Do you know that EventNook’s ticket tier pricing feature allows organizers toset multiple ticket types?
Wouldn’t you want your guests to purchase their tickets early rather than last-minute? What better way to encourage guests to attend your event than by offering them a special discount for purchasing their tickets early?
Setting “ticket tier pricing” benefits you as an organizer because it encourages potential attendees to immediately actand purchase tickets upon knowing about the event. This reduces the risk that they will forget about the event when they decide to purchase tickets at a later date.
Utilize this feature now to maximize your event management process and encourage more sales!
To learn how to set ticket tier pricing, visit our help page.
If you need any further assistance or clarification on using this feature, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
You don’t need to have a technical background to organise a successful hackathon! All you need is some creativity, event management tips and the right attitude!
1. Pick a great theme
You can pick themes that surround a particular technology such as sensor technologies, the Internet of Things or Virtual Reality technologies. Or you could get participants to hack towards achieving a certain goal. For instance, the National University of Singapore organised a hackathon called Commuthon in collaboration with SMRT that was geared towards improving commuter experience in 2014.
Hackers tend to be very forgiving if you are not able to provide certain things at the hackathon as long as you communicate the message to them effectively! What they do expect however is you being able to reach out to them effectively using various communication channels such as social media, e-mails and websites (you should be a master of digital communication). You can use channels such as Techinasia, EventNook, e27, thelist.sg, etc.
Provide ample amount of information, such as getting to the venues and back, changes to the schedule, what to bring and expect, etc. Clear communication sustains engagement.
3. Venues
A venue decision should be made in consideration of sleeping and showering arrangements, connectivity, accessibility, ambience, size, pricing, power socket presence and AV (especially for demos should be functioning). Make provisions for hardware hacks that may require electric testing or isolation.
PC: ida.gov.sg
Make sure to ask for necessary accommodations for people who may be less able to access the venue. Insurance such as against fire and theft, as well as for you as an organiser should be in place and communicated if they aren’t.
Security will also be important especially since people will be bringing expensive valuables like laptops and perhaps their own high-tech toys. While participants have the responsibility to take care of their own items, prevention is better than cure and you wouldn’t want a lost item to ruin your event.
4. Sponsorship
Sponsors can come in the form of a venue sponsor, food sponsor, prize sponsor and more! However, sponsors tend to expect to have some airtime to pitch themselves to your attendees. The more sponsors you have, the more likely will your event be overrun by corporate messaging and in-your-face advertising. As an organiser, you need to be able to balance both. Try to help your sponsors be relevant to the hackathon. Find sponsors that can provide useful APIs or deploy experienced staff to serve as judges so that they can boost their brand in a less intrusive way.
5. When?
Check for clashes. Don’t organise a hackathon on the day of another prominent startup weekend in the vicinity. Many hackers tend to be very active in attending hackathons and you will significantly reduce your turnout if there are clashes.
Try to organise your hackathon over the weekend to maximise turnout as most hackers are full-time employees or entrepreneurs as well!
6. Food
Over-order on food especially if it is an overnight event. When these hackers are in the zone, eating becomes last on their priority and making sure that there is ample amounts of easily accessible food is important to prevent any health mishaps. It helps greatly if the food you serve is easily eaten as well! Avoid soupy or dripping stuff to lighten your cleaning upload later.
Check for special dietary requirements as well during registration for the event.
PC: pascadoo.com
7. Network
Wifi should be able to accommodate at least 4 devices per person, there should be minimal firewalling and malware checks, and you should have backup ethernet and cables available in case of a wifi unavailability.
Organisers should also make sure to absolve themselves of liability if there should be intrusion caused over the network and individuals should secure their own devices.
8. APIs
Check the APIs beforehand, make sure they are available in at least 3 major languages and get technical people to present them because questions will be highly technical. Make sure to compile comprehensive API documentation for the convenience of the attendees.
