ORGANISERS of the PCOA Conference & Exhibition decided to celebrate the event’s 10th anniversary by returning to the Gold Coast, the Queensland city where the association for Australia’s PCOs held its first major event for members.
The event at Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre was to be based around technology with the theme being “meeting beyond tomorrow”. This provided an ideal backdrop for an event that focused on future opportunities by examining challenges and the “trends and shifts” facing the industry.
The 2017 conference saw the return of Entegy’s Attendee Connect leaderboard competition along with a traditional paper and stamps passport contest. PCOA worked with the Entegy Labs team to step-up the technology component and move its passport competition and trivia game into the digital space.
Winning Pitch
A key goal of the event was to engage delegates and ensure maximum ROI for exhibitors and sponsors, said Cindy Axisa, admin and accreditation manager for PCOA.
“Delegates should leave the conference with an enthusiastic and renewed energy,” Axisa said. “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 was important for it to “showcase and share the latest technology trends”.
A “little friendly competition” was also required to drive event engagement to even greater heights at the 10th Annual Conference and Exhibition.
Following the success of its 2016 Event App, PCOA again worked with Entegy Labs to enhance the much-liked delegate competition and networking, while boosting traffic to exhibitor booths.
Brisbane-based Entegy works with conference and event planner clients to power technology ranging from sales-lead capture and delegate registration to digital polling at Q&A
sessions and connecting attendees through gamification and networking apps.
HIghlights
The 10th PCO Association Conference was the biggest yet, attracting more than 440 attendees with the 60 exhibitor booths being sold by June 2017 – six months before the November 26-28 gathering.
PCOA had sub-themes of “innovation and engagement”, covering topics such as the latest technology and its impact on conferences, to new ways of engaging and influencing 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.
As the conference’s app sponsor, Entegy worked closely with the PCOA to deliver an event technology solution that encouraged networking and enhanced the ROI for exhibitors and sponsors.
Entegy Labs provided a custom, in-app passport competition to incentivise attendee traffic to exhibitor booths with some great prizes provided by exhibitors.
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.
Upshot
PCOA statistics showed that 88.89 per cent of the delegates surveyed downloaded the conference app. This is considered a very high adoption rate for an “opt-in” app.
Delegates used the app to view the conference programme, ask questions in sessions, network through the activity and participate in the passport competition.
PCOA’s Axisa said incorporating the technology with the passport competition proved to be straightforward, and 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,” she said. “Over 70 per cent 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,” Axisa said.
“It created a sense of fun, which increased delegate engagement. Delegates do enjoy the competitiveness when it comes to their place on the leaderboard.”
The Entegy Suite
Event App: This included conference programme, destination information, push notifications, and profiles for speakers, sponsors and exhibitors;
Attendee Connect: Leaderboard, activity feed, attendee profile list and private messaging;
Lead Capture: Enabling lead retrieval for exhibitors with scan points and incorporating the in-app passport competition.
