Over the years we have provided audience response systems for conferences and events in a range of industries including pharmaceutical symposiums, investment companies and charities. Our recent work in this area has taken us to events throughout the UK and abroad including Venice, Vienna, Oslo, Cork and Bordeaux, with audiences ranging from 30 delegates through to over 1000. Due to our expertise and success in the field audience response systems, we recently invested in a new system manufactured by Reply – One of the leading and most widely used and trusted voting systems worldwide.
Issues:
At conferences it's becoming more important that it is not just a one-way conversation from the person presenting, but that they understand their audience and effectively engage them in the presentation by gaining their opinions and views by asking simple multiple-choice questions.
Data gathering – It’s important that presenters and organisers can gain valuable information about audience understanding, and collect data for use after the event.
Engagement – Presenting to delegates without offering opportunities to engage can mean that their attention wanders. If you’re not asking your delegates questions and inviting them to participate, your missing out on opportunities to keep them engaged and regain their attention. This means that you may not know whether the message being presented is being taken in.
Fun – Without the use of audience response systems, many conferences and meetings lose an element of fun and friendly competition that can be added into the event, for example through icebreakers or multiple-choice quizzes. In these scenarios, the event can lack enjoyment and engagement.
Smartphones - Recently there have been many online audience engagement apps where delegates can use their smartphones to answer questions. Encouraging the use of delegates own devices can actually have the opposite effect and instead of engaging the delegates, they are prone to distraction from notifications. They also depend on venue Wi-Fi or network coverage which can be unreliable in some event venues.
Soundbite’s Solution:
We have an extensive stock of wireless audience response systems that are very simple to use. They don’t require any internet connectivity which offers reliability – You don’t have to depend on venue Wi-Fi. Their function is purely for voting, so delegates won’t get distracted from notification pop-ups that they would get on their own devices.
Using this audience response system offers you the chance as an event organiser or presenter to gather data during the event itself as well as to analyse afterwards – Essential for understanding whether your audience has taken in the information presented. They also keep delegates engaged in the event whilst offering the fun factor – Icebreakers and multiple-choice questions create enjoyment and friendly rivalry between participants.
Perhaps the best thing about these wireless audience response keypads is that they are easy to set up, very simple to use and work straight away.
What were the results?
Many clients have managed to get really useful data from these audience response systems helping them to dictate the direction of the presentation, what needed to be discussed at the conferences and also with post-event analysis.
The attention rate at conferences using audience response systems is generally higher - Asking questions throughout presentations keeps delegates on their toes, makes sure they stay engaged and regains their attention if it wanders.
By using dedicated voting handsets there generally was a large participation rate on average of around 85% of attendees responding. When using a voting app with delegates own devices we have found the participation rate to be around 30%. This is down to the ease of use, lack of distractions and not relying on Wi-Fi. It’s also worth noting that these keypads can be set to anonymous and participants don't need to sign in, therefore there are no GDPR considerations.
For more information on how Soundbite’s audience response systems can transform your event, head to the website.
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