9. Pay attention to negativities in the room
Any discriminatory language, bitter feelings, cheating, etc. should be put to a stop before they grow out of hand. This requires the event organiser to be on their toes in making sure they can pre-empt and mitigate issues on the event day.
There should be a conducive and collaborative atmosphere in the room. Some form of respect for privacy is appreciated and make sure to encourage spontaneity and fun as well!
PC: dbs.com
10. Hack submissions
Make it as easy and straightforward as possible. You can check out some third-party services like Hacker League, Hackathon.io, or WeHack.it to help you organise submissions.
Make sure to test run the AV equipment required for effective demos. Technical glitches at a hackathon filled with technical experts just do not speak well of your event.
About EventNook:
Event Mangement Software company, EventNook is an online event registration & ticketing platform where organisers can set up and customise their very own event page. Through it, organisers can collect attendees’ information and their payment using a real-time dashboard. Features such as Automated Email Confirmation and QR Code Check-In make the job of event organisers much easier and more efficient. Recently, EventNook launched an Event Venues Directory which provides information on more than 5,000 venues in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and Hong Kong, making one of the best places on the web to look for venues in South East Asia.
Individual ASEAN countries are drawing upon the ASEAN image and ASEAN edge in boosting their own MICE industries. Keeping close tabs on regional MICE developments is key to success in any of the ASEAN countries.
To date, ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) have witnessed different degrees of development. But one thing is for sure. The MICE industry is projected to grow rapidly in the coming years.
Here are some snapshots of the current state and trajectory of the MICE industry in ASEAN:
1. Thailand
businesseventsthailand.com
The TCEB (Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau) has recently moved to standardise its MICE venues with Thailand’s MICE Venue Standard or TMVS.
One of TCEB’s new policies announced by General Tanasak Patimapragorn, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister “will require the integration of collaboration between public and private sectors, particularly the coordination with ASEAN member countries”.
The government has stated its prioritisation of the MICE industry in moving the economy forward and has supported it through the enhancement of the transportation system and infrastructure.
Thailand’s MICE industry has an average growth rate of 5 to 10 per cent each year and saw an 18.8% increase in MICE visitors from 2014. It is closely tied to the tourism and leisure industry, which contributes to nearly 20.2% of Thailand’s GDP.
2. Singapore
dreamworldjourneys.com
The Singapore Tourism Board has recently developed the MICE 2020 roadmap and are striving to implement it. There is greater focus on developing Singapore’s technological software throughout the city-state to integrate communications and transport.
Singapore was the only Asia-Pacific city to make the top 10 of the International Congress and Convention Association’s rankings.
However, being a small city-state prone to global macroeconomic fluctuations, Singapore Tourism Board (STB) recent visitor arrivals data shows declines in MICE travel arrivals, which dampened the country’s overall tourism performance for the first half of 2015. It saw a drop overall despite visitor arrivals and tourism receipts from the leisure segment growing by one per cent over the period.
3. Malaysia
pacificworld.com
The two airline disasters that have plagued Malaysia’s air travel industry have also had significant ramifications for its MICE and tourism industry. However, Malaysia’s minister of Tourism and Culture Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, in an interview with eturbonews reflects the role of ASEAN’s MICE and tourism integration for Malaysia’s own tourism and MICE industry.
The competition in tourism and MICE between ASEAN countries had been fierce in the past but right now, ASEAN is focused on promoting the region as a single tourism destination through GOASEAN (a ASEAN-focused travel initiative to promote ASEAN as a single tourism destination).
“All these countries are competing countries, and there is an old saying, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ and I think it was a brilliant idea to create GOASEAN. We are saying, yes, go and visit Thailand, and also fly over to Kuala Lumpur,” says Aziz.
