Decibel Mobile Hotspot for Events, Trade Shows and Conferences
COMPANY NEWS, EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
We just finished the build on a great new project for an upcoming tour. This is a mobile hotspot that is purpose built for events, trade shows, and conferences.
While we have historically and typically used in-house or dedicated wired connections for our events, this just was not an effective solution for the current deployment. Our current tour schedule is amazingly aggressive- we do not have time to advance the sites or drop a staffer early to work with wired connections and have them set and ready when we arrive. We needed a solution that can be set up within 5 minutes of arriving onsite, it needed to travel well, and the back end software needed to be solid.
In looking at all these parameters and what was on the market currently, we decided it was best to develop our own solution. It was shipped to meet the tour build today and we plan to do a thorough shakedown before launch and more testing during the first four preview events. Look for more updates to come!
Event Registration Software: What s Out There, and When to Build Your Own
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Event registration is one of the most important processes in event set-up. Do it poorly, and at best, you ll have a ton of complaints. At worst, you ll see a significant drop in attendance as frustrated would-be guests decide they don t have time to bash their heads against your sign-up form. So what are the best tools available to event planners looking to get their online registrations rolling in?
cevent
Cevent is the industry s heavy-lifting event registration system, and its development team is clearly catering to high-demand events. Sadly, as with most big, feature-rich systems, Cevent s website and application design is starting to feel a little bit early-2000 s-trade-show dated, and the event website templates they offer leave your event looking a bit clunky as well. We re hoping they update their look and feel soon, because their feature list is nice and robust.
Eventbrite
Eventbrite is kind of a dual-sided deal. For event planners, it offers ticketing and event management tools. For the public, it offers localized event listings. This symbiotic relationship allows event organizers to publicize their shindigs while handling sign-ups. In terms of their event management toolkit, Eventbrite feels a little more accessible to plebs and smaller event organizers (though larger events are absolutely supported) and has more of a modern, usable interface. They make their money by charging a portion of your ticket sales (around 5{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3}, give or take, which includes the credit card processing fee), so if you re organizing a free event, Eventbrite is completely free. Eventbrite, however, is not very customisable, and if their suite of tools doesn t include one particular feature, there s no real way to get that feature added.
etouches
Etouches is much more than registration software: it also comes with a bunch of venue management features, a budgeting system, automated badge creation, travel management features, and a bunch of other goodness. Etouches has a clearly international bent, with multi-currency support a bunch of major international brands touted as clients.
Those are your three major players, and there are a ton of smaller management software providers out there as well. Not too shabby a selection, and one of those options should work for most situations.
When to build your own
The problem enters in when you ve got very specific event requirements not covered by traditional features. Example: when running political events based at the White House, the U.S. Secret Service typically requires personal information on attendees in advance in order to be able to run pre-event background checks. If you re looking to automate a registration process like that (we did that once!), you re gonna have to custom-build.
A word of warning: Building your own is not a process to be undertaken lightly, but if you have the budget, the time, and set of system requirements that can t be met by out-of-the-box software (security requirements for political event registration, for example), it may be the best way to go. Realistically, you re looking at a 6-month design and development period for your registration system, and that s providing you choose the right team. You ll want to ensure that whoever you choose has experience building secure systems that are user-friendly, and you should specifically ask to see examples of similar work.
In terms of budget, a very basic system is likely to cost somewhere in the $30,000 range (for basic registration management only, say), and prices for building complex systems can jump as high as $500,000 (ouch!), so unless you re swimming in time and money (and who is, right?), building something just for a single event isn t terribly cost-effective. The best idea here is to think long-term:
But I m not a techie where do I even start?
First of all: avoid part-time freelancing sites like Odesk, eLance and Getafreelancer. Producers on those sites are rewarded for getting in and out of projects quickly, and they often deliver cheap, fast, poor-quality code. You are unlikely to get any hand-holding or support for the product you are given. What you want is a reliable freelance team that can stay in close contact with you during the build, installation and deployment of your system.
