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The team at Celadin work tirelessly at elite events around the globe, to make events smooth, to make events work and, most importantly, to make events a VIP experience.

When organising an event, more often than not, you should accept that issues may well arise. Perhaps a talk is oversubscribed, or a speaker is running late; maybe an attendee is having trouble accessing your app from her phone, or the polls you’re sending out aren’t reaching everyone.

What you shouldn’t do, is quietly accept that the problem has happened, or is going to continue happening, and merely promise and hope to fix it next time. I’m sure we’ve all been in a presentation where something has gone wrong and everyone in the room has awkwardly pretended that they’re ignorant of the issue. 

In these problematic situations, it’s imperative that you respond as soon as humanly possible to ensure your event keeps moving, and doesn’t come to a crashing (and embarrassing) halt. This is why it’s extremely important to have a team of specialists that can support you and aid in responding quickly.

When the experts are present on-site, issues can be addressed in a timely manner, and event-saving tech solutions can be delivered within mere hours, meaning your attendees can continue their VIP experience with minimal disruption.

A recent study by Eventsforce highlights the importance of using technology properly when planning and managing events. Almost half of all event planners who responded said that event technology plays a very important part in planning events, and more than 2 in 3 respondents were of the opinion that technological expertise is a key success factor for managing an event. 

This can lay a heavy burden on Event Managers & Planners, as the same study reveals that, alarmingly, under half of all respondents consider themselves ‘tech-savvy’. That’s why having a team of experts, like the team at Celadin, to support your tech needs can greatly remove the pressure of last-minute technological issues.

Making events run smoothly

A main hope for any event is to make sure that everything runs smoothly, even when it may not necessarily be running according to plan.

Imagine you’re running a series of talks at an event. Fifteen minutes before a talk is due to start in one of the smaller rooms, you notice it’s seriously oversubscribed. Well, first of all, don’t panic! At Celadin, we design our systems to ensure that dealing with this sort of situation is easy, but we know it helps to have a specialist team on-hand with the specific know-how available to fix it.

When event timetables and rooms need to be adjusted, having the right people there to make quick and easy changes can be a godsend. 

Making events work

Let’s face it: no matter how much preparation takes place in the run-up to an event, things can still go wrong. Every event will have a handful of attendees whose phones won’t properly load an app, for instance, or perhaps an issue arises with the notifications and some people aren’t being reminded about upcoming talks they’re booked in for. 

Celadin is equipped to deal with these tricky cases with relative ease. Having a team on-site to act in an agile and consultative fashion to fix a wide array of tech-related problems ensures each attendee experience remains uninterrupted and everyone stays in the loop.

Glen Masters, Chief Technical Officer at Celadin, recalls a time when a VIP arrived at an event and revealed that his company’s phone policy meant he couldn’t download the event app. With Glen on-site, this problem had an easy fix: he took all the information from the app and made a printable document from it, so the guest could navigate all the activities taking place.

When you’re able to be responsive to tech issues as they arise, you can keep your event on track and retain participant engagement. 

Making events VIP

As event-tech experts, we at Celadin believe in going above and beyond to meet stakeholder expectations and deliver the VIP experience. Attendees get one-on-one assistance when they need it, and the team will be on standby to make sure that everything is done to the highest professional standard. 

Furthermore, the apps that Celadin produces for the events-space can act as a hub for all the necessary information surrounding any event, and is updated in real-time.

Adding truly bespoke technology experiences in the events-space can add a touch of magic to any professional event, and Celadin is dedicated to crafting unique out-of-the-box solutions, even when responding to on-the-day surprises. Celadin achieves this by embedding themselves with the planners from day one, and supporting them as much as needed throughout the entire journey of planning and managing event-tech. 

During one event, the organisers ran into a problem – they planned on printing off a picture list to identify attendees, but they had no idea how to make sure every relevant staff member had a copy, or what to do about updates to the list.

Glen had the solution to all their issues. Within just a few hours, he produced an app which organised all the pictures of attendees into an easy-to-view grid format, viewable on both mobile and tablet alike. As a result, event staff were able to scroll through these pictures and easily identify people. 

This sort of consultative approach and bespoke, quick-fire problem-solving, combined with the technical know-how of an on-site support team, is a sure-fire way of ensuring attendees receive first-class assistance, whilst enjoying an exciting and unique event experience.

Do you think attendees at your events should be given the VIP experience no matter what happens? 

Get in touch with us to discover how to revolutionise your event experiences.
Find out more about how our app can be used to deliver instant insights from your top customers during events, read our previous blog here.

