How to make your event stand out from the rest

Ever wonder how you can make a lasting impression on your event guests? How you can make your event memorable and stand out from the rest? The answer is relatively simple. Following a few steps to maximise convenience for your guests and to create the ‘wow’ factor will have attendees walking away with the experience firmly imprinted in their memory.

Here are a few ways to make your event stand out from the rest, for all the right reasons.

Define and amplify your event messaging

First things first, what is the purpose of your event? What would you like your guests to take away from your event? Your event messaging should be apparent prior to organising your event and should remain at the forefront of your planning process. Making sure your event messaging is not only clear to you and your team, but ensuring that your guests understand their role in the event and why they’re attending, will guarantee that they leave with something more than just a party favour. Amplification of your event messaging can be made through marketing and promotional efforts prior to your event and can be reinforced on the day through speeches, decorations and styling.

Simplify the ticket sales process

Ensuring ease of the ticket sales process is one of the most obvious however often understated components to the event planning process. At a time in which the majority of internet usage is utilised via mobile, ease of availability is increasingly important for event ticket sales. Maximised user experience through a mobile friendly ticket merchant is the first step to any successful event and will set the scene for a pleasant event experience.

Beautify your event space

What colour scheme will best reflect your event messaging? What type of centrepieces will wow your guests? Special consideration should go into all visual aspects of your event, big and small. Including customised lighting to match the theme or style of your event is a simple yet hugely effective way to make a difference to the overall look and feel.

Choose the right entertainment

Choosing event entertainment can mean the difference between a good and bad event. Choosing the right entertainment for your event will of course depend on your budget, however some considerations should be made prior to booking. It’s important to consider how your entertainment reflects your event messaging, how the entertainment suits the demographic of your guests, and how it enhances your event theme or style.

If you would like some more advice on how to make your event stand out from the rest, talk to us today.

How to know which conference type suits your business

In order to decide on the perfect type of conference for your business, the first things you need to consider are the following questions: What is the purpose of your conference? And what do you expect to get out of the conference? Once you can answer these questions, most other organisational aspects will start to fall into place, such as: how many guests you will invite, size of the venue, total cost of your conference, types of speakers, whether it will be online or offline and what level of interaction will be at your conference.

We have examined a few conference types which are suitable for different purposes. Find out which one might be suitable for your business:

Seminar

Seminars are the most common type of conference. They generally involve a few speakers discussing a certain topic in front of an audience of guests. Seminars are a great means of building brand awareness and thought leadership for your business. One of the downfalls of seminars is the cost involved. Seminars require a conference space to be rented and often speakers to be paid. Unless you plan to make money from seminar ticket sales, the costs can definitely add up. You might want to consider a seminar if you are confident that you can sell tickets for the event to cover costs and if your purpose is to ignite and encourage discussion around a particular topic.

Webinar

A webinar is a web-based seminar. The main benefit of holding a webinar is the low cost involved. Expenses are saved on hiring a conference space and travel costs. Other benefits include an unlimited amount of registrations. This can mean vast brand exposure for your business and the ability to connect with a much larger audience compared with holding an in-person seminar. A webinar would be a suitable type of conference for a business that’s key intentions are to build brand awareness, position the business as an industry leader and to keep expenses low.

Workshop

You might want to consider the level of interaction at your event before choosing between a seminar and a workshop. If the purpose of your conference is to train participants on a particular matter in a practical manner, a workshop might be the right type of conference for your business. Workshops are highly interactive and perfect for training and education. A workshop is a particularly useful type of conference for internal business training, or as an event geared towards client trust and loyalty. Workshops are usually a lot smaller than seminars, and depending on the amount of registrars, can be run by employees, which would keep costs to a minimum.

Roundtable

Like workshops, due to the small size of a roundtable event, they are much more interactive than their larger counterpart – seminars. As indicated by its name, a roundtable discussion involves generally between five and 20 people, sitting together at a table to discuss a particular topic. A roundtable discussion is a great way to unite industry leaders to discuss pressing industry topics. Major things to consider when hosting a roundtable event are the participants you will invite, how the discussion topic will reflect your business and expertise, and public relations around the event. For example, you might want to obtain media coverage around the discussion in order to reach a larger audience and build awareness and thought leadership.

If you would like some advice on planning your next conference, get in touch with us today.

5 things to consider when choosing entertainment for your event

Having entertainment at your event is a great way to make an impact on your guests. Providing unique forms of entertainment can ignite conversation about your event and boost brand awareness as a result. Depending on factors like theme, your industry, the size of your event and the age of guests, there are several options for event entertainment. Entertainment could range from comedians, puppeteers and magicians, to dancers, live music and DJs.