Malaysia is also the leading Islamic tourism destination for the last six years. While Malaysia lags behind countries like Singapore and Thailand in the volume of MICE events planned on its soil, it aims to ride on the momentum and appeal of its neighbours. With its world-class infrastructure and attractions, Malaysia is able to successfully attract MICE tourists after their meetings and who might want to explore the region away from leading MICE countries like China, Singapore and Thailand.
Keen to plan an event in one of the ASEAN countries? Check out Eventnook’s range of services capable of powering complex and large-scale events:
Event Management Software company, EventNook is an online event registration & ticketing platform where organisers can set up and customise their very own event page. Through it, organisers can collect attendees’ information and their payment using a real-time dashboard. Features such as Automated Email Confirmation and QR Code Check-In make the job of event organisers much easier and more efficient. Recently, EventNook launched an Event Venues Directory which provides information on more than 5,000 venues in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and Hong Kong, making one of the best places on the web to look for venues in South East Asia.
The MICE 2020 roadmap was released in end 2014 and remains a useful tool to understand the key trends for the next 5 years in the MICE (Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conventions and Exhibitions) industry. Wherever you are based at, Singapore is likely a MICE destination you will come across. Being Asia’s top convention city for the 10th straight year, Singapore is a world-class MICE destination you don’t want to miss out on.
Best of all, the Singapore Tourism Board has developed a strategy to bring MICE Singapore to greater heights. As event planners, the roadmap serves as a useful guide to spot new opportunities and leverage new systems. Here are a few things you should keep your tabs on.
Credits: Singapore Tourism Board
1. Move to Big Data
– It’s time to leverage big data for your events. Big data can be extremely useful for event planners to track attendee behaviour over time and spot key stats so that you you can plan your event smarter
– STB will be offering more educational opportunities to businesses and companies so it’s a great chance for you to learn how your events and businesses can tap big data
2. Seamless Wifi
– Make sure your event will be ready to leverage the availability of wifi as STB aims to partner with MICE venues and telcos to offer greater accessibility to free wifi.
wecip.com
How can you use this freely available wifi to engage with your event attendees better? How can you make your event more wifi-friendly?
Why not utilise real-time social media reporting for your event to inject some excitement and also encourage greater social media marketing! You can also get your event attendees to use their mobile phones to answer polls or engage with you!
3. Plan your event to coincide with a major event week
One of the visions in the Roadmap is to “Wrap the City Around the Business Event” and STB aims to develop city-wide activities and campaigns that centre around major business event weeks. Planning your event during a major event week can allow you to ride the coattails of an already well-publicised and well-established event so that your event will be an even greater success.
4. Key MICE grants
– For tourism companies
TIP-iT: Training Industry Professionals in Tourism scheme supports tourism companies in employee upgrading (Singapore-registered)
TTF: Tourism Technology Fund for technology innovation and adoption (Singapore-registered)
– If you’re in the business events industry
BEis: Business Events in Singapore (BEiS) scheme seeks to encourage business events industry to anchor and grow quality events and catalyse innovation of new content (Open to all Businesses/ Companies/ Associations in MICE)
BIF: Business Improvement Fund supports companies to redesign their business models, processes and systems for commercial sustainability (Singapore-registered)
– For experimenting new concepts
KF: Kickstart Fund supports creation and test-bedding of innovative lifestyle concepts and events with strong tourism potential and scalability (Open to all legal entities)
5. Innovate and adopt event technology
STB aims to help businesses and companies adopt technology across the event life cycle, from event registration and ticketing to engagement and post-event analytics.
There has never been a better time to begin accelerating business growth as we see a boom in tech and greater government support, both financially and operationally to execute this.
sxsw.com
Singapore is moving to become a smarter city by leveraging on the Internet of Things (IOT) and big data. STB understands that events are key to developing Singapore’s status as a vibrant, open, friendly and world-class hub. Therefore, positioning your event or business in a way that allows you to tap on new technologies that Singapore will adopt, looking out for educational and upgrading opportunities, networking with the right crowd and partnering Singapore-based businesses who will also be looking to leverage these opportunities (if you are not Singapore-registered), can help you maximise the next 5 years in Singapore’s MICE industry.