You ll need, at the very least, a designer with experience designing websites and other interface, and a developer (coder) with experience creating database-driven applications. One of the best places to look is on developer- or designer-directed sites like Stack Overflow or Creative Bloq. Good luck!
Heads up: Pixmob Makes Events All Twinkly
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Well, February sure turned into a month of event tech spotlights on the Decibel blog, so rounding out that theme, we ve got a nifty piece of lighting technology that caught our eye. Take a gander at Pixmob, a company whose sole purpose in this world is to make events sparkle. And really, who couldn t use a little more sparkle?
Pixmob specializes in creating LED products which are designed to sync with live music (didn t we just say that LEDs are the future of event production?), and which can be deployed at the largest scale. Their existing products consist of translucent, RFID-enabled wristbands, PixMob brandable ballsthat engage fans who bounce them around in a crowd , pendants, beads, and our personal favorite, Helicos, which, like a swarm of fireflies gracefully descend into an audience creating immersive visuals. Check this out:
The Tech
For a back-of-the-house look at the technology that drives the products, A/V nerds might be interested in checking out the details behind the tech, which details the different ways the lighted products can be controlled either via impact or wireless controls. They can also be set to display video as opposed to basic light.
More Eye-Candy
Kinda can t stop watching these love the engagement!
UK-Based Pathfindr is Blazing a Trail for More Accurate Event Wayfinding
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Wayfinding is the art and science of ensuring that visitors to any location can easily and quickly get around. It s particularly important at large, heavily-trafficked locations, like stadiums, shopping malls and airports. Pathfindr is a new patent-pending technology that could help event planners make navigating large-scale events an interactive mobile affair.
You d think that indoor wayfinding would be after all, we ve all got smartphones and those smartphones come with GPS; but there are issues with GPS technology over small distances, notably that GPS is unreliable across small distances.
According to OpenStreetMap, The accuracy of GPS data depends on many factors. For example, the quality of the GPS receiver, the position of the GPS satellites at the time the data was recorded, the characteristics of the surroundings (buildings, tree cover, valleys, etc) and even the weather. And according to developers on Stackexchange, The United States government currently claims 4 meter RMS (7.8 meter 95{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} Confidence Interval) horizontal accuracy for civilian (SPS) GPS. Vertical accuracy is worse. Mind you, that s the minimum. In reality, best case scenario is usually accuracy within 15 meters or so.
In other words, GPS wouldn t be able to easily track which floor of a tall building your attendees are on, and it doesn t know exactly, to the foot, where attendees are standing it could only give an approximation. GPS is also influenced by air clarity, weather, and connection strength, so if your event was underground or if the sky was cloudy, the accuracy of GPS would decrease even further.
The alternative to GPS was the use of Bluetooth, WiFi, and other close-distance technologies, but these were equally problematic for a variety of reasons, specifically that loss of signal could result in inaccurate readings. Enter indoor wayfinding tools like Pathfindr, whose solution is best described by the company themselves:
Using the front or rear facing camera on your smart device, Pathfindr constantly scans for signature images (markers) on the ceiling or floor. These markers can be read incredibly quickly, and the user s exact position and orientation is then triangulated from this view. When a marker is not in view, the device s array of sensors are used to estimate and track movement. This position is then refined as soon as another marker becomes available.
From the markers we can also determine the user s orientation, unlike other platforms which rely on the unreliable indoor performance of compasses, offering an important advantage to wayfinding. No data is required to operate, meaning GSM deadzones provide reduced barriers to operation.
We think one of Pathfinder s most interesting features is intelligent waypoints, which could allow event managers to send mobile alerts to attendees when they were within a certain proximity of trade show booths, points of interest or activations. The tech can also be tricked out to provide guided mobile tours and customized directions.
This is much-needed stuff for large-scale events, and we hope to see it in wider implementation very soon.
A Quick Intro to Social Seating Software for Event Managers
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
At the end of the day, events are all about people. Great food, fabulous entertainment, gorgeous location none of it really matters without good company. Problem is, everyone s definition of good company is different, and event planners have little insight into who wants to be where. Named one of 2014 s event trends, Social Seating allows attendees to choose who they sit next to based on data in their social network profiles, or allows event managers to assign seating based on pre-determined groups.
