Attendee engagement, audience engagement, guest experience, or whatever you want to call it; is one of the most important aspects of your event. It's the difference between achieving your event goals and an absolute flop. We shoot to avoid the latter at all costs. Here are 5 event hacks to help boost your attendee experience and look good doing it.
Great Speaker Engagement = Great Attendee Engagement
Speaker experience and guest experience go hand-in-hand. If your speaker roster is getting little to no speaker management their slide deck may not be optimized for the screens, if the stage design is too barren or too crowded they may feel uncomfortable on stage. If their microphone preferences are ignored you could be hindering a very engaging presentation. All of these shortfalls negatively and directly impact the speaker's experience which in turn, takes away from the guest experience.
Concise > Clever
So this is a little hard for me as a marketing person who loves memes and puns but sometimes you need to trust the data.
When you want to measure your attendee's pre, live, and post event engagement you will often rely on social media to see how much they are engaging with your content. Keep hashtags simple and easy to remember. An inside joke only works if everyone is on the same page. Keep your attendee demographics in mind. Some of your wit may resonate with some but be lost on others.
OPINION: BIG TYPE is good for everyone
From personal experience, if the font is too small on a PowerPoint and I can’t follow along visually, I'm lost and you've completely lost my attention. Cut the text and instead, design your PowerPoint to include large headlines, video content, bullet points. As an attendee, I won't being reading your whole PowerPoint, I came to watch and learn from you and your dynamic presentation.
Use Their Devices to Your Advantage
As a society we're pretty attached to our smart phones. And why wouldn't we be? We can literally do and access anything from this pocket-sized device. If you're concerned people will pay more attention to their phones than to your content on stage, use their devices to your advantage. There are many second screens apps and technologies that can do just that. Have your content stream directly to their smartphones and have them engaged with polls and other interactive content.
Audiovisual Production That Wows and Engages
It's no secret that if everyone can see and hear, they will be more engaged. Let's take that a step (or two) further. Creative and effective stage design that showcases your content so it's received with the highest impact will have your guests feel the excitement as they walk through the doors and will feel more open to your message and let it resonate.
Need some inspiration?
With passion and expertise, we create dynamic, creative, and goal-smashing audiovisual production and stage design. Contact us today for a consultation and to see how we can help you achieve your guest experience goals.
