Beacons in Events - Location-Based Marketing Platform

Beacons provide event managers an opportunity to engage with attendees and to personalize their conference experience. You can use beacons to streamline the registration process, collect session feedback, help attendees navigate through the venue and much more. We’ve put together a list of events that are using beacons to provide attendees a great experience.

 

1.    SXSW

At SXSW 2014, beacons were deployed at strategic locations within the venue to enable their attendees to gain easy and quick access inside. To enable this, the event organizers pushed Registration Quick Codes via notifications to the mobile phones of their attendees when they were in the vicinity of the SXSW registration area. In 2015, the event went a step ahead and deployed 1000+ beacons to allow attendees to network better. Beacons allowed audience members to know who else was attending a session and to get involved in conversations with other participants through the mobile app.

 

2.    Cannes Lion Film Festival

In 2014, Cannes Lion Film Festival leveraged beacons to make it easier for attendees to instantly spot, connect with and message influencers around them. The goal of the app was to offer attendees a personalized experience featuring relevant content and meetups with like-minded event-goers. In 2015, the event used beacon-enabled apps to detect attendees and auto-favorite a session when they stayed for at least 15 minutes. Additionally, the app also added a social discovery element by using Linkedin to show you if any of your contacts also liked the same session as you did. Moreover, iBeacons were used to offer session recommendations based on user profiles and preferences to offer a more personalized experience.

 

3.    Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014

One of the best examples of gamifying events is the iBeacon-powered Scavenger Hunt at CES 2014. Users were directed to the instructions page after downloading the CES 2014 mobile app on their phone. The hunt encouraged them to explore the most important exhibits at the show, while collecting badges from each beacon that they encountered. Rewards were given to the first three users who collected the entire list of badges shown on the screen.

  

4.    Chicago Auto Show 2015

    This year’s Chicago Auto Show used beacon technology to engage attendees and to provide show organizers and exhibitors detailed tracking information about showgoers. Beacons were installed on the show floor and interacted both passively and actively with the app to provide an interactive consumer experience. For one, attendees received push notifications designed to keep them informed about breaking events and appearances. They were also greeted with personalized messages as they approached new concept cars or vehicles eligible for best of

show and offered discounts and rewards as they crossed into new zones.

  

Questions to answer before getting started with beacons at your event

Before you decide to use beacons at your event, the first step would be to understand the use cases that benefit you and your event attendees.

 Where do you expect the most visitors to go? Are there any “hotspots” at your event?

·         What kind of devices do you expect your attendees to carry? All Apple devices using iOS7 are compatible with iBeacon, but Android devices must use version 4.3 or higher.

·         Is it an indoor or outdoor event? The beacon hardware you choose will depend on this.

·         How large is your event venue? How many beacons do you need to make your event more interactive?

·         How frequently should you engage attendees with beacons?

 

6 beacon campaign ideas

 

·         Send targeted messages when attendees approach a particular booth.

·         Gather real-time session feedback.

·         Reward attendees for attending specific sessions.

·         Hold beacon-powered scavenger hunts to engage attendees.

Streamline event registration by sending attendees registration links upon entry.

·         Engage people waiting in line with interactive content and special offers.

  

Launch your beacon pilot campaign today without any developer’s help! SWIVIO makes it easy to order and deploy beacons.