Here are a few things to consider when choosing entertainment for your event:

Know your audience

When choosing the entertainment for your event, it’s important to know your audience and have a broad understanding of what their interests might be. It might be a no brainer, but making sure the entertainment you choose is age appropriate and fitting for the style of your event is vital to its success. You’re not going to have a balloon artist at a conference for CEOs, just like you’re not going to hire Brazilian dancers for a children’s event.

Get the right price

It’s important to do research prior to booking your event entertainment. Once you’ve settled on the type of entertainment for your event, compare the prices of different acts to try to find the best value. If you’re willing to pay a little extra, make sure you’re getting your money’s worth for the right act.

Get some advice prior to booking

Doing research and speaking to people in your industry will help you to choose the right entertainment for your event. Word-of-mouth can be the best way to find the right entertainment. It can help take the guesswork out of choosing the right entertainment and reduce the risk of hiring a poor act.

Keep to the theme

If your event is themed, ensure that the entertainment you choose adheres to the theme. For example, if your event is circus themed, you might consider hiring a juggling act or a fire dancer and if your event is a masquerade, you might consider having a masquerade themed dance act. This will assist with the cohesiveness of your event and will help with the success of your event as a result.

Consider the size of your event

The type of entertainment you choose should vary depending on the size of your event. Consider having a more robust entertainment act for a larger event. This will often mean more complex audiovisual requirements to ensure that the entertainment will be seen and heard from every section of your event space.

If you would like some advice on choosing the right entertainment for your next event, contact us today.

Different ways to incorporate smartphones into your event

When running an event, smartphones can be used in several ways to boost publicity and ease some aspects of the planning process. The ubiquity of smartphones these days means that word-of-mouth marketing is on the rise. Fostering the use of smartphones at your event can ensure that you get the most out of it.

Here are a few ways smartphones can be incorporated into your event:

Ticket buying

Using a ticket vendor or maintaining your own ticket purchasing site which is mobile-friendly is becoming more and more important for the success of event ticket sales. More people have been accessing information via mobile than desktop since 2014, and the internet usage figures between desktop and mobile are steadily becoming more disparate. With more people accessing the internet on their smartphones than ever before, the availability of event ticket buying via mobile is increasingly important for ticketed events. When choosing a ticket vendor or developing your own ticket purchasing site, it’s important to ensure that the mobile site is easy to use and the transaction path is straightforward.

Photo sharing

Today, more people are taking photos on smartphones than on any other device. The presence of smartphones amongst your event attendees means that people are likely to take photos during the event to share on social media. This is a highly effective means of word-of-mouth marketing for your event. Depending on the style of your event, a great way to encourage photo taking and sharing, while at the same time promoting your brand, is to provide branded selfie sticks for your event guests.

Hashtags

Creating a hashtag for your event is a great way to ignite conversation amongst your event attendees and your industry at large. The development of a unique hashtag specific to your event will encourage your event attendees to engage with each other and your business.

The use of a hashtag is not only a great way to boost communication between people in your industry, it’s a great tool for building brand awareness. Hashtags can create an air of excitement around your event. Hashtags can be promoted leading up to your event to build awareness and create a buzz around the event.

Live tweeting

Live tweeting has become an important tool for event promotion and for sparking conversation amongst event attendees. Live tweeting is a great way to promote your event in real time. Real time event tweeting means that updates throughout the course of your event can reach people immediately, assisting in the creation of conversation amongst people engaging with your brand.

Networking

Even if your event is not specifically intended for networking, socialising and contact building is likely to occur amongst your guests. During all types of events it’s important for attendees to have a channel in which they can record details like names, phone numbers and company details of fellow attendees. Relying on business cards is not always wise. The development of apps like Bump, which allows users to bump phones with other users to instantly exchange details, is proof that smartphones are increasingly important for building professional and nonprofessional relationships, while business cards are quickly becoming obsolete. A quick add on Linkedin can mean the start of a lifetime professional relationship, whilst a business card, once exchanged, can often be lost or forgotten.

In events it’s important to foster the use of smartphones while treating them as source of event promotion and as a channel in which event planning can be made easier.

If you need some help incorporating smartphones into your next event, contact us today!

How colours can create atmosphere at your event

When deciding on the styling for your event, it’s important to consider the role that colours play in creating atmosphere. The colours you choose, be it for your decor or your lighting, say a lot about your event message, brand, and theme. Colours can leave your guests with an even deeper appreciation of your event.