The technology has obvious event management applications, but it s also being implemented across a variety of industries. Dutch airline KLM, for example, allows passengers to choose their seat based on public Google+, Facebook, or LinkedIn profile data, increasing the possibility that they might make a career-enhancing or personally fulfilling connection during the flight. Very cool.
The Major Players
The leader in the Social Seating industry for events is a called Social Tables, which focuses on providing diagramming and check-in while linking up to catering at the back of the house. Social Tables features a drag-and-drop interface, allowing you (or the guests themselves) to see who s sitting where, and then place guests accordingly by simply dragging them into an open seat. It also allows you to group attendees by tags (for example, speakers ), so when you drag a single member of that group to a table, all other attendees with the same tag are automatically seated nearby.
Seat ID takes a slightly different and wider tack, targeting travel (like trains and planes) and venues (like stadiums). Check out their intro vid:
Another up-and-coming company in the social seating arena, recently nominated for the Eventex awards, is Seats.io, a flexible seating script that your web team can integrate with your booking and payment system. Seats.io is ideal for event, venue or travel managers who have an existing checkout process, would like to tie a selectable seating chart into their checkout.
Here to Stay
We don t think this trend is going away, and it stands to reason that social seating is set to become an expected must-have. Catch this one in its infancy and stay ahead of that curve.
Compassionate Events: Enable Passive Attendee Donations with Checkin for Good
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
We just stumbled across this, found it inspirational, and we think it deserves some attention: One of the event industry buzzwords in 2014 was definitely sustainable events , and we saw a lot of great blog articles and innovative guides on how the we can better plan to cut down waste and protect the environment. But green isn t the only way to compassionate event planning, and we wanted to highlight another way that event managers can give back, called Check-in for Good.
So, what is it?
Check-in for Good is a Foursquare-esque mobile platform that facilitates small donations. Users download the app, and then, and we re quoting here, Every time a patron checks-in on their smartphone, the participating business makes a donation to the cause they are supporting.
How does that Apply to Event Managers?
While the language on the Check-in for Good website is targeted at businesses, the platform isn t limited to that use. Event managers first drum up some support, asking a client or event sponsors to pledge a certain amount of money for every user check-in. During app set-up, event managers can set the times and locations that attendees can check in, and apply to make their event a Check-in For Good Donation Hotspot. When attendees arrive on the day of, event collateral would urge them to download the app and complete the check-in, and a small sum would go to your charity (or charities) of choice. Enough checkins, and those small sums can add up to big help for struggling NGOs.
You can also set a maximum limit or target on donations, ensuring that backers don t spend more than they re willing to throw in.
Don t get Pigeonholed
During the set-up process, event managers are offered the option to choose which causes the event will support one or many. Choose a single cause that aligns with your event s message, or you can spread the love around for more a more cross-issue approach.
Customize
You can build special offers into the app, so that attendees are rewarded for checking in at your event. For example, you might offer checked-in attendees a discount on their ticket at the registration window.
Sharing = Caring = Buzz
Whenever an attendee checks in via the app, they have the option to share their check-in (and thus, their donation) on a range of social networks, generating buzz for the event and the charity both.
As far as we see it, this is a win-win for everyone involved, and if you ve got willing backers, we recommend giving this a go!
The Ultimate Guide to Audience Response Systems for Event Managers: A Talk with Scott from Vistacom
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
A few months ago, Decibel published a post on Audience Response Systems, but spectacularly failed to profile Vistacom, a worldwide leader in audience response for nearing two decades. Scott Casey, owner of Vistacom, is an audience response guru and author of his own ARS software, VPOLL. We sat down to chat about Scott s experience in the ARS industry, asking him what event managers can get from ARS, and what they need to know to ensure setup and install goes smoothly.
First, the basics. Tell me a little story about Vistacom: how did it get started?
