Situation

BBDR Pacific, a professional event production and planning company in Los Angeles, was looking for an event planning system to manage the online registration, attendee/participant communications, and other logistics planning for a Virtual Summit on behalf of their clients, the Kenner Family Research Fund (KFRF) and American Pancreatic Association (APA). In a normal year, the Summit would have been an in-person event for expert participants. But during 2020 and Covid-19, they elected instead to host a Virtual Summit and to open the event to industry experts from medical, research, government and artificial intelligence specialties from global institutions.

About four months prior to the Summit, BBDR was looking for an event technology vendor that could handle the online registrations, communications with attendees, and other event logistics dependent upon attendee registration questionnaire responses. Our system had to provide an on-brand registration dashboard, an intuitive user experience, include a number of custom survey questions during registration, operate worldwide across a wide variety of devices (desktop, tablet, mobile), and be cost-effective.

The Virtual Summit featured a series of Round Table Discussions hosted by expert panelists and attended by not more than 20 guests per discussion. BBDR was looking for an event management system that could also assist them with assigning their guests into these virtual Round Table discussions according to their selected preferences during registration.

Solution

BBDR hired Eventene to meet their requirements, namely to manage the online registration phase, outgoing attendee email communications, and other planning logistical needs. The team at Eventene worked closely with BBDR in developing a streamlined registration form, including an integrated survey for guests to select their top three Round Table Discussion preferences. During the planning stages, BBDR used Eventene to send out nearly 60 emails to subsets of the event attendees and the expert speakers and panelists. Eventene's built-in emailing system provided a more efficient means of tracking all the specific event related communications, rather than relying on 3rd party email accounts.

Eventene also provided comprehensive reporting to the team on attending lists and Round Table Discussion selections, enabling them to make informed decisions. BBDR also leveraged Eventene's Assignments feature to organize their attendees into specific breakout sessions, distribute those assignments directly to each attendee, and export the CSV list required to pre-populate the virtual meetings platform. In the past, they used sticky notes and spreadsheets, but this time were able to streamline using Eventene.

Results

The Virtual Summit published a dedicated event website, linking to Eventene to provide the Registration service, as seen in the following screenshot. Amp'd Entertainment's studio used both Zoom and YouTube Live platforms to produce the day-of-event video streaming services.

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When guests clicked on the Registration button from the official Summit website, they would be directed to its custom registration dashboard hosted by Eventene, as seen in the following screenshot. From this dashboard, guests could easily share the event with others on social media, add the event to their personal calendar (across multiple calendar platforms), access the program agenda, as well as links to launch the Zoom Webinar live stream on the Summit webpage via YouTube Live, and a separate Zoom Meeting link to the breakout rooms.

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When guests were ready to register for the Summit, they first created an account with Eventene, allowing them to login later and review their previous registration responses. Clicking the "Register" button launched a personalized online webform to complete their registration and receive an automatic confirmation email. The following screenshot shows how guests encountered Eventene's online registration form.

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As an optional enhancement to the Summit, the event organizers and participants could download the free Eventene Mobile App, which enhanced the experience by providing the event agenda at their fingertips and links to launch the virtual meetings. For the Summit participants, clicking on the Assignments tab revealed their assigned breakout room for the Round Table Discussions portion. The following screenshot shows how the Virtual Summit appeared on the Mobile App.

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The Virtual Summit took place on October 19-20 from 1 to 5 pm each day (EDT). Guests attended and participated virtually from around the world. Following are a few screenshots of the live Summit.