Colours can stimulate many different reactions in people, so it’s a good idea to plan ahead, incorporate a bit of thought into your visual element choices and ensure that your colours suit the event type.

You can use certain colours to create atmosphere by:

Using warm, light colours

Warm and light colours such as red, yellow, orange or a combination thereof, can help create a relaxing vibe as they remind people of warm weather and positivity. These colour combinations are great for when you want to encourage interaction and communication between people.

Using cooler colours

Cool colours such as blue, green and purple can make people feel calmer and are somewhat soothing. These colour combinations are used for a lot of awards or gala dinners and tend to give a professional but harmonious vibe.

Using dark colours

Dark colours such as black or navy can create a sophisticated feel at your event, and might help to entice guests to dance. Darker colours are often used for black tie events and can go well with splashes of colour or white, to give some contrast.

Using bright colours

Bright colours include a mixture of warm and cool colours in vibrant tones such as neon. You can use bright colours in your lighting displays to showcase exciting elements, which will easily evoke a fun, party mood from your guests.

As with most event styling options, our colour choices will depend on what you are pairing them with. If you need some help deciding on colours for your next event, contact us today!

AV Favourites Wrap Up

With all the exciting events going on and new technologies we get to use, we’ve realised our blog posts cover a lot of ground in the audiovisual space. We thought it would be great to look back at some of your favourite posts over the past year!

Here were some of the topics that our readers found particularly interesting:

Digital technology for your event

Social media has become a huge part of events. We looked at 5 ways to use social media to promote your event, along with how to integrate social media into your event.

Planning an event is a complex undertaking, with countless tasks to keep track of, tight deadlines and multiple stakeholder demands. With the use of apps, the enormity of event planning becomes a whole lot easier.

Event styling, planning and layout

For those not sure how long certain event planning aspects may take, we asked how long does it take to plan an event? We also investigated how to take your event to the next level with event styling, and depending on the type of event you’re having, how to decide on the best seating layout for your event.

Events and your business

Attending an event can make such a positive impact on your business and brand. In this day and age, we often overlook the importance of being in a live environment and interacting with people face-to-face. This in person interaction means you have a great chance to improve brand exposure, and really engage more with your audience.

Audiovisual elements

Audiovisual elements can add a special something to your event. Whether you use lighting to create atmosphere in the room, or require a stage to be set up with microphones and speakers for perfect sound, a good AV team will have you covered.

The right AV team supporting your event can be the difference between a good or bad event.

Interested in finding out more about any of these topics or have a topic you’d like us to explore? Contact us today!

How to decide on the best seating layout for your event

The task of choosing a seating layout for your event may seem small or unimportant, but it is what will decide the flow of your event. You need to ensure that the layout suits the theme and style of your event, and that you are utilising the event space to its full potential.

The layout should give your guests the most comfortable experience for the setting and style of event. You’ll need to consider if people will be eating in a formal setting and therefore needing tables and chairs, or if they will be encouraged to mingle and network where a cocktail style layout might better suit.

Here are the most popular seating layouts and which event types they best suit:

Cabaret

This style is popular for conferences, gala dinners and training sessions. Guests are seated at a round table, all facing the front, with only five or six chairs so that no one has their back to the main stage or focal point. Cabaret style can take up more room though as you need more tables to seat everyone.

Banquet

The banquet seating style is similar to the cabaret, however it utilises the entire table and seats eight to ten guests. This takes up less room and makes serving food more streamlined. Banquet seating is ideal for awards nights, gala dinners, weddings and other such events.

Cocktail

A cocktail layout does not usually involve chairs, but instead utilises a few high-rise tables as mingling points for guests throughout the event. Consider the type of event you’re having, the guests who will be attending and if it will make sense to have them seated or not. This layout is great for Christmas parties and other social functions, along with more casual weddings.

Boardroom

The boardroom layout is essentially a large table setup with chairs around, ideal for board meetings as people are facing towards each other which makes interaction easy. This layout is used a lot for corporate meetings, events and small presentations.

U-Shape

The U-shape seating layout is ideal for when the boardroom layout is too small for your event needs. Commonly used for small conferences, workshops and meetings, it is made up of tables positioned into a U-shape and makes it easier for each person to see the speaker or screen if one is set up.

Theatre

This seating layout takes up a lot less room per person and is ideal for conferences and other such presentations. Guests are seated in rows and all facing the front, much like in a theatre, giving everyone easy viewing.