I was actually working for another audience response company before venturing out to start my own enterprise; I was only six months into my marriage when I left, so it was kind of a hair-raising time. Fortunately, my wife was working and we were able to live off her salary as I spent the several months preparing a business plan and shopping it around to the banks to get the financing necessary to start the company. I also had an angel investor in the form of my father-in-law. Now that s love!
You guys offer both hardware and software-based ARS do you build your own hardware? Develop your own software in-house?
The industry has evolved quite a bit over the last 15+ years. When I founded Vistacom in 1997, there was really only one hardware manufacturer, and they had a reseller network that I was required to go through to purchase both hardware and software.
Today, in terms of hardware, I still represent those keypads which I find to be superior to the others in the market. Interestingly, as of just this week, there is a new reseller network of which I m now a first tier reseller. It s global in scope which allows me to serve my existing customers and/or try to build new relationships in other parts of the world where I don t already have a presence of my own.
The software-based ARS, called VPOLL in my case, I m happy to say is my own creation. Since it s unique to my company, I have the flexibility to customize and develop according to my ideas and the feedback of my customers. I can have new features built to meet a need for an upcoming meeting, and since the product is mine, I m not restricted by the whims of some other developer that may or may not share the same ideas as myself.
What s the most interesting way you ve seen your products used?
Audience Driven Meetings. We once supported a company meeting where the management (i.e., the speakers) asked the employees (i.e., attendees) what issues were most important to them. Attendees ranked the issues, and then the speakers addressed those issues in order of importance. So in a sense, the meeting was half-scripted and half-dependent on what the audience wanted to hear about and learn/discuss, which may have been different than the preconceived notions of management. I do think it takes a courageous management and meeting planning team to be able to adjust an agenda like that, but it demonstrated to the company s employees how important their voice was to the future success and direction of the company and probably went a long way towards maintaining employee retention.
I know a lot of event producers could certainly use custom ARS for their event, but aren t even sure what they can get: what are some examples of customized ARS software solutions you ve created, and how were they used?
This is a wonderful question. Today s software can already do so much that it isn t necessarily a matter of having to customize software. Some examples:
Reveal later You can ask a question, get the responses, and not show the results until later on, which is great for panels. For example, you ask the audience and panelists a question, poll the audience and collect their responses, then allow the panelists to weigh in and provide their response. When they are finished talking, display the results from the audience and see if their answers agreed or disagreed with the panelists.
Custom Chart/Comparison If you have poll results from a previous meeting, you can ask the same question of your current attendees, insert that data into the result slide, and compare the results from the live audience from the previous period/meeting, showing how moods/attitudes/perceptions changed over time.
Elections I personally think this isn t done nearly enough. ARS software can handle ballots with multiple seats for a position, weighted voting, simple and more complex majority voting, and much more. You get fast, accurate, confidential (if necessary) voting with real-time results. Why not use this for association committee meetings, shareholder meetings, and the like?
Tell us how your products work in terms of facilitating multi-location events
Multi-location events are handled much easier through mobile polling technology. All you need is an internet connection, and anybody can participate regardless of location. You can have the ARS technician operating from the host location. When it s time for an ARS question, the tech simply pushes the question out and everybody who has logged into that session will get the question and be able to reply, whether they are located in the host location or anywhere else in the world.
Keeping in mind that many of our readers are event planners who need to make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed, is there a checklist of things managers should verify to ensure that ARS deployment will go smoothly at their event?
As ARS providers we are pretty self-sufficient, but there are a few times in which we are dependent on others at the meeting site, particularly the AV vendor. So it s often a good idea to allow the ARS vendor and AV vendor to get in touch and coordinate their needs, or at least relay those needs through the event planner. There are couple areas to focus on with the AV vendor:
Questions Probably the most important thing to consider are the questions that are to be asked. The sooner your tech can get them and program them in, the less chance for error of any kind, whether it s typographical or worse, like overlooking the selection of a particular software feature in haste and then not showing the results in the manner in which it was desired. Also, the more thought that is given to question development the better the overall outcome of your meeting. Garbage in, garbage out. This is often a difficult task because the content developers are not necessarily the event planners, but if they can use their diplomacy and get questions sooner it makes for a much better experience overall. And don t be afraid to enlist the help of your ARS vendor we are eager to lend some advice based on our experience as to best practices.
