How Farm Management Canada hosted their annual Agriculture Excellence

About the event

After a previous platform underperformed, our client, Farm Management Canada, was seeking a user-intuitive and engaging virtual space to host their annual Agricultural Excellence Conference. The platform needed to host a mix of live and simulated-live workshops for both large and small audiences that matched the custom branding and engagement expected of a live in-person event.

The challenges

Our client was on the hunt for a platform that could support an audience of 800+ as well
as a gamification element to drive participation and engagement between attendees. The platform needed to offer an intuitive interface to support a wide range of
user technical experience and accessibility.

This three-day event comprised several live workshops and simulated live streams as well as two concurrent extended workshops each day. With this structure, it was of utmost importance to select a platform that would be flexible to accommodate last-minute requests from speakers. Supporting speakers who preferred a mix of live and simulated live sessions was critical in ensuring the sessions were presented as the speakers intended. It was desired that tech support on the day of the event be provided to assist attendees. The intuitiveness of the platform was central in ensuring the least amount of clicks for attendees to bounce between sessions seamlessly.

Lastly, the platform needed to support an easily updated video on demand page for attendees to access all presentations post-event.

The solutions

Since most speakers preferred to pre-record their presentations, Canapii and the FMC event team leveraged our “simulive” session content option. This option schedules the broadcast of a video file to look and feel like a live stream.

With the speakers also watching live and interacting with viewers in real-time via the interactive bar, it was a seamless experience for all users. The event team used Canapii’s notifications tool to show banner pop-ups that updated and directed attendees to view live sessions as they started.

For the live roundtable sessions, the team decided to leverage a Zoom integration that
supported both Zoom webinar and Zoom meetings depending on the expected audience size.
Due to the familiarity with the Zoom interface, this functionality proved to be well received by
speakers and viewers. This integration also gave attendees and speakers the option to join
externally via phone or the Zoom client app depending on preference.

The gamification element was crucial to stimulating engagement and was used to award prizes provided via their sponsors live during the event. A community gallery wall was also created to drive participation and connection throughout the event with the ability to post pictures and chat in the dedicated chat bar. Finally, utilizing the playlist and polling function to guide users towards the next session ensured that attendees were able to easily join consecutive sessions and sustained high viewer numbers throughout the event day.

860+

Attendees

Different ticket types

Sessions

Speakers

The results

The conference was extremely successful and well-received. Taking place across 3 full days the event boasted 860+ registered attendees. Canapii’s simu-live capability proved to be central in maximizing the platform’s functionality and running full sessions without the need for the event team’s attention. The Zoom integration was utilized well; seamlessly embedding a familiar interface within the Canapii platform that catered to speakers’ need to feel confident in taking their presentations to the virtual space. Notifications and polling were customized to efficiently signpost and guide attendees into additional sessions.

The intuitive structure of the platform resulted in minimal technical support requests and the
ability to live update homepage sessions, ensuring a clear interface that updated throughout
the day. Page customizations were used to highlight sponsors on different pages leading to
increased exposure for sponsors and additional revenue offers for the event team. Overall, the event functioned like a well-oiled machine resulting in high session ratings and platform usage all tracked via Canapii’s event analytics.

“Thank you so much for your patience and dedication to AgEx. You helped us each and every step of the way, were very patient in doing so, and helped to make it a success”

Nick Oakley

Farm Management Canada