by levi_hb | Mar 5, 2020 | The American Meetings Network
Drive attendee engagement and boost sponsor revenue at your next event!
The official event app sponsor of AMI ENGAGE! 2020,
Pathable is the event industry’s leading mobile event platform. Pathable provides a branded, white label “native” iOS and Android app as well as a complete desktop website for your events.
Pathable’s robust feature set includes:
- Conference agenda
- Speaker and attendee directory
- Discussion forums
- Exhibitor / sponsor listing
- Interactive tradeshow and conference center maps
- Appointment / 1:1 meeting scheduling tools
- Email and push notifications
- Lead retrieval / badge scanning / CEU tracking
Please Note: For information on transitioning a live meeting to virtual on to one of our enterprise platforms, Click here, or email us at virtual@americanmeetings.com to schedule a capabilities presentation
by levi_hb | Jan 30, 2020 | In-Person Meetings, Technology
Any time you prep for a meeting, conference, or event, you’ll have to rely on a number of specialists to bring your vision to fruition. While you can see the venue and sample the food, you might have to put a lot of trust into the AV specialists you hire, hoping that they can deliver what you want when your event rolls around.
Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge can lead to some truly awful disasters related to your events. For example, you might end up with a venue that doesn’t offer sufficient access to power, WiFi, or streaming capabilities. You might end up paying outrageous fees to both the AV vendor and venue because you don’t know what you need. Or you could suffer epic presentation fails like videos that are incorrectly formatted, that freeze while streaming, or that completely crash.
None of these are desirable outcomes, but you can avoid these snafus with a little knowledge and some help from an experienced and reliable event management services provider like American Meetings, Inc. (AMI). Here’s what you should know if you want to prevent the most common AV disasters from happening at your next event.
Get Event Management Services and Vendors in Place Early
Like most tasks related to planning a corporate meeting or event, getting the major players in place early on can help you to avoid all kinds of issues down the road. Your first step should be to compare corporate event planning companies to find a meeting services organization like AMI that offers the strategic planning services you need to brainstorm your next big event.
From there, experienced professionals at your event management services company can help you to find the perfect venue and get all your ducks in a row. One of the first tasks, however, is hiring reliable AV specialists. When you have this key player in place early on, your AV representative or team can help you to pick a venue that has the right foundations for your needs, including adequate power, internet services, and so on.
Go Over Every Detail
One of the biggest problems many companies face is not understanding what they’re getting. When you don’t really know the lingo, it’s all too easy to end up paying for a bunch of equipment or services you don’t need, both from the AV company and the venue. If you want to make sure you get just what you need and avoid paying excessive fees, it’s best to work closely with corporate event planning companies to fully understand what you’re paying for and whether or not it’s necessary.
This could mean having your AV specialist walk you through your contract line by line to explain each piece of equipment you’re renting, why it is necessary, and what it’s going to cost. It could mean setting up a meeting with the venue and the AV specialist to make sure there are adequate power outlets and other resources available on-site. You should plan on negotiating fees for everything from internet access to add-ons like additional mics, just for example.
Says Tarique Stanley, AMI’s Senior Event Technology Specialist, “If you don’t know what you’re doing you could end up getting nickel-and-dimed with fees, especially after the fact, when they know they can charge you like crazy for oversights. It’s easier to make vendors accountable by negotiating for possible extras ahead of time. This will help you avoid hefty fees later on.”
Find Reliable Corporate Event Planning Companies and Vendors
The worst-case scenario is a presentation failure at your event. This could be something relatively small but nonetheless vexing like a video in the wrong aspect ratio. Or it could be a much more devastating outcome like inadequate bandwidth for streaming that causes video presentations to stall. It could be a disc that won’t play.
There are a few ways to ensure these epic fails don’t happen at your event. One is to choose an event management services company like AMI that has the experience to prevent such problems and works with technical experts that have a proven track record of success. You’ll also want to test early on to make sure venue resources are adequate to handle power and streaming needs, as well as test materials like presentation videos to make sure they’re working properly.
