How to Make Your Conference More Engaging

When your attendees pay money to attend your conference, they want much more than to be lectured at and shown slide presentations for several hours. They want to be involved, ask questions, have a discussion and learn something that they couldn’t learn any other way. To make your conference more successful, it all comes down to interactivity. The more engaged your conference guests are, the more fun they will have, the more they will learn and the more successful the conference will be.

So how can you get your conference attendees more involved and make the conference at Carden Park in Cheshire more engaging? Here are some great ideas that will inspire you when you are planning your next conference:

Set Up Crowd Polling Apps

It is possible to set up real time polling apps into your conference content, thanks to plenty of clever phone applications. This will encourage guests to share their opinion and give you valuable information about where your guests stand on certain issues. The results of the polls can even be displayed on large screens so that everyone can see them. Of course, in order to make this possible you will need to choose a conference venue with the right technology so that this type of set up will be possible.

Start a Vendor Scavenger Hunt

Does your event have a large exhibit hall filled with vendors? Set up a scavenger hunt that involves getting a clue from each of the vendors. This will be a fun game for the attendees and it will also encourage them to engage with the vendors. You can even offer a prize for the team or individual who completes the scavenger hunt first.

Other Offsite Events

You might want to consider offering offsite events after the conference in order to keep your attendees engaged in the evenings rather than simply having them retreat to their hotel rooms. For example, you could offer a walking tour of the city, a happy hour at a local bar, a sporting event or a private cocktail party. These types of events will encourage interaction between conference attendees and will make the event more memorable.

Collect Questions Using Social Media

Create a hashtag on Twitter and use it to collect questions for your speaker. This is a great way to engage your conference attendees and facilitate their discussions with speakers. You can have a moderator who will monitor the hashtag and select the best questions to pose to the speaker. This way your attendees will feel more like they are part of the conference and that their questions and opinions are being heard.

Set Up a Comfortable Social Chill Out Area

Is there a comfortable place where your conference attendees can sit between the events – an environment that is set up to encourage them to chat to each other? Even if it is just a few couches with a coffee station and free WiFi, a chill out zone is a great addition to any conference. Your attendees will be likely to sit there for a while and conversations will naturally start. They can discuss the speakers they saw that day and the ideas that they found interesting. You might even want to set up a few interactive games such as Scrabble or Chess that your attendees can play when they are enjoying their down time.

Set Up Contests

Another great way to engage your conference attendees is to set up contests. For example, everyone who tweets a certain hashtag is entered to win a prize. Or, let all guests vote on the best Instagram photo taken at the event. Make sure the prize is something enticing that your conference attendees will really be interested in, so that they will be eager to take part.

These are just a few of the ways that you can make your conference more engaging when you are setting up an event. The more engaging your conference is, the more your guests will learn and the more fun they will have. They will find the event at your conference venue in Cheshire more memorable, they will be more likely to come back and they will lively recommend the event to their friends and colleagues. It’s simple – an interactive conference is a more successful conference.