Meeting logistics Please also provide additional meetings logistics so the techs are better prepared once on site. Things like the agenda, floor plans, shipping instructions for the equipment, rehearsal times, and contact information of onsite personnel.
WiFiAnd on the mobile polling side, in addition to the above, WiFi is the big issue. It s imperative that WiFi is available first of all but also that it is adequate for the job. That means the proper amount of bandwidth and good network connections. Is the hotel s system adequate? If not, can your ARS vendor be allowed to create their own wireless network in your meeting space? Not only WiFi but it would be recommended to have a dedicated hard line (i.e., not a shared line) running to the operator s computer to guarantee a connection.
Video The ARS questions and slides need to be seen on the projection screen, so the computers running ARS need to connect to the projection system. Depending on whether the ARS system is a stand-alone system or a PowerPoint plug-in, you may or may not need to have a VGA switcher available that allows multiple inputs to a projector. In other words, you may need to switch from the computer running the PowerPoint presentation to the one running the ARS system.
Audio Similarly, if music is being played through the ARS system, then an audio line needs to be connected from the computer to the soundboard.
Power Please have a power strip available to plug in the laptops.
Tech Table Please, please, please remember to allot some space for us at the tech table, or wherever you would like us to be positioned, in the meeting room. All too often, that s overlooked and we get a tiny corner of the table for two laptops and ancillary equipment.
When would a software solution be chosen over a hardware solution?
Assuming that both solutions can be provided at a meeting site (i.e., WiFi is available for a mobile solution) then this is a very subjective question and one left to the customer. But there a couple of situations in which a software solution out-ranks a hardware solution:
Quick turnaround time. If your meeting is one in a series of meetings run by other agencies, such as a satellite symposia, and you have 30 minutes between meetings then a mobile solution would be better. It much more difficult to set up and tear down say 500 keypads in 30 minutes than if you have a mobile solution and keypads are not needed.
Very large meetings. Keypad systems can handle some very large meetings, a few thousand attendees competently, but they do have size limitations. However, with mobile solutions you really have the ability to scale your meetings even more. Arena anybody?
Indoor vs. Outdoor Again, assuming connectivity is available, I would think that a mobile solution would be better suited to an outdoor event than a keypad system. Again, keypad distribution, and collection, is more difficult than not having to bother with keypads at all.
Multi-site meetings See my blurb on ARS and multi-location meetings above.
How far in advance of an event should someone contact you? Is there a comfortable planning window?
Wonderful question again if for no other reason than the planning window has continually shrunk over the years. I look at two things to consider in judging what a reasonable planning window would be.
Question development This may not necessarily apply to when to contact the ARS vendor but just a reminder to allow enough time to develop good audience response questions that will help meet your meeting objectives. Perhaps as a meeting planner you, or your client, are pretty knowledgeable about ARS features in general and can craft good questions. Well, you can start developing those before contracting with an ARS vendor. But if you would like some advice along the way it might be better to get your ARS vendor lined up sooner rather than later.
Price/Logistics This is really the crux of this question. In addition to the rental fee, the customer must pay for equipment shipping (if using keypads) and the travel expenses for the technician. Not that airfare is always logical, but if you contract with your ARS vendor early enough, you might realize some expense savings which could be significant.
Having said that, I would say a month out from the meeting date would be a nice, comfortable window. Enough time to book flights and handle logistics (remember, your meeting may not be the only one for the ARS vendor and they have to coordinate equipment and personnel to other events either right before, during, or immediately following your meeting).
Of course, at my company we are very flexible and are prepared for last-minute requests. In fact, as of this writing, I m still waiting for an answer to use our services for a meeting one week from today. No joke. But I m able to be flexible because I have resources in terms of personnel and a large inventory of keypads to meet most meeting requirements (or more precisely, the needs of several meetings at once).