Don’t forget to create backups. If something goes wrong, there may be a way to salvage your presentation with a proper plan B or C in place. Not all corporate event planning companies have the experience and reputation to help you avoid AV disasters, but with the experts at AMI on your side, your next event should go off without a hitch.
by levi_hb | Dec 12, 2018 | Holidays
Here are 5 fun Holiday apps suggested by the team at American Meetings, Inc. that will help you and your family make it through the holiday season organized and happy!
1. The Christmas List
This app is great to keep track of your Christmas shopping. You can make a list of everyone you need to buy gifts for, and then you can set a budget for them. Let’s say that you add a friend. You’ll walk into the store, tap your friend’s name, and you’ll see the list of items you want to buy for this person, and, of course, the budget. You can then tap on the items as you buy them, and when you go back to the main screen, you can see how much you have left to spend on your gifts. This is a great way to keep track of what to buy, and most importantly not go over budget.
Available on IOS and Android.
2. Pandora Holiday Stations
If you’re a holiday music fan, then you need to make sure you have Pandora on your phone. It has so many incredible Christmas music stations, your head will spin. Stations like: ’80s Christmas, Kids’ Christmas, Smooth Jazz Christmas, Hipster Holidays, and R&B Pop Holidays. There is even a Hanukkah music station.
Available on IOS and Android.
3. Christmas Booth: Photo Fun
With this app, you can take a picture or just grab it from your camera roll and choose from a host of Christmas-themed stickers to turn anyone into a Christmas character. You can also send your photo via email, Twitter, or Facebook. It’s compatible with iMessage, too, so you can use the stickers there and message your friends.
Available on IOS and Android.
4. Elfster – Secret Santa Generator
Elfster.com takes the business of holiday gift exchange generating to a whole new level of “ease and fun”. Making sure your special Holiday gift exchange goes smoothly and easily is what Elfster was designed to do FOR FREE. Yes, it’s completely free to use our Secret Santa generating tool and set up your next family Holiday gift exchange easily, faster, and more fun. Common holidays, of course, are Christmas, Hanukkah, and Eid al-Fitr – but whatever the holiday, if it involves gifts, we elves are ‘on it.’
Available on IOS and Android.
5. Martha Stewart Makes Cookies
If you love making cookies during the holiday season, the Martha Stewart Makes Cookies app will totally impress you. It features more than 90 recipes, instructional videos, baking tips, packaging ideas, kitchen timers, shopping lists, and sharing options. There is also a category specifically for holiday cookies, as well as 6 additional recipe bundles for purchase.
Available on IOS
by levi_hb | Sep 12, 2018 | Attendee marketing, Promotions, Technology
What do your promotional items say about your company and brand? When an attendee takes home your give-a-way from your meeting or event, you want them to keep it and use it, and have a positive association with your brand every time they see it. The days of cheap promotional knick-knacks are gone, and an era of branded sustainable and high-tech items have has taken their place. Just make sure you pick something that’s useful to attendees, relevant to the event or topic, and high quality. You don’t want your logo on a dud!
Can’t stomach the cost of the tech gadgets? Try holding a raffle, or give the items to customers and warm prospects that engage with you. Including and planning for promotional items as part of your overall event strategy will ensure you get the best prices and that attendees walk away with an item they’re excited about. It’s marketing that has the potential to pay dividends down the road.
1- Bluetooth Item Tracker
This handy little tracker can be attached to a purse, keys, or anything else you might misplace frequently. With a free app, you can easily find it again. Lost your phone? Pressing a button on the tracker will prompt your phone to ring so you can track it down as well.
2- Fitness Tracker
These wearable tech devices can track your steps, sleeping patterns, eating habits and more. Added benefits are tracking and photo-snapping remote features for your phone.
3- Wireless Earbuds
Give your customers a quality listening experience without getting caught up in all the wires.
4- Virtual Reality Viewers
For a truly immersive experience, branded virtual reality viewers take it to the next level. It takes less than a minute to fold up the headset from a flat piece of cardboard—add in a phone, and presto.
5- Bluetooth Speakers
Speakers have long been a favorite promotional giveaway item, but this is the next generation. Not only can you stream music via Bluetooth, but it also has a noise-cancelling speakerphone feature.
