The Cancer Nurses Society of Australia (CNSA) Annual Congress 2018, organised by Chilli Fox Events, worked with Entegy Partner, Eventium, to impressively deliver an event technology solution for:
- an extensive in-app scientific schedule, including abstracts and poster voting
- a digital passport competition to engage attendees and improve exhibitor ROI, and
- distribute an informative and strategic communication schedule.
Event profile
The 21st annual CNSA Congress was held over three-days at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre. The Congress saw over 450 delegates embark on the scientific meeting composed of pre-congress symposiums, plenary and concurrent sessions, breakfast sessions, poster presentations, an extensive industry exhibition, social events and the CNSA AGM.
Event objective
Kate Miller, Director of Chilli Fox Events says the event “Provides the opportunity for delegates to be kept abreast of new clinical practices, technological developments and the most up-to-date research in cancer care in Australia and Internationally. The congress also provides valuable networking opportunities.”
Event tech solution
The Congress consisted of the following Entegy Suite products:
- Event App with large schedule, poster voting, abstracts, surveys and notifications
- Attendee Connect to encourage networking and gamify the exhibitor passport competition
- Lead Capture for exhibitor ROI
- Attendance Tracking to monitor CPD
- Interactive Sessions for an industry breakfast Q&A and live polling
Kate says Eventium were integral to a seamless delegate and exhibitor experience:
“Eventium offers us a friendly, approachable and knowledgeable service which helped us to maximise the delivery of the app technology, ensuring that both our delegate and exhibitor experience is seamless.
Key services provided by Eventium included uploading our complex and detailed program (which saved us hours of time), assisting with designing the look and feel of the app. Their help with exhibition and floor plan mapping, again, saved us valuable time, allowing us to focus on other areas of the app. Eventium always responded promptly and efficiently to our enquiries.” said Kate.
“Most delegates thought that the app was very easy to use, and particularly loved the note taking ability.”
Providing value to exhibitors and sponsors
There are many challenges in ensuring all stakeholders receive value from their Congress attendance. Kate explains to maximize exhibitors ROI the challenge is to “ensure that you get the right mix of delegates, and provide opportunities to engage with the delegates and keep them within the exhibition.”
To boost engagement, Eventium set up an in-app digital passport competition where attendees were awarded points for visiting exhibitor booths.
“Exhibitors are generally pleased with any opportunity to actively engage with delegates, and the lead capture functionality helps to maximise their event investment.” says Kate.
70% of delegates surveyed said that they would like to see the passport competition repeated next year.
Executing an in-app scientific meeting program
CNSA included a comprehensive program – 3 days, over 60 sessions, sponsored sessions, concurrent sessions and social functions.
Kate explains the advantages of the in-app program compared to a printed program:
“There are often last-minute changes to the program of speakers and topics, and it’s difficult to change a program that has already gone to print! Having an electronic copy, that can be refreshed, and the ability to notify delegates of key changes is a vital element to the success of an event.
Also, our delegates enjoy the note taking feature, and the ability to bookmark and personalise their schedule electronically. From a client perspective, it also provides a cost saving in print costs. Whilst we still have a paper program, this is now less than half the size it used to be, as all of our abstracts are contained within the app.” said Kate.
Communications and feedback plan
Notifications and surveys were a primary component of the communications plan for CNSA.
“Specific sponsored sessions are targeted for feedback using customised survey questions, whereas other sessions may receive generic survey questions, which enable us to capture delegates opinions on the speaker and content of the sessions that they attend, this helps us to evaluate and plan programs into the future.” says Kate.
Many of the reminders and notifications were carefully planned and scheduled. Kate explains, “Notifications are carefully scheduled based on program timings, ie: notifications to remind people of registration opening times, reminders for early morning sessions to minimise drop-out rates, and to remind attendees of transfer details for other ticketed excursions within the program”.
Highlights
Final words from Kate – “Our experiences using the Entegy technology and Eventium Partner service means that we intend to continue to utilise the app to continue to deliver our event communications in the future.”