Unique and Creative Ways to Use Your Event App

Your event app is a critical way to stimulate engagement among your event attendees. It creates a digital connection between your guests and your team, your speakers, your sponsors, and - most importantly - your brand.

Fortunately, there’s no standard way to use your event app. With a little outside-the-box thinking, you can use this clever piece of technology to keep your guests engaged and delight them so they show up to the next event.

To get you started, here are a few ideas for using your event app to create engaging experiences for your guests. These creative uses will make your attendees feel connected, informed, and entertained.

1. Use Surveys to Let Them Guide the Event

Surveys are powerful tools to gather feedback from your attendees. They can not only help you collect valuable criticism to improve your future events, but they can also influence the current event.

If your event spans several days or at least one long day, use surveys to let your attendees affect the details of your event. For instance, you might ask them what they would prefer served at the next day's lunch, which games to play or songs to hear, or what they would like to receive in their gift bag.

Letting your guests choose these little details gives them control over the event, and it makes them feel like they are part of the experience. You can deliver these kinds of surveys right through your event app and use a push notification to prompt them to participate.

2. Host “Unscheduled” Mini-Events

Spontaneity is a great way to build excitement into your event. It gives your attendees something to talk about and experience together. It also gives your guests a story to tell their friends after the event, which will entice more people to come next time.

Schedule “unplanned” mini-events throughout your event space. Don’t tell your guests about these attractions before the event. For instance, you could do something simple like set up a photo booth in the lobby. Push a notification to your attendees through the event app announcing the “spontaneous” feature.

If you have the budget, do something really impressive like bring in a surprise speaker, hire a popular musician, or set up a trendy technology demonstration. Don’t mention it before the event, and resist the urge to use it as part of your marketing. Surprise your guests with the event app notification.

3. Promote Your Sponsors

This idea may not add much to your attendees’ experiences, but it's a useful way to add value to your sponsorship packages and deliver a little something extra to your sponsors.

Your attendees will pay special attention to your event app during the event. This means you have a unique hold on their attention. Push notifications throughout your event that highlight your sponsors. In Superevent, you can link those notifications to the Organisations feature, a special showcase of all your sponsors and exhibitors.

If you plan to use your event app to promote your sponsors, make sure to mention that when you sell sponsorship packages. Your sponsors would love to have a direct line of communication to your guests’ phones.

4. Deliver Everything Digitally (No Paper)

Schedules, menus, maps, flyers… These are just some of the handouts you probably distribute at the registration desk. Chances are your guests file them away in their bag, never to be seen again, or simply toss them in the trash.

Your event app is a convenient place to distribute all of your documents. Your attendees can reach them any time, anywhere. Plus, you save on printing costs!

Digital documents are also great ways to encourage interaction between your guests and event speakers. Your speakers can give you supplementary material to load into the app. Then they can instruct your guests to view and/or download it from the app at their leisure.

5. Install Beacons Throughout Your Venue

Your event space is a critical component of your event. You want your guests to fully experience the venue, its history and story, and any accents or displays you install for their pleasure. You can notify your guests whenever they’re near something interesting with beacon technology.

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Here’s how it works: You install a beacon in a physical location. You might attach it to the wall next to an interesting piece of art, on the table next to an informative display case, or near a digital screen that repeats an important message. Whenever your guests approach the beacon, the device sends a notification through the event app.

You can even attach wearable beacons to people. You could stick one in the pocket of an event VIP, so everyone will know when they’re near him.

However, a word of warning. Don’t stick too many beacons in the same area. If your guests are constantly being notified by every plant and doorway, they’ll turn off the app to stop the spam. Reserve your beacons for important spots.

6. Give Guests a Way to Communicate with Speakers

Presentations are usually one-way conversations. Your guests can only sit there and listen to your speakers run through their presentation. But what if it were more interactive? What if your guests could send feedback and questions to your speakers during their speech?

There are two unique Superevent features that will help you create this kind of interaction: Q&A and Voting.

With Q&A, attendees can easily ask questions via your event app. Your speakers can read those questions and respond to them aloud.

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With Voting, your speakers can pose a question to the crowd and gather their input. Guests simply use their app to submit their answer. The speaker can then tailor their presentation based on the crowd’s response. This is a great way for speakers to customize their content, so attendees get maximum value.

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One event planner let speakers use the voting feature to create pop quizzes during his presentation. The quizzes became powerful interactive learning moments.

7. Ferry People From One Place to Another

Do you struggle to move groups of people around? Herding a crowd can be a pain, especially if they need to go to different places at different times. The last thing you want are lost guests who miss their presentations or meetings because they didn’t know where to go or when.

You can use push notifications through your event app to direct people to new locations and remind them when events or presentations are about to begin. This is a simple but easy way to streamline the movement of people around the space. If you combine it with a personalized schedule feature, you can conduct complex logistics at scale with ease.

Get Creative with Your Event App

We've given you a few powerful ways to get more value from your event app. These ideas will help you create a more engaging experience. But don't be afraid to experiment with your own ideas. Try a new technique at one event and measure the results. If it works, roll it out to all of your events.

Keep in mind, however, your event audiences may be different. What works with one group may not work with another. Don’t force a technique if an audience doesn’t respond. You may decide, for example, to abandon a strategy during an event if your attendees won’t respond.

Have you used an event app in a unique way? We’d love to know.