You’ve probably noticed that the use of online polls at business events is becoming increasingly common: ‘What did you find most interesting?’, ‘Which talk was the most memorable for you?’ or ‘What’s your opinion of X?’. Although the use of polling platforms is adding a new level of interactivity to business events, these technologies have a wider wealth of untapped potential.

We live in a fast-paced digital world where the life-cycle of products and services is getting shorter and the demand for customer-centric development is ever-growing. The future of interactive events and quickfire audience polling lies in gathering invaluable insights directly from those who know your product best: the VIP customers you’ve gathered in one venue. Let’s say you’ve assembled a whole host of experts in your field, distinguished people at the highest levels of their respective organisations – now’s the time to make use of their collective knowledge and insight by sending quickfire, snapshot questions straight to their phones.

‘Here are four things we’re planning on developing on our product over the next year: Which of these would you want us to roll out ASAP?’ 

‘We’re thinking of adding this feature to our systems, would this be an asset? How big an obstacle would this feature help you overcome?’ 

When companies are talking to their biggest customers, the ability to capture data in rapid snapshots provides the necessary tools for product development teams to ensure their product is being shaped in line with market expectations. These raw insights can be gold dust to businesses able to act in an agile way to incorporate customer desires into their product development.

Tapping into the raw data available from event technology during business events and forums can revolutionise the way in which your organisation remains relevant in an ever-changing, fast-paced, competitive environment.

Interested in gaining access to immediate insights from your top customers? Get in touch to learn more about what the Celadin app can do for you. And if you’re curious about how event technology can be made digitally secure, read our previous blog on how event tech can help handle some of the most sensitive business issues.

Event tech is becoming increasingly sophisticated and the most ambitious speakers are waking up to it’s potential to really impact the talks they give. While speakers are waking up to the potential, event organisers in the largest blue chips can be reluctant to use it. Why? Because the topics being debated are so sensitive that data security actually becomes a problem. 

Most of us have seen how voting and interactive polling tech can add drama and excitement to a talk. The speaker introduces the debate and the audience takes part instantly using the personal voting tech they’ve been given or the special app they’ve been asked to download.

But what if the information that audiences are asked to vote on is top secret? What if the audience comprises the top 100 VIP customers and the questions they are being asked are about real strategic business changes that could deliver untold commercial advantage?

That’s pretty sensitive information being collated and, in the wrong hands, it could be anything from embarrassing to ruinous. It’s not hard to find shock stories about data being misused by third-party services. Companies are now having to do their utmost to ensure that the data they collect is not only relevant but is only used for what it was intended for in the first place. 

As the business trusted to support big blue chips with event tech, we have encountered this problem before. So, we’ve worked hard to create interactive voting and polling systems that are safe and highly secure.

“We promise to anonymise all information shared during seminars to protect attendees identity. We encrypt the data we collect, which means no third-party apps are included in our process. We also make sure that the data we collect is deleted as soon as we share our findings with our client,” says Celadin’s Simon Walker.

The entire meeting is managed through the app so when speakers share results to various questions everyone’s identity is protected. Our process also ensures that the data collected is not shared with any third-party app and is used only for its intended purpose, research.

The trend of using interactivity during live sessions doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. So how do you create a safe environment where the brightest speakers, speaking about the most sensitive topics, can use polling or voting tech to create more engaging seminars? Get in touch to learn a bit more about what the Celadin app can do.

Your delegates have just attended one of your most popular events. As far as they’re concerned, you’ve hit the nail on the head. They loved it: your seminar themes were spot on, the VIP excursions you planned were second to none and the insights they gathered are likely to stay with them long past the event itself. Trouble is, you’re not really able to evidence any of this.

How can you start generating key insights at the high-profile events you run?

The way attendees engage with the events you run is changing. Delegates no longer sit through long, drawn-out seminars without the urge to interact. They want to contribute to the debate and explore ways of deploying the new information they gather. And so long as contributing is simple and easy, they will. 

The Celadin app makes contributing simple and easy

Asking for feedback has always been easy. Getting it has been the greater challenge. With the advent of simple to use interactive apps, your attendees have the opportunity to explore key points and feedback effortlessly; your best and brightest speakers can gather audience insights in near real-time and delegates can expound on those great discussions long after the event has come to an end. More importantly, perhaps, really effective feedback loops reinforce the learning delegates acquire from key speakers, and that learning tends to stick. 

