Event management is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide, and it spans across sectors and verticals. Attending a conference means investing in knowledge and networking opportunities, and attendees want to know they are getting their ROI. More so than ever before, attendees want to be involved in the shaping of the events, and organizers want to improve their planning process. In August, Letzgro built the website and voting platform for an “un-conference” (meaning attendees submit topics and vote on the ones they are most interested in) called ProductCamp Toronto. The experience showed us how the event industry is transforming, but also how technology can be used to enhance events and conferences.
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“Technology is going to simplify the event industry overall,” says Ihor Pidruchny, CEO of Letzgro. “What I envision for the future is there will be some more sophisticated process before the event itself and there will be a process after the event which will help people to stay connected and find out how they can be helpful to each other.”
The event industry stands to improve significantly by employing new technologies. Here are Letzgro’s picks for the top 3 event management apps.
Crowdicity for crowd-sourced speaker and topic selection
Julius Solaris, the editor of Event Manager blog, says that during his presentation on 10 Event Trends for 2013, technology that enables crowdsourced speaker selection piques the interest of nearly everyone he has encountered. By giving attendees a say in who leads their sessions, registration and attendee satisfaction is bound to increase. Crowdicity is an idea management platform that enables participation and collaboration on ideas for internal and external communities. This type of technology could be used to encourage event attendees to submit their topic ideas and vote on which speakers they would like to see. Crowdicity and its competitors are not yet tailored for the event industry, which leaves some room for improvement.
Bizzabo for event networking
In a survey by Red 7 Media on what event planners want the most, 57 percent said enhanced technology and 51 percent said more attendance promotion. Bizzabo is a comprehensive event management app that enables event organizers to communicate with attendees before, during and after the event. By leveraging the power of social media, attendees get an improved networking experience and organizers get much-needed assistance with their event promotions.
Atendy for a more robust analytics platform
Event organizing is a demanding job, and it doesn’t often leave room to find out if attendees are enjoying their experience. Products like Atendy allow you sell tickets, easily publish an event app, track engagement and set goals for your event. The dashboard provides a feedback loop for organizers that help them make better decisions to improve the event going experience.
