Event technology helps our participants be more interactive through hand held devises; be that paddles for voting; “bump” technology for networking or RFID chips for tracking their every move.

We also see technology’s tentacles reach into the rooms where organisers hold our events. Wires and cables transport content, through live or recorded feeds, into geographical areas we could otherwise never have dreamed of reaching!

Is there nothing that event technology can’t do for us?

I’ve listed above three areas in which technology impacts our events but in addition technology has another major role in supporting the events industry in an area that is often rarely mentioned: supporting organisers in managing their events more efficiently. This is so big that it is the focus for day one at Tech Fest.

The missing role for technology

A few months ago while speaking at an event in London, I asked a room full of Event Organisers “Who uses event management software to help them manage their event?” I wonder if you are surprised by the answer: not one of them did. That’s right, from a broad selection of organisations (thirty in total) not one used technology to support the events they were running. It will be really interesting to see what the answer is when we ask the attendees at Tech Fest.

So in this blog I’ve decided to look at that a little bit deeper. Here are four areas that struck me initially:

1. None of the organisers were using specially designed event technology to help them report back to stakeholders, clients or their managers.

2. No one was using project management software to help them share information on the progress of tasks across their team.

3. None of the organisers budgets were being automatically populated by actual income and expenditure.

4. Organisers work could not be easily replicated and risk assessed by their stakeholders, clients, managers, colleagues or even by themselves.

Now of course some of the above can be replicated the old fashioned way, by relying on paper, attachments and a mix of packages on the Microsoft platform. But when organisers use software not specifically designed for them it re-emphasizes the point that event technology has to be used to help organisers: it can move them away from the time consuming administrative tasks to really adding value.

Adding Value

Event Technology, when used appropriately, can help organisers manage their time better and to be more efficient. The time and effort saved can help us manage better events by creating more value for our stakeholders.