What to elevate your next meeting or event? Your friends at AMI are here to help.
Contact us at (866) 337-7799 Ext 8877 or bd@AmericanMeetings.com.
by levi_hb | Jun 8, 2018 | Technology, Uncategorized
Most people interested in technology have at least a passing familiarity with the concept of facial recognition software, especially since the latest iteration of the iPhone has added a form of this technology as a means of bio metric protection. However, the uses for this advancement have gone far beyond simply unlocking phones for users.
Car manufacturers are experimenting with this technology for unlocking and even starting vehicles. It is also being used by law enforcement agencies for purposes such as security, identifying and tracking criminals, preventing voter fraud, and more. Facial recognition software is being tested and used by banks, casinos, hotels, bars and restaurants, social media outlets (for tagging), and even dating apps (to match people based on similar facial characteristics).
Anyone planning meetings or working in event management should know that there are also applications for facial recognition software that fall within their wheelhouse. This technology can increase convenience for event attendees and allow the host or event company to improve security and measure the attendee experience throughout the event.
If you didn’t know all of this was possible, it’s time to learn how you can employ facial recognition software to your benefit at upcoming events. A good place to start is by partnering with a renowned meeting services and event company like American Meetings, Inc. (AMI) that can help to connect you to the right technologies for your event needs. Here are just a few of the incredible ways this particular technology can enhance and improve your meetings and events.
First, you have to choose an appropriate destination, one that offers the exciting and adventurous vibe vacationers expect. From there you can find ways to work the destination into the theme of your event to make every aspect of the affair unified and add the vacation aesthetic to what would otherwise be just another industry event.
Streamline On-Site Event Management
The main benefit of facial recognition software to date is the ability to use it as a means of identification. For the purposes of event management, this can mean streamlining all kinds of common headaches and adding speed and convenience for attendees. This is especially true when it comes to traditionally lengthy processes like registration, check-in, and lines for activities at events.
The trick is finding the right facial recognition software, one that can improve processes without putting event attendees at risk. The ever-present threat of identity theft makes it imperative to protect any sensitive data provided by guests, and some software solutions have safeguards in place to negate this potential.
For example, some software has features that encrypt data gathered from images and then delete the actual images after relevant facial geometry has been captured. This way, event attendees can feel safe providing a photo online during the registration process.
At the event, check-in can run a lot more smoothly with the use of smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices that scan faces, quickly access information, and automatically print out badges on connected hardware, ensuring a much quicker process than checking paper or digital lists and trying to verify identities manually.
According to Tarique Stanley, Director of Technology at AMI, “An event company might reasonably expect to spend a minute or more checking in each event attendee by traditional methods, and that’s if everything goes smoothly. With facial recognition software, the time to scan and check-in an attendee could be cut down to as little as about a second.”
Improve Security
Facial recognition software today is incredibly sophisticated and reliable. It is generally estimated to be about 99% accurate, delivering very few false positives. This can help to tighten event security by making it nearly impossible for anyone not registered for the event to fake their way through check-in or sneak past attendants checking identification and matching up faces with IDs, for example.
Go Interactive
There is no shortage of ways to get creative when it comes to implementing new technologies at events, and facial recognition software is no exception. It can be used in a variety of ways interactively. For example, some software can recognize facial expressions like smiles and frowns.
Some companies have used this to set up kiosks around events that supply prizes to event attendees that smile at the camera. Your event management company can help you come up with clever ways to capitalize on the technologies at your disposal.
Improve Event Company Response to Attendee Experience
When you know that facial recognition software can be used to identify facial expressions, it should come as no surprise that it is also being used to track emotions. This means you could place cameras throughout your events to track attendees and determine whether they’re having a good experience or not. This gives you the opportunity to follow up with attendees exhibiting negative responses, or alternately reward those with positive responses or behaviors.
It’s a lot to wrap your head around, but with assistance from the experts at a reputable event management organization like AMI, you can determine the best ways to use facial recognition software and other technologies to your advantage at upcoming events.