The Future of Event Production: the Wearable Tech Revolution
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
In mid-December 2014, Eventbase Technology introduced the world s first XING EVENTS wearable smartwatch ticket at the LeWeb conference.
According to the release on Event Industry News, Powered by Eventbase and integrated with the XING EVENTS registration system, the official LeWeb mobile app could be paired with an Android Wear smart watch to display a user s credentials. That attendee could then have their watch scanned to access a building, without ever taking their smartphone from their pocket or showing a printed badge.
Image Source: Event Industry News
I don t need to tell you that this is just the beginning in terms of event-ready on-body tech: the wearables well has barely been plumbed, and it s not hard to imagine the potential uses. Jessica Levin, president and chief connector at Seven Degrees Communications who visited the Wearable Tech Expo, had this to say in her Cvent blog post about events and wearable technology: So you might be wondering, how do wearables impact events? Have you ever had that awkward moment where you have to shake hands or give someone a hug with your phone/tablet in your hand? What about trying to eat lunch while holding a phone? How many smartphones are left at the lost and found at you conferences? By physically attaching technology to people, we have more flexibility with how we use them and where we take them.
She posits a few ways that wearables could be used: CEU tracking can be made easier by building it into an app and tracking people s movements; Google Glass or similar tools can display speaker notes or presentation materials; Wearables could serve as microphones, making it easier to communicate verbally in large rooms; Exhibit managers can use them to better track traffic patterns; Mobile apps will be built into watches, etc., making it easier for people to use apps onsite at events.
Could indeed it s already happening.
Google Glass Apps
Image Source: Mikepanhu via Wikipedia
In May of 2014, Bizbash featured an article on five new Google Glass apps for events, which included Sli.do, a a web-based application for speakers and event organizers to easily engage their audience with questions, comments and polls and Refresh, which provides brief background information on people just a few minutes before scheduled meetings .
You know what that means? It means that someday soon, you may need a Google Glass app developer on your digital event team to meet attendee need.
Wearable Smart Wristbands
By now, most people have heard of health and exercise-focused bio bracelets that track heart rate, calories burned and steps taken, and yes, the Nabu Razer does all these things, but it s also primed for the trade show floor. It alerts you to incoming calls and emails without forcing you to dig around for your phone, exchanges contact information automatically when you shake someone s hand, and boasts a whole host of other proximity and social features.
Smart Badges
The Xfocus was developed for trade shows and conferences and is a combination of smart badges, a mobile app and a powerful analytics platform. Most interesting among these features: The xFocus platform uses the latest wireless technologies to provide customers with the information they need depending on their location. Visitors receive location-based information on their smartphone or tablet as soon as they come close to a stand. It also includes indoor navigation and instant heat-mapping. Leads can be generated effectively by sending push notification to the right people at the trade show or conference.
Know something we don t about the future of wearable event tech? Tip us off in the comments.
Everyone s the Speaker: Two New Ways to Share the Floor at Your Event
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
Is the traditional I-talk-you-listen lecture dying? Probably not we ve been silently listening to speeches for a few thousand years or so but these days, technology is filling up our toolkit with interesting ways to pass the mic. Maybe this is the result of shortening attention spans and an inability to shut out mouths for an entire hour, maybe its our natural and frenetic desire to innovate, maybe this is just the way we start cresting out of the me-me-me cultural narcissism that social networks facilitate. Who knows? But more fluid audience participation methods during conferences and talks are definitely becoming a trend. Here s a look at two of the new tools available for getting listeners involved.
Catchbox
Created by a team of young Finns, Catchbox is the world s first throwable microphone , a highly engineered mic built into a padded cube that doesn t mind being tossed around the lecture hall. Psychologically, I think this plays well across a couple of dynamics: for one, as the video notes, it s a good icebreaker, but I also like it for its techy take on the Talking Stick whoever s got the Catchbox has the floor. Feels egalitarian somehow. Neat bit: the creators of Catchbox built in some software that edits out the sounds that would typically be generated by the mic as it sails through the air and lands hard in someone s grip.
