A little friendly competition was all PCOA needed to drive engagement to new heights at their 10th Annual Conference and Exhibition. Following the success of their 2016 Event App, PCOA worked with Entegy Labs to enhance the delegate competition and networking while boosting traffic to exhibitor booths.
Event profile
The 10th PCO Association Conference was the biggest yet, attracting over 440 attendees and selling out their 60 exhibitor booths by June 2017.
Held in the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition centre from 26 – 28 November 2017, this year’s theme of MEETING Beyond Tomorrow provided the perfect backdrop for an event that focused on future opportunities and examined industry growth and development.
PCOA had sub-themes of Innovation and Engagement, covering topics ranging from the latest technology and what impact it has on conferences to new ways to engage and influence audiences, both digitally and on-site.
There were plenty of opportunities for attendees to network at the two social functions and meal breaks were taken in the exhibition hall.
The Entegy Suite
As the App sponsor, Entegy worked closely with the Professional Conference Organiser Association to deliver an event technology solution to encourage networking and enhance exhibitor and sponsor ROI.
- Event App: including program, destination information, push notifications, speaker, sponsor and exhibitor profiles
- Attendee Connect: leaderboard, activity feed, attendee profile list and private messaging
- Lead Capture: lead retrieval for exhibitors with scan points and incorporated passport competition
- Entegy Labs: provided a custom, in-app passport competition to incentivise attendee traffic to exhibitor booths with some great exhibitor provided prizes. Attendees earned points towards their leaderboard total for every exhibitor visited, and had the opportunity to earn additional points through a trivia competition, unlocking questions as they visited exhibitors.
Event objective
PCOA Conference & Exhibition celebrated it’s 10th birthday anniversary, returning to the Gold Coast, the city where it all started. The event was based around technology with the theme being ‘MEETING beyond tomorrow’.
Cindy Axisa, Admin & Accreditation Manager for PCOA, says the theme “focused on future opportunities and industry growth and development, addressing the challenges facing our dynamic industry, and exploring the trends and shifts.”
Challenges
Cindy explains their key goals are to engage delegates and ensure maximum ROI for exhibitors and sponsors “Engaging delegates should be the main objective of any conference. Delegates should leave the conference with an enthusiastic and renewed energy.”
“The challenge for us is providing an exhibition area where exhibitors have the opportunity to have face to face meetings with the attendees.”
PCOA prides itself on being a leader in the meeting and events industry and it is important that they “showcase and share the latest technology trends.” says Cindy.
The 2016 event incorporated Entegy’s Event App and Attendee Connect leaderboard competition along with a traditional paper and stamps passport competition. For 2017 PCOA worked with the Entegy Labs team to step-up the technology component and move their passport competition and trivia game into the digital space.
Outcomes
PCOA stats revealed 88.89% of the surveyed delegates downloaded the Conference App. A very high adoption rate for an ‘opt in’ App.
Delegates used the app to view the conference program, ask questions in sessions, network through the activity and participate in the passport competition.
Cindy said is was easy to incorporate the technology and the digital passport competition and it significantly contributed to the engagement of exhibitors and attendees.
“The Digital Passport Scheme showcased how easy it is to incorporate a modernised passport scheme into a conference App. Over 70% of surveyed exhibitors thought the digital exhibitor passport increased delegate interaction.”
The Trivia component, developed by the Entegy labs team “added another element to the Conference App” explains Cindy “it created a sense of fun which increased delegate engagement – delegates do enjoy the competitiveness when it comes to their place on the leaderboard.”
Highlights
Cindy says there were many special moments throughout the Conference — celebrating its 10th year — including a trip to Sea World, and keynote speaker Corbin Ball exciting delegates about the “tsunami of change in the next five years” for the events industry. Corbin expects more change in the next five years than in the last 15 with leading driver being technology.
Overall, attendee feedback was very positive and indicated that the app was a hit:
“I loved the direct messaging, the alerts and the speaker’s bios.”
“It’s very easy to use and much more convenient than flicking through the printed program – you can easily navigate to exactly where you want to go. The trivia section was really cool.”
“The App was very well done and interactive. I particularly liked the digital passport program.”
“The App was great and easy to use, I used it a lot to check mostly the program and session rooms.”
“The App was great and so glad to see the Exhibitor Passport included this year. So easy to use and all the Session and Speaker information is at your fingertips.”
“It was brilliant. So easy to use and navigate. Best event App I’ve seen.”
