Personalised Wearables & 5 Other Tech Stories Event Planners Should Read

untitled-design-75This month, we came across some really interesting stories on event tech – from the launch of Instagram’s live-streaming tool to new wearable devices that help personalise attendee experiences. We also found out how data integration is helping event planners save time and money, as well as some fun insight into the weird and wonderful world of 3D printed give-aways.

Have a look at the top event tech stories you may have missed. They may hold those creative event marketing ideas you’ve been looking for:

BizBash: How This Wearable Tech Device Provides Custom Marketing At Large Events

There’s a new wearable device that is offering a different way for planners to communicate with attendees. The text-based platform from Hurdl comes with a circular LED button and attached to the wristband. Upon arriving at an event, guests can activate it by texting the unique code associated with their band to their phone numbers.  They then get a text with a series of questions created by the event host to gather the data they want for the event.  So, the questions can include things like, what team are you supporting or what’s your favourite song? From then on, and over the course of the event, the wearables will light up based on their wearers’ unique answers. So Beyoncé can light up all the ‘single ladies’ during one of her concerts or a sports team can light up all the people who served in the military.

From a B2B perspective, attendees at conferences or trade shows can be asked questions about their job titles, industry, or location. And then at a networking event, for example, the wristbands worn by CEOs can be illuminated in blue, CMOs in green and so on. Or at an awards programme, the wristbands of the top sales people could light up at a specific moment. It’s fun and can create a good communal experience of an event.  The technology also has other personalisation features that allow organisers to send direct texts to attendees.  Have a look at all the details in this article here.

Event Manager Blog: What Instagram Live Means for the Event Industry

Instagram has just announced the launch of Instagram live, a streaming tool that many events should consider for quick live video.  It’s a direct competitor to what Periscope offers rather than Facebook Live, which also caters to desktop users. It is also geared towards a different audience – so if your event has a stronger Instagram presence, you may want to start looking at Live soon.  Instagram also launched Instagram Direct, which people can use to privately send photos that disappear once they have been viewed.  They can draw on the images, add text and doodles, much like Snapchat.

This piece from Event Manager Blog looks at the opportunities both these tools offer from the perspective of the event planner. It seems the tool will get people to live stream more frequently rather than concentrating on broadcasting exclusive moments. Since live videos disappear immediately, viewers will fear missing out, prompting them to watch videos immediately.  It also allows planners to better manage viewers by knowing exactly who is watching their videos and photos, and when.

Tech Crunch: Spotify Launches Collaborative Playlist Feature for Events

The music streaming service is taking its collaborative playlist feature and pushing it for use at parties and events. The ‘Playlist Potluck’ experience allows Spotify users to invite people to an event by sharing their playlist, and get them to add to it with their own favourite tunes. The idea is to create the playlist in advance of an event, by making it part of the invitation process itself.

Unfortunately, you can only add five of your own tracks to the list before you have to turn it over to your attendees and guests – but in this era of personalisation and crowdsourcing, it still presents event planners with a good option. After choosing your tracks, you’ll be given a unique URL that you can share via email, Facebook and Twitter.  Or you can copy and paste the link and use it anywhere you choose. Have a look here for more details.

MeetingsNet: 3 Cybersecurity Questions You Need to Answer Now

Do you know just how vulnerable your meetings, and your attendees, are to being hacked by a cybercriminal? According to this news story, your event may be a more tantalising cybercrime prospect than you think. After all, your registration list alone is a rich pool of names and email addresses ripe for a phishing expedition.

Unfortunately, protecting your data and your attendees is getting more difficult as hackers have gotten more sophisticated. So, one of the first question to ask is who and what can put you at risk? It seems that anything that attaches to your computer can do you harm and mobile apps are also another popular hacker target. Apparently, it only takes one attendee to pass along your meeting’s Wi-Fi password to make it insecure. The other things the article focuses on is what things you need to protect and what to do if a breach occurs. This includes things like conducting initial assessments, shutting down affected systems and putting your communication plan in place to let attendees know what’s going on.

Have a look at this infographic for some quick preventative tactics that can really help planners improve the security around their event data.


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Event Magazine: Top 3D Tech for Events

In this article, Event Magazine looks at some of the best 3D printing and scanning trends that can be effective in our industry. The first is a handheld 3D scanner that can transform a user’s head into a chocolate lollipop in 5 minutes. The other is from 3D printing company, my3Dtwin, which has devised a way of printing action figures of attendees. Guests can have their photos taken simultaneously by 64 DSLR cameras.  The 2D images are then stitched together and an action figure is formed using a 3D printer.

Lastly, we have the PocketMaker 3D, which is a miniature printer you can carry in your pocket.  Rumoured to launch next year, it claims to print almost anything and users can connect to it via Wi-Fi on their smartphones.

Event Industry News: Focus on Data Integration Saves Event Planners Time and Money

It seems that more and more organisations are integrating their event management and back end business systems in an effort to save time, improve data accuracy and up productivity around their events. According to a research study by Event Industry News and Eventsforce, 60% of event planners have already integrated their event data with systems like CRM, marketing and finance solutions.

Click to get in touchEvent planners deal with so many different systems to capture and manage information around their events – from their event management and ticketing systems to marketing, sales, finance, membership and so on. Putting all this data together where all the different systems automatically talk to each other makes business sense and this is where data integration comes in.  The study found that despite the overwhelming 75% of event planners who want to integrate their event data, a third felt uncertain of where to start. However, a new industry eBook provides event planners a comprehensive easy-to-read guide on everything they need to know about event data integration. For more on the eBook or details into the results of the research study, have a look at the article here.

Want to get regular updates on the latest event tech stories?  Get your monthly summary by subscribing to the EventTech Talk blog here.