Price-wise, the thing ain t particularly cheap, with boxes starting at 495 Euros (or $591 USD), but good A/V gear is worth the shell out.
Crowdmics
Crowd Mics turns audience smartphones into wireless microphones, no internet connection required. A detailed inside look via SquadUp blog (and check out their post for the back story behind the creation of Crowd Mics):
Everyone downloads the free Crowd Mics app and connects to the same wireless router, which can be via a venue s Wi-Fi or a stand-alone wireless router device. Crowd Mics doesn t require an Internet connection because it only uses the router to push data back and forth. The presenter on stage plugs an iOS or Android device into the room s sound system and creates a name and access code for the event in the Crowd Mics app. Audience members download the app and enter the code to join the event. When they want to ask a question or make a comment, they tap a Request to Talk button on their devices, and the presenter will see a list of people who want to talk in the order they requested. The presenter can enable an individual microphone, mute a microphone, or put the system in open mic mode so anyone can comment. Audience members can also submit text comments to the presenter through the Crowd Mics app. The presenter can also use the basic polling functions.
Crowd Mics is free for events with under twenty participants over that, it s $50 for 50 participants or under, up to $198 for 200 participants or under. If you need Crowd Mics to support more than 200 participants, you ll need to contact them for custom pricing.
Best Event Registration Software: An Interview with Asaf Darash, CEO of Regpack
EVENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY
It s not an uncommon complaint in the event management industry that you never get everything you want out of your event registration software it seems like you re always heavily compromising somewhere. But there s an up-and-coming event registration system looking to change that by taking an innovative, research-driven approach to the technology. We sat down with Asaf Darash, CEO at Regpack and an all-around smart dude, to talk about how his software is changing the face of event registration.
What s the Regpack origin story? Who s behind the software, and what motivated them to create the platform?
Regpack was founded in Oct 2010 in order to commercialize the 7 year research I did in my Ph.D. My research focused on how computer languages and computer networks are able to function in a way that there are only variables and no constants. I also wanted to see if it was technically even possible to build a database that would work that way. At the time I was working with a number of educational institutions advising their IT departments, so I went to them and started to discuss my idea. From what they said, I gleaned that the whole field of registration, client management, event management, onboarding processes and workflow practices in general really really needed this type of flexibility but it was never offered. That s when I knew there was a real problem that needed to be solved and that maybe I had the solution.
We really wanted to make a platform that would be so flexible that it can always meet 100{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of our client s needs without any programming knowledge needed on their end. We constantly heard people talk about finding systems that meet 65{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of their needs, or 70{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of their needs. We thought that was wrong. The system should meet 100{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of the needs all of the time. That s what motivated us, and we also knew we had the technology to do it.
In the beginning we were only 3 people working from a small office in San Francisco trying to make a technology that worked for research[ers] into something that would work for real people in real situations. It took us nearly a year and a half to get something ready that we could present to clients.
Today, there are more than 3000 organizations using Regpack, and we re adding about 40 new clients every month. We register 100K people a month in the low season and 3 times that during high seasons. Our clients claim we have saved them at least 60 hours a month, which means we re saving the world more than 180,000 work hours a month. We re really proud of that, and of our contribution to helping people enjoy more free time doing things only humans can do (like think).
Where is the Regpack team based?
Regpack has two offices: one in Oakland and one in Jerusalem. In the Oakland office we have the account management team, the sales team, and accounting teams. In Israel we have development and account management for European clients.
Tell us a cool story about somewhere Regpack has been used successfully.
There are a lot of these stories! Here is a list of some client spotlights that highlight how Regpack has helped them.
I see that Regpack supports payment plans for registrants that s unique. Can you tell us a little bit about how that might be used and how that works?
Yes, it is unique, but like everything in Regpack it is something that came about as a result of client demand. We have a lot of organizations that are using Regpack for programs that are expensive. For example, we have a lot of educational tourism clients that offer various organized educational world tours. These programs can last for 5 months and can cost upwards of $20K.