Request for a copy of the roadmap by emailing Norhayati_SAMAD@stb.gov.sg with your full name, designation, company, name of the report and its intended use.
Building customer relations that run deeper than the superficial newsletter greetings are getting more difficult today. The average consumer today is distracted, spoilt for choice and very busy. To effectively get a customer to return to your business again and again requires additional effort.
Events can help you cut through the noise online and offline. Through live events, you can attract potential customers and cultivate long-term relationships with existing customers. People continue to be attracted to actual human connection. And with online ticketing and registration solutions readily available online, event-goers can attend events more conveniently. Events offer businesses a great growth hacking strategy to achieve a stronger customer base and greater brand connection.
1. Use existing networks
You don’t have to do everything yourself. The best part about planning events is that you have a real reason to call up that emcee you met at a networking session last time, or that catering company your cousin runs.
Photo Source: investinhackney.org
And if you plan an event that really excites your target audience, they might actually help you plan and market it! Leverage on their networks and enthusiasm. For instance, Airbnb supports their users in planning meetups for people in certain locales, enabling them to have events in their name all around the world.
And as your event gains traction, you can start engaging your event attendees to be part of your event in different ways. For EventNook, our networking events brought together events people from all parts of the event industry and soon, we found an emcee, venue sponsors and event photography services for our subsequent events who would be willing to use our events as a platform to showcase their services.
Photo Source: sxsw.com
Social media is also a great way to tap on the networks of your event attendees. Prepare relevant social media channels and hashtags and encourage people to use it before, during and after the event! It’s free marketing so why not use it?
2. Small and intimate
As an event planner you don’t need to wrack your head planning a huge and spectacular event to achieve your goal of driving growth. Small and cozy events with a conducive environment for conversations will help your event goers form communities with each other and strengthen their relationship with your business because they get more individual attention from you. Moreover, you can save significantly on costs!
Photo Source: sxsw.com
3. Focus on what’s important
Focus on 1-2 things you want your event attendees to get out of your event. Do you want your event goers to experience your services, form connections with each other, or gain some valuable knowledge? What is the main takeaway for your audience?
Like in business, go lean with your event. Do away with unnecessary frills like a buffet dinner, or an entertainer even. But make sure to invest enough time and resources into helping your audience get what they came to get.
Photo Source: latergram.me
4. Partner up
Partnering up can double your market reach while reducing the work for each company. Moreover, your event will look more credible for the attendees. And you can make it event more useful to your event attendees by exposing them to a complementary service or product!
Just make sure to clarify expectations with partner businesses and communicate consistently before the event so that all partners are on the same page.
Chill Out with Event Professionals: EventNook partners with Venuerific (a venue portal) and LiveLife (an event planning platform)
5. Incorporate branding
Tie back the event to your company. Have a definite plan about how you can generate sales from the event. Ensure the personality of your company comes through in the event. And make sure you brand, brand, brand! Your presentation slides, event venue, freebies and even the content of your event should show your company’s logo and link back to your overall brand.
For instance, consider giving away food vouchers as lucky draw prizes at the event if you are running a restaurant so that event attendees are encouraged to return. Or, giving away samples of your company’s product that may require customers to buy complementary products or return for re-fills can help increase customer retention.
6. Have fun!
Make your event useful, fun and enjoyable. A positive and comfortable (relaxed) experience is more likely to leave a long-lasting sense of joy in your event attendees’ lives and they will attribute this to you!
Photo Source: meetup.com
Events make people feel appreciated. By planning an event for the benefit of your customer segments, you show that your business genuinely cares. It can be incorporated into your growth hacking strategy. At the same time, by getting to know the people in the company, your business is humanised, and trust tends to strengthen. Even if you are on a tight budget, there is always a way to plan a killer event to drive business growth!