Classroom

The classroom layout allows guests to be seated behind long tables. It’s similar to the theatre layout but gives guests the use of tables, so for this reason it’s ideal for training, workshops, meetings and conferences where writing may be required.

Need some help deciding on your seating layout? Contact AVPartners today.

AVPartners introduces new blend screen at Hamilton Island

AVPartners has acquired a 12.5m wide blend screen at Hamilton Island, allowing them to integrate even more projection techniques and lighting effects into their events.

The screen, custom made in Switzerland, is a dual projector blend. The technology involves the use of two or more projectors, each portraying a section of an image, blended or overlapped seamlessly together to create a single wider image on screen in a different aspect ratio.

This stunning wide angle display means it’s almost impossible for the guests in the room to notice with the naked eye where the image has been blended.

The resolution is of a high standard, meaning images and videos are crisp, further enhancing the overall quality of the event.

AVPartners Hamilton Island Partner Ritchie Harland said “We look forward to taking our events to the next level with this magnificent piece of technology. This is an exciting and effective way to give events that extra wow factor.”

Director of Events at Hamilton Island, Carissa Ward, said “It’s the use of technology like this that really sets AVPartners apart from the rest, and we are excited to see the upcoming events with the new screen in full swing!”

The technology has already been in use and very well received at AVPartners venues Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre and Crown Perth and is fast becoming the norm for large scale events in Australia.

AVPartners and Hamilton Island have enjoyed a partnership for nearly nine years. AVPartners provides audiovisual support for conferences and events at the location and professional technical assistance for delegates.

How attending events can impact your business

Attending an event can make such a positive impact on your business and brand. In this day and age, we often overlook the importance of being in a live environment, and interacting with people face-to-face. It’s important that while attending events, you utilise this time for your brand and business, and you’re not just a fly on the wall.

Being active at events can bring your business many benefits. Some of the most positive impacts from attending events include:

Networking

While networking can be a bit of a buzzword, the act hasn’t lost it’s charm. Most people attending events have similar goals and are likely to be interested in networking as well. It can be really refreshing to connect with people in your industry that you can help or who can help you in some way. You never know who you’ll meet or what collaborations may come of it!

Changing up your routine

Attending events and putting your business out there is a great way to shake things up and inject some life into your team. The day to day of business can get mundane at times, so it’s nice to let off some steam and change up your normal patterns.

Showing your brand to the public

Events are a great way to showcase your brand and services to the other guests. You may be well-known, in which case an event can be a great time to humanise your brand, or you may be just starting out, which means people can get to know you straight away. People do business with people, so show them that you’re real and that you have passion for what you do.

Educational opportunities

No matter how much you know about your industry, there is always something to learn, even if it’s in a general sense. A lot of events have fantastic educational components and can leave you with a lot of great ideas to implement.

Above all, don’t forget to have fun! The event may be business related but that doesn’t mean you can’t relax and enjoy yourself. You’ll be far more approachable that way too.

Excited to plan your next event and impress your guests? Talk to us today.

 

How the right AV team can be the difference between a good or bad event

Audiovisual technology can add a special something to your event. Whether you use lighting elements to create atmosphere in the room, or require a stage to be set up with microphones and speakers, a good AV team will have you covered.

That’s not to say that sometimes, things just happen that are out of anyone’s control, like a lightning strike resulting in a power outage. But for the majority of events, choosing the right AV team can make a world of difference to your event outcome.

So, how do you choose the right AV team?

Focus on your event goals

A good AV team doesn’t just run the audiovisual components smoothly. They help you add value and drive engagement to maximise your results and increase excitement for your next event.

Figure out the message you want to send out at your event, and the impression you want your guests to walk away with. Sit down with your AV team and discuss all ideas and options. A good AV team will be able to help you visualise the event and all elements.

Also ask your AV team any questions you may have, as this will give you a good indication as to their level of skills and passion. The right team will be able to explain the features and benefits for different audiovisual elements, and help you to make decisions. If you ask questions that they can’t or won’t answer, that might be a red flag for you.

Get techy

Ensure that your AV team have the right technology. For example, a lot of events now incorporate access for virtual attendees, or you may need multiple cameras on a stage. Make sure they are experienced to handle a variety of technologies.

Build trust

The relationship between you and your AV team is extremely valuable to your event. You want a professional team who has seen it all, who are experienced and who you can trust with your event.

Make sure that your AV team has a solid reputation and that they have your best interests in mind.

While all events are different, the overall theme of people coming together to share an experience is something to be celebrated. Contact us today to find out how we can make a difference at your next event.