Using feedback to inspire behavioural change

“Delegates become more accountable for their behaviour when they answer key questions during their post-event app-based feedback,” explains Celadin’s Simon Walker. “Attendees may answer a range of questions when giving feedback, and these questions are usually focused on changing behaviour: How will you plan on changing your behaviour based on the talk you received? How are you going to modify your teams’ behaviour as a manager? What are you going to do differently this year and what goals have you set? ”.

In about 200 characters, attendees respond to these questions with realistic next steps and set individual and team goals. This information is fed back to their organisation in a non-anonymous fashion, which puts attendees in the driving seat. They set their own targets, so their chance of achieving these targets is high.

Managers can use this data to support staff and ensure that objectives are achieved. Now the ROI in your major corporate events can be measured. You can see the impact key workshops have on your team and changes that will be implemented across your entire organisation. 

If you’d like to know more about Celadin and how we support event organisers and speakers through technology, please get in touch.

We know that dedicated mobile apps can help businesses manage all the admin hassles that come with large events: notifications, attendee lists, and locations. We also know that you can use those apps to analyse the data after an event to see who went where and when, providing insights into what your attendees want, need and think. But now things are getting even more sophisticated – and Celadin is at the forefront.

We recently created an app for a major global technology business that is running an in-house event. Many of its top salespeople would be attending and, most importantly, so are dozens of their biggest clients – CEOs and senior executives from some of the biggest brands in the world.

Rather than tracking attendees’ activity and interests after the event, it is vital to do so in real-time. Those salespeople need to know which areas are of the most interest to individual clients. So they can work with and advise them there and then, while the subject is fresh in their minds.

So, as well as all the usual technologies to keep the event running as smoothly as silk, we designed the app to hold information on the key areas the business is covering in its various presentations: everything from cloud and quantum computing to AI and blockchain. There are short articles inside the platform, plus links to more information on the business’s own website.

In real-time, the salespeople can access the app during the event and see what their clients are attending in terms of presentations, as well as which subjects are attracting their attention and are nearest and dearest to their hearts. This type of real-time analysis is valuable for any event organiser that needs immediate information on their attendees – not just what they’re doing, but what they’re thinking about.

Outside of the technology sector, imagine a toy manufacturer able to immediately see which products its retail partners are most interested in, or a consulting firm whose experts can see at a glance which of its service lines are of the most interest to clients for potential cross-selling.

Any event can use this app-based technology to provide invaluable data and insights to the organiser while it’s still happening, rather until waiting until later when interest might have cooled.

If you’d like to know more Celadin and how we continuously support event organisers through technology, before, during and after the event itself, please get in touch with us.

Planning corporate events can be a stressful undertaking. So why make it more laborious, spending long hours folding paper leaflets and placing one on each and every delegate’s chair? It’s time your event went paperless.

Celadin’s ingenious app works as the ultimate communication tool and incorporates delegates into the planning process, thus making it easier for event organisers to focus on other key aspects of event management. Going digital means you can say goodbye to 80 man-days of repetitive work for your team as well as gain better-engaged delegates. How? Check out five ways event organisers and delegates can both benefit from running a paperless event.

1. Notification: Get all your important reminders in one place

Delegates tend to be bombarded with email confirmations, date reminders and important security information that sometimes go unread. No one likes to sieve through their inbox to find important dates or tickets. The Celadin app works as an information hub as well as an event check-list. Event organisers can now be sure that delegates have not only read all the relevant event material but have also packed important documents.

2. Attendance: Put away the clipboard and forget about head counts  

Making sure everyone gets on and off the bus can be tricky business. Flipping through sheets of paper on a clipboard whilst trying to find specific names can be tedious work. Event planners can now get access to our ontrack service, allowing them to easily onboard delegates using our innovative scanning solutions. Event organisers can now scan tickets in seconds.

3. Personalisation: One size doesn’t fit all

Events are normally filled with numerous seminars slots, so it’s absurd to think that every delegate has the same agenda. Therefore, standardised paper agendas are not only a waste of event resources but are very impractical. The Celadin app displays personalised messages specific to each delegate’s agenda. Event staff can now engage with individual delegates, an action that cannot be fulfilled using paper leaflets.

4. Up-to-date: Constantly make last minute changes

As soon as paper agendas are printed, they instantly become out of date. Now, delegates can opt in and out of seminars automatically using the Celadin app and agendas are updated every time. Event organisers are notified about changes and can inform event speakers of their updated audience figures.

5. Cost: Save thousands of pounds on management systems

Our research shows that the Celadin app not only reduces the workload for staff but reduces event costs equivalent to 80 man-days of event preparation. As costs are trimmed, event organisers can spend more time ensuring that delegates have a great paperless event experience.

