The Future Trends of Event Apps

Amelie ROUX / Eloise CAMELIO

Article: The Future Trends of Event Apps Corbin Ball, a speaker and independent third-party consultant focusing on meetings technology

For most people today, including the less concerned by technology, to have a Smartphone and use it during events become usual. Thus, mobile event app developers are growing and rethinking about the options around it.

The October 2014 MPI/Double Dutch surveys has showed that 85% of event stakeholders are concerned about using mobile applications for their meeting or conference. Although, it appears that what is the most useful is what replace paper and make the organization of the event simpler. It also gives a green dimension to events and it’s becoming more and more important.

Further than it, those developments, apps gives so many analytics details and provide more involvement from the participant side as well.

Before this technology, planners were using computers before the event and after. Actually it was difficult to use it during the event. The real difference is that nowadays, it’s about real time information to create a true experience. Everything through the app is trackable.

There are plenty of questions that could easily find quick respond:

-       Who is the current speaker?

-       What speaker was the most liked by the audience?

-       For what and at what moment, people used the app?

Data collected during even will be used next time to improve the experience. Those new capabilities definitely appear as a powerful asset to work on.  The benefits made by event in apps are huge.

BLE (Bluetooh Low Energy) and Beacon are future tools to simplify event organization. That’s why app developers work hard to develop and integrate these technologies with mobile devices. Beacons allow to integrate and to pass messages on smartphones via a Bluetooth connection, they are radio transmitters to share information on mobile apps.

We will develop below some examples of ways to integrate them in event organization:

-       “Gamification and scavenger hunts”: Beacon can help attendees to discover the site of the event and all spaces associated.

-       “Location information and navigation assistance”: Beacon permit to attendees to geolocate their position to guide themselves during an event.

-       “Personalized service: Data collected by Beacons permit to know for example when an attendee arrival to an event to synchronize his arrival and sent him information about the event schedule.

-       Exchange of information: With the authorization of the user the mobile app can share information like social network profile and he can know information about another user close to him. 

-       Measurement of time pass on something: Bean can measure the time pass on a stand or a conference, it permits to give information on exhibitor.

-       “Automated demonstrations”: Beacons can trigger content at distance like video or message in a conference for example.

-       ““Attendees action metrics”: Allow to track attendees and communication and interact with them to collect their comments during an event.

All these different examples highlight the strength of Beacons for event organizers and the fact that is essential for them to consider these new technologies that represent a relevant added value. However, it’ s necessary to pay attention to their use to attendees don’t feel too track in their private life by the collection of their private data. It must be controlled to stay efficient.