointing at the same number one priority - increase engagement. Improving the content is easy to say and harder to do; if you could just persuade Michelle Obama to be your next keynote, everything else would follow. The realistic route is participation: people are far more engaged with something they are actively involved in.
There is a child inside all of us, and we all like to play. If you are a doubter, look at how popular fantasy NFL and Premier League have become: tens of millions play every week, become addicted to their stats and rankings, debate rule changes and tease the losers. It is time to gamify your event
Event gamification works by rewarding attendees with points for the activities an organizer wants to encourage. You decide how many points each activity is worth, biasing behavior to suit your event best. Real-time leaderboards then show who the top performers are at any moment - displayed publicly to fuel competition, or kept hidden behind the scenes in the organizer’s console. Leaderboards can also be organized by attendee type, useful for celebrating the most active participant from, say, Ohio, or from the media.
With Canapii, an organizer can set up a points-based system that rewards attendees for all sorts of activities, including:
Attending sessions
Setting up meetings - perhaps with double points for inviting a sponsor to talk
Uploading a profile picture
Sending chat messages or asking questions to a presenter
Watching several on-demand sessions, with a requirement to view at least 75% of the content each time
Taking part in an event activity, like a run, ride or fund-raising initiative
Canapii also lets organizers create their own rules, making each event unique. Points can be tied to individual sessions: if Wednesday 5pm is predicted to be the graveyard slot, award triple points for responding to a poll in that session.
Start simply: the winner, or winners, should get prizes. Call them up on stage in the closing keynote, give away a free trip or a tech prize, or offer whatever is consistent with your event’s values. The most energetic users will have motivated other participants along the way - that network effect is the dream of any event organizer and should be recognized.
Our experience is that 30-50% of attendees will take the leaderboard seriously. A group will be fiercely competitive, study the rules and try to win; others - often the older or more senior participants - will not realize the game has even kicked off. Spread the word by creating team events and team leaderboards: plenty of psychological evidence suggests people feel far more guilty about letting a team down than they do when they fail themselves.
Badges are another alternative - say gold, silver, bronze and tin - with every attendee notified of their status post-event. Some of those winning emails get forwarded to bosses or posted on social media, and soon other attendees are being asked “which badge did you get?” You can also invite the leaders to a special occasion at your next event, perhaps a cocktail reception if you are lucky enough to be in person. Keep it strict - only those who qualified get to drink the champagne - and word will spread that these badges mean something valuable.
The data at Canapii events is so rich that there can be surprises for the lazier attendees too. For this group, find a big stick. Some examples that work well:
For paid-ticket events, offer the top 100 on the leaderboard a 25% discount coupon for a future event
For invitation-only events, set a minimum number of points that must be earned to qualify for an invitation to next year’s event
For educational events, offer a certificate of completion, driven by the minutes of sessions an attendee has watched
Yes - gamification does not have to be a competition between attendees at all. The best illustration is a real-world event that took place on our platform, run by Schneider Electric, an innovative company that takes its environmental, social and governance responsibilities so seriously that it was ranked the world’s most sustainable corporation by Corporate Knights.
Schneider used gamification, not as a competition between attendees, but as a call to action with a wonderful, shared goal: every point earned contributed to Schneider planting a tree, with everyone working towards a target of 10,000 new trees. A great use of Canapii’s gamification tool to drive engagement through an aspirational goal totally consistent with the company’s core values.
A points-based system that rewards attendees for taking part in an event - attending sessions, booking meetings, answering polls, asking questions - with real-time leaderboards and prizes for the most active participants.
In our experience, 30-50% of attendees take the leaderboard seriously. Team events and team leaderboards pull in even more people, because most of us try harder when a team is counting on us.
Either works. Leaderboards can be displayed publicly to fuel competition or kept hidden in the organizer’s console, and they can be organized by attendee type to celebrate different groups separately.
Prizes and stage recognition for the winners, plus badges, exclusive receptions, discounts on future tickets and certificates of completion. A shared charitable goal - like Schneider Electric’s tree planting - can motivate every attendee at once.
Ready to gamify your next event? Explore Canapii’s event gamification features and speak to our team today.