Technology has made a huge difference in many areas of business, especially ours as a conference venues finding agency - but it can also make the actual planning of the event easier as well. Using technology well has helped many businesses to streamline their processes and do things more efficiently, but how do you know which technology to use and what they can help with? Check out our handy guide to the essential technology you can use to help you to plan, host and evaluate your event more successfully. Planning your event The most time-consuming part of any event is usually the planning stage. Finding a venue, booking the venue, organising travel to the venue, marketing your conference and of course capturing registration details are just some of the tasks that are involved. There are lots of pieces of technology out there though, that can help you to streamline all of these tasks - saving you both time and money as well: - Finding your venue. At Conferences UK our experienced team use specialist software that is at the forefront of venue searching technology, to help them to search over 10,000 uk venues and 12,500 international venues to ensure you receive only those venue options that match your requirements. We will provide you with up to 20 options with full description and pricing so that you can make the right choice. - Event budgeting. The right software can help you to produce a more realistic event budget, that is easier to keep track of. You should look for a tool that offers you a dashboard and reporting feature which will make it easier for you to manage your costs and also share information with those people who are higher up in your organisation. - Travel and accommodation booking. The easiest way to do this is to integrate it into the registration process with a tool which will allow your attendees to complete the process in a more logical and less time-consuming way. - Conference marketing. A comprehensive marketing tool which integrates with other systems that you have within your business is the ideal, especially if it is one which can help you create customised emails. Anything which automates any of your marketing processes is a big bonus as it will leave you with more time to drive event registration. - Conference registration. This is perhaps the most important part of planning your conference - getting people to actually sign up to come. Event technology has progressed to a point today here it can allow you to personalise the entire process and create a landing page which can capture who is visiting your site. - Payment processing. You definitely need to use an automated payment system to track payments, accept international currancies, make refunds easier, and allow you to offer promotional pricing as well. During Your Conference Once the conference is underway, there are many ways that technology can help to make it run more smoothly. It can also help you to keep attendees engaged, as you want them to feel that their time has been well spent and that they have had a seamless experience. This means that you will need to find technology that not only helps you to make the check-in process a breeze, but also allows you to drive your attendees to the right location within the conference and keep them engaged with your keynote speakers. Some of the ways you can do this include: - Check-in technology: Conference attendees do not want to wait in long queues to get in, they want the process to be smooth and speedy which is where technology can help. You can get people signed in digitally, and produce them a personalised badge and maybe even offer them an app they can download which will tell them all the information they need. - Mobile Apps. Talking of apps, this is definitely something you should consider for your next conference. You can have an interactive map on your app which shows your attendees where everything is located - including toilets and smoking areas and so on. You could also have in app messaging between attendees, social media feeds and gamification features if you would like Evaluate the Success of your Conference You are only as successful as your last conference, and technology can help you to show key decision makers within your business how successful your conferences have been. To do this you will need technology such as: - Attendance tracking. This not only allows you to see exactly how many people attended your conference in total, but also who went to which sessions within the conference - which will help you to pinpoint which aspects of your conference were the most popular, so you can offer more of the same in the future. - Integration with a CRM system. If you want to get the best out of your conference technology then the more systems you can integrate together, the better. If you can link your CRM, your financial software and your marketing automation software then you will have all of your data in the same place, and a much clearer picture of exactly what is happening. We hope this brief overview of conference technology has given you some idea of technology that you can use at your next conference. In the meantime, if you need any help with finding a conference venue - including the conference centre London - then please get in touch with our friendly and experienced team today.