Booking venues? Catering food? And travel? With Covid-19 regulations starting to ease up, In-person events are beginning to resurface.

For a while now we have all adapted to the virtual change and never thought In-person events would come back for a long time. Since the pandemic started, we had to quickly learn how to create attendee engagement via camera. I think we can even say that we all started to get really good at it.

A recent study shows that attendees are feeling excited to meet and greet people in person again after being behind the screen too much during the pandemic. They do say the best way to engage with someone is face to face.

However, more In-person aspects have started to arise again with concerts and shows kicking it off. Do you have the necessary tools and tricks to create an engaging atmosphere for your attendees in-person again?

Here are a couple of tips to get you started:

• Design your registration page to go over the agenda, speakers, and any In-person details for your attendees.
• Create an email campaign with a unique QR code for each registered attendee.
• Assign one team member to check in attendees In-person by scanning their QR codes.
• Make sure to have an organized agenda for the speakers so they know when to go and what to do.

All of these tips can really help you remember hosting in-person events again. However, research has shown that some attendees are still a little nervous to join in-person after taking several cautious steps to avoid large groups. It would be a good idea to start plotting out strategies to keep your attendees comfortable and safe.

Venue

Select a venue that offers options of space for your attendees to not feel like they are in the middle of a crowd. This gives your attendees reassurance that they do not have to feel closed in or too close to one another. Designate team members to manage different responsibilites at the venue for your attendees such as sanitation stations or handling food with cleanliness.

Contactless Experiences

By offering a contactless experience, this can make your attendees feel much more comfortable coming to your event. Even as simple as entering, maybe ask if the venue has automatic doors. If not, (weather pending), leave the doors open. Use QR code check in to avoid contact all together by having attendees scanned when they enter.

Attendee Experience

Studies show that attendees no longer want an event to participate in, they want an experience. Think of majority of your in-person events revolving around engagement and the rest being content. Most of the time should be spent engaging with your attendees such as Q&A, polls, games, etc after the content is shared by your speakers.

Some events bring in a celebrity to complete the process of turning an event into an experience. Now it can be pretty complicated and expensive to ask JLO to perform at the end of your event. Don’t stress! There are other options you can provide for an experience such as local performers or comedians! That way you are supporting that local community as well.

To Conclude…

It’s time to start warming up to the idea of In-person events for 2022. I think we are all more ready than we thought we would be, but still want to know all the details of safety measures before we arrive. Collaborate with other event managers and see what their plans are this year. It’s exciting to think that the feeling of an In-person event is happening again!

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