Roberts has more than 30 years of experience in the field of business data processing, systems analysis, technical support, and project management. He has more than 23 years experience in trade show and meeting registration management. His knowledgebase with regard to registration processes (from Internet registration to onsite registration) along with lead retrieval technologies including his patent pending RFID technology, It's All in the Badge tm, makes him a leader in the field of trade show registration and exhibitor lead management.
Q. For a free event, is there a percentage of registrants that I can expect to attend? Do you have any recommendations for optimizing the actual attendance rate? A. Answered on 1/27/2009.
We’ve done events where anywhere from 10 percent to well over 60 percent of the pre-registrants showed up. However, this typically depends on the market segment you’re targeting. Without knowing what type of event we're talking about, here are some general techniques for boosting attendance:
- Offer a free gas card to the first 100 people who show up.
- Enter all attendees who show up into a drawing to be held every hour. You could give away anything from dinner tickets to some of the products your exhibitors provide. This will also give your exhibitors more exposure.
- Offer a lotto scratcher to the first (whatever number you determine) people who show up.
- Another “high-tech” incentive is to offer some sort of professional social networking vehicle, so attendees can “connect” to discuss shared interests and business opportunities. SMART-reg offers a system like this called “SMART-Connect”. Ask your registration provider if they offer something similar. There are also a few third-party providers such as NGN or BD Metrics.
From
John in Las Vegas, NV on 1/13/2009
Q. I have two shows that will be co-locating with some attendance crossover. What’s the best way to simplify our registration process for both events? A. Answered on 1/13/2009.
You’re not alone. With the uncertain economic times and cutbacks ahead, there will be an increased number of shows that will co-locate to increase attendance. Your overall goal should be to have the attendee supply his or her contact information only once.
If both shows are produced by the same company and both registration areas are located near each other or can be linked via a network, the solution is easy: utilize the services of one registration company. I’ve done this in the past and it shouldn’t be a problem for any registration company.
However, if both registration areas are located near each other or can be linked via a network, but there are two different show organizers, the ideal solution is to have both show organizers use the same registration company.
Unfortunately, in the real world this isn’t always possible. When there are two different show organizers using two different registration companies, it requires some cooperation. As long as both registration companies utilize a badge with some sort of sophisticated lead retrieval technology, the implementation should be simple. Each registration company will need to provide the other with one of their lead retrieval units. As an attendee tries to enter the other show, he presents his badge, it’s read by the other company’s reader and the output is “piped” into the registration system, producing a badge for that show.
We’ve done this with one of our fellow registration providers. At first there was the usual huffing and puffing, but come show time, it worked like a charm. We both were able to keep our clients very happy.
From
Eric in Orlando, FL on 4/24/2008
Q. Can you recommend a software progam that can take a database in Excel and produce name badges with a 2D barcode? A. Answered on 5/27/2008.
I’d recommend a product called BarTender by Seagull Scientific (www.seagullscientific.com). I’ve been using it for years, and recently purchased the latest version. The company offers a number of flavors, but I’d say that the best all-around version is the Professional Version, which has a street price of less than $385.
Certified for Windows 2000, 2000 Server, 2003 Server, XP and Vista, it works with nearly all databases including Oracle and SAP, as well as its own prompted data entry screens, and can be integrated into your own software solution. It even supports 20 languages and works with virtually any printer. In fact, I found that its Windows Printer Driver had more functions and features than the one supplied with my Zebra label printer. The software can print any type of bar code and also works with RFID label printers.
From
Anne in Rockville, MD on 6/6/2007
Q. We are exploring the possibility of purchasing a lead retrieval system that we can use at all the meetings we attend in lieu of renting systems. Can you provide any guidance on this issue? A. Answered on 6/28/2007.
This approach can save you a bunch of money and provide an excellent return on your investment, depending on how many shows you exhibit in each year.
A quick proforma: some of these general purpose lead retrieval systems can cost as much as $5,000. These systems give you the ability to read non-RFID technologies such as MagStrip and 2-D Bar codes (providing they’re not encrypted). At an average rental fee of $240, it would take you 21 rentals to break-even.
There are a number of vendors that offer these systems. The grand-daddy of them all that has been around as long as I can remember is NewLeads (www.newleads.com), while a fairly new kid on the block, Lead Wizard (www.leadwizard), is worth looking at. Another option is to use Card Scan (www.cardscan.com), which incorporates a business card scanner. OCR technology has attained such a high level of accuracy that this product will amaze you.
From
erin in arlington, VA on 4/10/2007
Q. I'm looking for a lead retrieval tool that will assist us in tracking attendance at the various workshops that we offer at our conferences. This will be used to issue CE credits to the attendees. It also needs to integrate with our in-house database, imis. What would you recommend? A. Answered on 5/21/2007.
Here are four recommendations for you. I feel the third recommendation is the best, and the fourth will bring it all home (import it back to iMIS).
1. You definitely want to incorporate a portable database technology into your lead-retrieval medium. 1-D bar codes can’t do this, but 2-D, MagCards and RFID can accomplish this for you.
2. 2-D bar codes and MagCards can track who attends various sessions, including full attendee contact information saved with date and time into most of the lead-capture devices offered today. These two technologies can’t effectively be used to authenticate if an attendee is really signed up for a particular session.
3. RFID is the only technology that can do it all, depending on which implementation of RFID you utilize. Long-range RFID is essentially a “flying 1-D bar code” with very little information storage capability. On the other hand, short-range RFID can hold up to 1,000 characters of information. This can be used to record which sessions, events and meal functions an attendee is signed up for. One implementation of short-range RFID can also re-write the badge and mark-off sessions as being used. This will prevent anyone from sneaking into an event with a friend’s badge.
4. I found a company, Association Technology Solutions, which has developed an iMIS meetings importer tool that will allow you to take your on-site registration data, which should also incorporate your session information and import it directly into iMIS. I’m so excited about this tool that I’m recommending it to all my clients who have iMIS. One of my clients wants to buy this product to solve the question of the decade: “How do I get the data back into iMIS?” Please check back in a few weeks, and I’ll provide some additional details from my client once he starts using the product.
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