Want to start accelerating your business’ growth through events?
With Uber recently announcing the release of UberEVENTS, we take a closer look at how businesses, large and small, are using events to power their growth.
Airbnb
Airbnb is making full use of the power of intimate live events by organising and helping their users organise meetups and gatherings for Airbnb users. Past events include “A toast to London”, “Colombo Get-Together @ Lemon Bar” and “DC Host Appreciation Social @ Hoban’s!“. Airbnb knows how to leverage the power of events to strengthen their community of users, which helps build brand loyalty and increase customer retention.
Airbnb Meetups Page
Most businesses don’t have the luxury of Airbnb’s size and growth to afford planning this many events for their users. However, what we can learn from Airbnb is to let our networks and users do the work for us. Tap more extensively into your network of users and encourage them to plan events through one or two passionate community managers that you hire.
Uber
Recently launched in late September 2015, UberEvents is a service that allows organizers to buy and secure car passes ahead of the occasion to send to guests, clients or whoever needs one to get to the location via email.
This is great for exposing Uber’s services to the event-goers who use their service when they attend a particular event.
Photo Credits: engadget.com
Ramada Singapore At Zhongshan Park
Local businesses in Singapore are also exploiting the power of events to market themselves. Ramada Singapore at Zhongshan Park, a hotel in Singapore, is currently organising the Ah Hood Burger Challenge on 28 Nov 2015, a burger eating contest to promote their Ah Hood burger stall.
Upcoming Event on 28 Nov 2015
By giving away Flavours At Zhongshan Park vouchers as the prize, they also promote the other restaurants in their hotel.
The event is a great way to get people to know about them as well as to bring them back with the prizes given away at the event! By planning a competition, they can also leverage on the networks of the participants who will bring their family and friends down for support. And how do they do that? By offering a package for families and friends to enjoy the food without stuffing their stomachs till they explode.
Pigeon Singapore
Pigeon Singapore, producer of Mother and Baby Care Products, hosts the SG Mass Latch On in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week annually. The event sees mothers of all walks of life come together to latch on their babies at the same time.
Planning social gatherings and meetups for mothers creates a positive branding effect for Pigeon amongst their main target group. They are seen as the champion of women and mothers in Singapore. By organising it in conjunction with a worldwide event, they can also leverage online opportunities for marketing. They are also able to use the event giveaways to promote their breastfeeding products.
Oktoberfest, the most famous beer festival and travelling funfair which happens in Munich from late September to October every year is an extravagant display of the biggest beer brands in Munich. It draws millions of people from all around the world for weeks of beers, Bavarian culture and carnival rides. Imagine the market reach for the beer brands involved!
One thing we can learn from these brands is the power of collaboration. The event is so successful because it brings together the best of Munich’s breweries. They draw on each other’s brand power to create a bigger entity that they cannot create alone.
Photo Credit: losangeles.cbslocal.com
These beer brands have created a legacy brand on the back of a highly successful event. Both the beer brands and the event Oktoberfest have now become synonymous with Bavarian culture.
Events are a powerful tool in every business’ arsenal. Use them in a way that builds a community for your business and you will witness increasing brand evangelism, recurrent purchases and higher brand awareness.
How can you leverage events for your business? Stay tuned for the next part of this article to find out more!
Want to start accelerating your business’ growth through events?
Bored? Want to know the upcoming events in Singapore? Finding events in Singapore has become even easier on EventNook with this over-the-weekend update!
To access this useful feature, scroll to the bottom of the EventNook homepage and click on “Browse Events in Singapore“.
Planning social gatherings and meetups for mothers creates a positive branding effect for Pigeon amongst their main target group. They are seen as the champion of women and mothers in Singapore. By organising it in conjunction with a worldwide event, they can also leverage online opportunities for marketing. They are also able to use the event giveaways to promote their breastfeeding products.
EventNook 