The use of beacons in the Event industry

What is a beacon?

A beacon is a small Bluetooth radio transmitter. It is able to send a small amount of information within a small distance to an other device.  Usually, the communication though beacons relies on apps on the targets phone. It can be used in shops to display special offers to the customers, or additional information about a specific product or service that the company is offering, for example.

How is it used in the Event industry?

This new technology is being used more and more often in the Event Industry. It offers a new proximity between the organiser and the participants that no devices allowed before.

First of all, it can be used to make them active participant to the event, by inviting them to ask live question, or react to the presentation. The participant is engage and can control the content.

It also becomes possible to encourage your participant to visit certain areas of the event, for example.

It is a simple way to send information to your participant: warn them about the begging of a new session or about the place the coffee break is taking place, for example. 

Lets not forget it also allows data collection which can be very useful for organizers feedback: beacons can save the number of people visiting a room, a conference or a stand, as well as how long people stayed and how many times they came back.

Beacons have been largely used for Networking. By knowing your participant interests through the app, it is possible to build a path for him inside your event, and to guide him to interesting stands or certain people. It can also send extra-information the stand the participant is at, or the people he is meeting. 

It is a great tool to gather information about participants, number-wise and interest-wise.

A concrete example of use:

The Absolventenkongress (Congress of the Graduates) organized in Switzerland and Germany is one of the largest job fairs in those countries.

It has been using Beacons during its last edition in order to connect candidates with recruiters.

Candidates could upload their CV on the app weeks before the event. Then, the recruiters could look at the database and send offers to the interesting candidates, in order to meet them during the event. In addition to this, over 300 beacons were installed at the fair in order to guide the participants to the recruiters interested in them, and, as usual, share information.

Sources:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/beacon.html

https://blog.beaconstac.com/2014/08/how-beacons-can-transform-event-management-and-trade-shows/

https://blog.beaconstac.com/2016/03/10-event-planners-that-are-using-beacons-to-engage-attendees-in-creative-ways/

Juliette Arpin

Victoire Ehlinger