Aventri’s Best-in-Class Technology Helps Informa Markets Lead the Way Back to Live Events
Informa’s fashion industry event, MAGIC Pop-Up Orlando, drew eager apparel buyers and brands to the Orange County Convention Center in Florida, among the first U.S. venues to welcome back tradeshows. The limited-capacity, three-day event showcased men’s and women’s apparel, accessories and footwear. It also showcased best-in-class safety measures driven by both rigorous health protocols as well as disruptive technology to support.
Aventri provided innovative onsite technologies for the pop-up.
Following are four of Aventri’s notable tech tools and services that Informa Markets employed to create a safe, successful show.
- Contactless Check-In
The event featured digital badges, available through the mobile event app. Printed badges and lanyards involve many shared surfaces. With badges on phones, attendees gained contactless access to the show floor.
The QR code badges also enabled easy, touchless contact information exchange, lead retrieval and tracking. They provided access control options as well to help ensure social distancing.
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“For health and safety, providing guests with contactless check-in was a top priority for Informa and Aventri,” says Spencer Segura (pictured left), vice president of operations for Aventri Experiential Solutions, who was onsite throughout the event. “We were pleased that adoption was extremely high, with most attendees opting for digital badges.”
- No Registration Lines
Onsite in the registration area, check-in counters were spaced several feet apart. In addition, staffers rolled insta-check-in carts up to attendees and provided speedy credentialing. The small mobile units were self-sufficient, equipped with scanners as well as their own power and Internet connection. In the event of a temporary Wi-Fi outage, check-in would continue, uninterrupted.
Digital badges and mobile carts worked together to reduce wait time and congestion, age-old issues at trade shows. Attendees arrived at the venue with digital badges in hand. Once they successfully fulfilled all the event safety requirements, they held their phones up to a QR reader and breezed right in.
“Registration was seamless throughout the show,” Segura notes. “Even on opening day, we saw no lines.”
- Touch-Free Lead Retrieval
At booths, exhibitors had no need to swap business cards. They captured leads using the Aventri Lead Retrieval App. It took just a second to scan a digital badge and collect contact details.
Forgoing paper business cards not only provided contactless lead capture—like digital badges, the Lead Retrieval App also cut paper waste for a more sustainable event.
Exhibitors could upload contacts directly to their customer relationship management and marketing automation systems. Thanks to the data-capture features of QR code badges, they collected valuable metrics, such as booth traffic and dwell time. Smart companies leverage these insights to customize sales and marketing follow-up.
- Onsite Services
Aventri’s Professional Services team worked closely with Informa Markets to ensure everything ran flawlessly, from planning to digital badge distribution, integrations and onsite support. The team provided quick turnaround, with a goal to help retailers get back to business, while maintaining the safety and comfort of all participants.
“Technology is often most successful when attendees don’t even know it’s there,” Segura says. “These solutions stayed in the background to make everything easy. On the show floor, it was business as usual. Buyers met with sellers and placed orders. Everyone agreed it was great to be back.”
Informa Markets is optimistic that more in-person tradeshows will return during the first half of the year.
“In industries like fashion, buyers need a tactile experience to get a feel for product quality,” Sharpe points out. “With global vaccine programs picking up steam, many of our clients are planning on the return of in-person, large-scale events in the near future.”
For more info about Aventri’s safety-focused onsite technology, email contactsales@aventri.com.
Aventri is a global leader in data-driven, end-to-end event and meeting management solutions for virtual, hybrid and in-person events. Their award-winning SaaS platform, virtual technology and best-in-class service offerings have enabled more than 40,000 event professionals to plan, promote, deliver, measure and optimize more than 90,000 events annually. Aventri’s fully integrated platform’s capabilities include virtual delivery, networking, venue sourcing, registration, marketing, logistics, onsite services, attendee engagement and data analytics. Headquartered in the U.S., the company has offices in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia Pacific and has delivered customer events in more than 120 countries. Aventri is a portfolio company of private equity firm HGGC. For more info, visit aventri.com.