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Insights on events, technology, and the future of gathering
Quick answer: On-site events run best on seven core technologies: a mobile event app, a chatbot for attendee support, live streaming, registration and check-in software, event gamification, social media integration, and networking tools. Together they smooth logistics for organizers, make the event more profitable for exhibitors, and give attendees a more engaging, interactive experience.
After a long hiatus during the pandemic, on-site events are back in full force. Around the globe, conferences, meetings, and other corporate events are rediscovering the benefits of gathering together for knowledge sharing and networking — and organizers want to impress attendees with an engaging, enriching experience.
The answer lies in technology. A growing range of apps and tools is moving on-site events into the 21st century and making them more immersive, comprehensive experiences. This guide covers how event technology transforms an event and the top tools to have in your toolkit.
Event technology improves an on-site event from three perspectives at once: your event team, your exhibitors or vendors, and your attendees.
For organizers and planning teams, the right technology makes every part of the process run more smoothly — planning the event, booking speakers, selling exhibitor or vendor spots, advertising, registering attendees, checking in attendees and exhibitors, fielding customer service inquiries, and gathering post-event feedback.
For exhibitors and vendors, technology makes the event more profitable. It lets them easily collect contacts from the attendees they meet and gather their own performance data. The more you can benefit their bottom line, the more likely you are to win loyal, returning exhibitors for future events.
Attendees benefit too. They get faster registration and check-in, plus a more engaging, interactive experience when you use technology for incentives, interactive surveys, and supplementary materials. The benefits of event technology lie in the execution: the right tools make a world of difference whether your event has 50 or 5,000 attendees.
A custom event app is the cornerstone of the on-site experience. It puts vital information in attendees’ hands — a map of the venue, the session agenda, and frequently asked questions — and keeps them on track with reminders and push notifications, alongside special incentives and vendor ads. For an even better experience, choose an app that lets attendees build their own agendas by selecting the sessions they want to attend.
The app is also a channel for interactive participation: presenters can run surveys, quizzes, and interactive visuals that attendees answer from their seats, creating a more positive and productive experience for audiences and presenters alike.
Before, during, and after an event, questions and issues stream in from attendees, and staffing enough customer service representatives to field them all is challenging and expensive. A chatbot handles the common, easy requests automatically, so a smaller support team can focus on the complicated ones and respond faster.
A chatbot can also gather feedback after the event, reaching out to attendees in a convenient, conversational way and generating data you can use to improve future events. For the smoothest experience, make the chatbot part of your event app so attendees find all their resources in one place.
Live streaming was the only way most events could run during the pandemic, but on-site events still benefit from it in several ways. Streaming your presentations, sessions, and speeches pulls in virtual attendees from around the world and makes the event more inclusive for people who cannot practically attend in person — including people with mobility issues, visual or hearing impairments, or who would benefit from subtitles in another language.
Many live streaming platforms also record streams so registered attendees can view them later — ideal for sessions they missed due to schedule conflicts or want to rewatch.
Small details become large frustrations when they go wrong, and registration is full of opportunities for errors. Registration software prevents these headaches with a smooth, simple sign-up process. Choose highly customizable software that lets you ask any question you want — basic contact information as well as topics of interest and fun facts. Advanced registration software like the Canapii platform can even integrate with participants’ hotel and travel bookings.
Registration should also connect with your related needs. Canapii, for example, generates name badges for each attendee and presenter, complete with scannable codes that let vendors collect interested attendees’ contact details and speed up event check-in. When registration is part of your event management software, the whole process gets easier.
Event gamification is one of the best ways to create a more engaging, enjoyable, and educational attendee experience. Gamification means adding game-like mechanics to your event: a point system that rewards attendees for visiting exhibitor booths and attending sessions, or a prize drawing where attendees earn entries by completing tasks.
Gamification is focused on attendees, but the engagement boost pays off for exhibitors and your organization too. Structured well, it drives more interaction between attendees and exhibitors — better ROI for exhibitors, and higher attendance and exhibitor revenue at your future events, with minimal added work on your part.
Social media is valuable before, during, and after an on-site event — if you harness it properly. Before the event, it spreads the word; integrate your registration platform with your social channels and interested attendees can go straight to sign-up.
During the event, social media integrations spark chatter: custom hashtags and links between your event app and social platforms encourage attendees to share photos and stories. That creates digital networking in the hashtagged conversations and raises your event’s visibility, so your next edition draws more interest.
Networking is a major reason people attend professional events, especially on-site ones. The right event software facilitates more productive connections: ask about topics of interest, fun facts, and employers during registration, then use a unified, multi-featured platform like Canapii to generate groups of attendees based on those factors. You play matchmaker, attendees meet ideal new connections, and higher satisfaction translates into more profitable future events.
You can assemble a toolbox from many separate software products, or opt for an all-in-one event platform that handles every function above. Canapii combines registration, gamification, chats, networking, social media integration, and live streaming with a custom event app — one platform, one login, one source of event data.
On-site event technology is the set of digital tools that support an in-person event: event apps, chatbots, live streaming, registration and check-in software, gamification, social media integrations, and networking features. It streamlines logistics for organizers and makes the event more interactive for attendees.
At minimum: registration and check-in software, a mobile event app for agendas and updates, and networking tools. Depending on your goals, add a chatbot for attendee support, live streaming for remote audiences, gamification for engagement, and social media integration for promotion.
Yes. Live streaming lets virtual attendees join from anywhere, makes the event more inclusive for people who cannot attend in person, and creates recordings that registered attendees can rewatch after the event.
It makes their investment more profitable: scannable badges let them capture interested attendees’ contact details, gamification drives more booth traffic, and performance data shows them exactly what they got from the event — which keeps them coming back.
Yes. All-in-one platforms like Canapii combine registration, check-in, event apps, gamification, live streaming, networking, and social media integration. Canapii has powered 2,000+ events across 45+ countries since 2020.
Ready to build your on-site event technology toolkit? Request a Canapii demo and see how one platform can run your registration, check-in, engagement, and networking end to end.