If you’d like to know more about Celadin and how we support event organisers and speakers through technology, please get in touch.

Imagine how much more creative you could be if you didn’t have to worry about the logistical basics that keep most event planners up all night. Monitoring attendance, circulating feedback, scheduling agendas or even updating speaker rosters. These are some of the routine but time-consuming tasks that the Celadin’s event tech makes quick and easy. With fewer admin tasks to worry about, what will event planners do with all the extra time?

Here are five ways savvy event planners and speakers can get creative with our tech, to deliver unforgettable experiences at the corporate seminars and expos they run.

1. Icebreakers: How to fix that awkward silence when great speakers open up their Q&A session

We’ve all been there. A great speaker delivers a really impressive presentation. They’re psyched, energised and ready to get fired into some great audience questions. But when they open up the Q&A there’s a vibe-killing awkward silence. Few hands go up, event staff run around erratically to give audience members the microphone. So, that really stimulating question that’s going to light up the entire session doesn’t get aired. That means the shy person at the back doesn’t like being in the spotlight. Chances are, a lot of people have burning questions but might be too scared to speak up. Celadin’s onetime feature takes the fear and awkwardness out of question time.

The advanced Celadin app allows delegates to type up their questions and share them with speakers in real-time. Delegates can choose to stay anonymous or can disclose their names alongside their question.

There is nothing worse than thinking of an intelligent question then forgetting it as the seminar goes on. In onetime, delegates can share their light bulb moments instantly. onetime also enables speakers to judge the audience’s understanding of the topics discussed, allowing for an illuminating conversation between speaker and delegates and putting engagement at the centre of corporate events.

2. Get a captive audience every time

You’ve spent countless hours on animations to make sure you keep your audience engaged. Then you notice some talking, checking of watches or, worse still, some delegates in the front row on their phones apparently more interested in Twitter than what’s being said in the room. If only you could somehow tap into that obsession we all have with our mobiles these days! What if all that swiping and tapping was for you?

One simple step to captivating your audience is to talk about topics that are relevant to the group you are addressing. There is no point harping on about a topic that no one cares about. You can lose the attention of your audience instantly if you choose a topic that doesn’t resonate with those you’re addressing.

So, imagine if you could choose a topic that your audience is interested in learning more about every time you give a talk. Celadin’s onetime allows attendees to vote for their favourite topic. The topic with the most votes is then presented. Speakers can bypass irrelevant topics and have meaningful attendee-centric seminars. Attendees become more engaged and speakers are confident in the content they have chosen to share.

3. Attendees become your dedicated focus group

If you think you are on the verge of a groundbreaking idea, often the only way to see if that idea has legs is to tell a friend, ask a colleague or go to the expense of a focus group. Using the polling feature in Celadin’s onetime app, you can now share your latest business ideas to an unbiased audience and find out what people really think.

onetime empowers attendees to act as a focus group, sharing invaluable opinions and analysing business strategies. It is now possible to identify opportunities that haven’t been explored in a conducive environment. Speakers can find out if they are underselling the value of their service and if they should charge a premium. There is a clear benefit to getting a different pair of eyes and ears evaluating your strategy.

4. Make every event more successful than the last

Have you ever been to an event and realised that the event organisers didn’t do their homework because the people to room ratio is way off? The room is either too cramped or you can barely hear the speaker because they are stationed too far away. It never instils confidence in speakers for them to be presenting to just a few attendees sparsely dotted around a big lecture hall.

Celadin’s onboarding notifies event organisers with exact arrival times and attendee registrations in real time, permitting event organisers to optimise the size of every seminar room before guests arrive. Smaller seminar groups can adopt a collaborative room layout using round tables or, for bigger seminar groups, a larger lecture hall with sufficient windows can be utilised.

It’s important to keep your audiences comfortable in order to maintain high levels of engagement. So being able to deliver real-time agenda changes to delegates is so useful. When additional people sign up to attend workshops, last minute room or auditorium changes soon become necessary: It’s the kind of thing that causes confusion and stress to your most important delegates.

Celadin’s real-time updates build confidence in delegates because it tells them about any last minute agenda changes as soon as they occur, long before they need to make their way to any session’s location.

5. Go above and beyond to delight guests

Start looking after your VIP guests as soon as they land! Nothing says you care like being met at the airport and chauffeured to a corporate event. Celadin’s oneplace gives event organisers access to invaluable data about attendees, enabling event organisers to go the extra mile in delighting their guests at every touchpoint. Corporate events can now add another level of value for delegates.

If you’d like to know more Celadin and how we support event organisers and speakers through technology, please get in touch.