How EventMobi Created a Magical Event Experience
The time of holiday parties has come and gone, but we’re still reliving the memories from EventMobi’s truly spectacular event experience, “The Great Hall Ball” – our Harry Potter-inspired holiday party that had all our friends begging to tag along as our plus ones.
Unsurprisingly, with several event planners (and former event planners) on the EventMobi staff, our team put together an incredible event experience. But there was one key component of the event that really helped bring the whole company together and contributed to the success of our Great Hall Ball. You guessed it: an event app.
One of EventMobi’s core company values is Empathy, so we try as often as possible to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and their attendees. That includes using the event technology that they use! So of course when we began planning our Great Hall Ball, we jumped at the chance to create our own amazing event app that would kick start the event experience.
Using the Great Hall Ball event app, we were able to build anticipation prior to the event, encourage employee participation and collaboration through gamification activities, and ultimately create an atmosphere of fun and excitement during the event itself and in the weeks leading up to it.
We hope sharing our experience will inspire creative ideas for how you too can use an EventMobi app to engage attendees at your events and meetings. So without further ado, we welcome you to join us on Platform 9 ¾ where we’ll go through some tips on how to create a magical event experience!
1. Divide your audience into teams to create friendly competition
EventMobi employees were “sorted” into houses in advance of the event itself (Bobindor for our illustrious CEO Bob Vaez, Paxlepuff in honour of our office dog Pax, etc.). With a mystery prize on the line – to be awarded to the winning house during the event itself – employees learned they would need to work in teams and compete for points against the other houses.
2. Motivate your guests to download the app so they don’t miss out on activities
Employees received instructions to RSVP and download the official Great Hall Ball event app, where they were asked to select their house from the dropdown during registration. Being part of a team boosted participation, created camaraderie among housemates from different company departments, and encouraged a sense of friendly competition!
3. Use surveys and polls to encourage engagement and give attendees the chance to have their voices heard
Upon registering, employees could nominate three of their colleagues who they felt best exemplified EventMobi’s core values of Fun, Curiosity, Honesty, Unexpected Value, and Empathy. This pre-event survey gave people the opportunity to recognize others for their contributions throughout the year, and it was a big hit! The social committee printed off the accompanying messages of appreciation and created a beautiful wall display at the party – this wall was a focal point of the event and the kind messages started many conversations throughout the evening.
We also took our ugly Christmas sweater game to a whole new level this year, offering the ability for fellow “Mobiers” to vote within the event app for their favorite ugly sweater. The winner received fame, glory and, of course, points for their house.
Tip: Get attendees comfortable with the survey and polling functionality in advance of your event and be creative with your questions! As another example, you might ask attendees to share one word that describes their profession, and create a large word cloud at the event with their answers.
For more creative ideas on how using Polling to increase attendee engagement at your next event, read our blog post.
4. Encourage guests to network and build camaraderie through gamification
Our Gamification functionality is popular with EventMobi customers and employees alike, and so of course we took full advantage of it to increase participation and engagement in our Great Hall Ball activities. We regularly encourage our customers to initiate a gamification challenge or two in advance of the event itself, to get attendees excited and familiarize them with the concept. So we took our own advice and posed a number of challenges to allow houses to begin racking up the points early on!
In addition to hunting for hidden “lightning bolts” with gamification point codes on them throughout the office, EventMobi employees were encouraged to donate to our holiday drive, receiving points for donated toys, food and cold weather wear. And boy did people get into the spirit of things!
Finally the big day was upon us! In the end, it all came down to a Quidditch match. Each house chose a champion, and those champions rose to the occasion valiantly. Alas, only one house could take home the ultimate title, and at the end of the day it was Mobiclaw that triumphed. But let’s be honest, everyone’s a winner when we all have an awesome event experience, right?
Schedule a demo today and let us show you how to leverage gamification, surveys, polling and more in your next event app.