We also have a lot of organizations that open registration for their events or programs 6 or 8 months before they begin. For these organizations there is an issue: people come in, register, complete everything, and then they need to make installment payments or need to pay the full amount only 3 months down the road. They found themselves needing to remind people to go in and pay, and that process wasted a lot of time.
That s where payment plans or scheduled payments came in. They allow an applicant to select a plan that is best for them, and then the system will automatically charge them in intervals determined by the plan. Basically, it makes the whole issue totally go away by completely automating it.
We tend to find that most third-party software not just registration software but all software packages have to walk a line between customization and usability. In other words, the developers have to decide whether they re catering to non-techies that need a plug-and-play system, or they re making the software extremely flexible so that developers can get their hands into the code. This is the biggest issue we ve personally run into with registrations. What s your outlook on this? For example, we see you have a robust form builder can we also tweak at the code level?
As explained above, Regpack works in a very unique way, and because of its flexibility, this questions is a little moot. You can stay with the Regpack defaults, or customize every little thing.
When you build your forms, the system is automatically creating data points that allow you now to set triggers based on answers in the forms. This means you can ask a simple question like What color are your eyes? and then you can create a totally different flow for people that have blue eyes as compared to people that have brown or green eyes. You can do that for any question you like, and for as many combinations you can think of.
This basically means that there are very few situations that you really need to get into the code, since you can control what happens through the triggering and meta programming system the triggers enable. That said, Regpack has an extensive API that allows users to create custom code just for a specific form, or just for a specific action in a form (submitting, completing etc ).
I think that we have found a happy medium between our software being programmer oriented and being a system just for the layman.
Regpack also offers all of our clients a project manager that does the initial system structure setup according to their needs, making it easy for our clients to start editing. We have found that people are much more comfortable with editing and altering something that already exists, even in a rough or draft format, than starting with a blank page that allows them to do *anything*.
For the nerds among us: what language is Regpack written in?
Regpack uses the following languages: Python, PHP, Javascript, Node. I would say that 70{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} of the system is built in Javascript. The most important part of Regpack is the conditional logic engine and the triggering meta programming language that allows its flexibility. That is written in C++ and interacts with a document base database structure that is unique for Regpack.
What s the Regpack approach to mobile registrations? Is the interface mobile-friendly?
Yes. Regpack is mobile friendly. We have a unique presentation for phones and tablets that is different from how the system is presented on a desktop.
We ve run into situations where we have to gather sensitive personal data as part of a registration process for example, when we re signing people up for an event at the White House, we re required to gather social security numbers. Is Regpack equipped to handle secure data transfers like that?
Yes. All the information passing through Regpack is SSL encrypted and then we use a dual database mechanism where the key of the value is stored in a different place than the value. Even if an unauthorized party gained access to the Regpack database, they cannot extract protected information since they need the conditional logic engine and algorithm in order to connect between the two.
We have clients that gather SSN, health information, legal information etc We are in the process of becoming HIPPA compliant and we are already PCI compliant. Getting these certificates is pretty easy for Regpack since the unique structure of the database makes it very very hard to manipulate any data outside of the system (we have not found a way to do that yet
What s next for Regpack in terms of expansion and upcoming features?
In the last year Regpack added 560 new features into the system. I always try to explain that it is not important what features a system has but actually what real-world problems the feature solves. Our next goal at Regpack is turning it into an overall onboarding system . After all, registration is a private and complicated case of onboarding. So we are seeking to go after that area come June 2015.
Anything else you want to highlight?
I think it s important to note our pricing structure since we strive to be incredibly budget friendly to seasonal and small organization s without compromising the quality of the product all of our clients receive. A custom built system can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and maintain. Regpack costs hundreds of dollars a month, if that! We are trying to bring the latest technology, the best in customization and fulfilling the needs and solving the problems of ALL of our clients 100{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} for a price that is affordable for all. I think the quality of our product and the price we charge make us stand out amongst our competition.
Thanks for taking the time to interview me and learn more about Regpack!