Tips for Using Event Gamification to Boost Attendee Learning & Engagement
The desire to educate or inform attendees is a common event goal for many event planners. If this is an objective you share, it’s mission critical that you do everything in your power to ensure attendees are getting the greatest amount of value out of the event content and walking away feeling like they learned something. This is where utilizing event gamification can make the difference in achieving your goals.
In the case of events like sales kickoffs or leadership summits, communicating important information through your event’s content may be a primary motive for holding the event. Many events hosted by associations or not-for-profits also have an educational component that is vital to the event’s main purpose.
The good news is that in these instances, your objectives are already well-aligned with your attendees! In fact, 92% of respondents to a recent study cited “Education” as one of their top drivers for attending an event (IAEE Decision to Attend). In the study, 91% of all generations expressed a desire to continue their education; if your event audience includes millennials, that percentage is even higher.
That said, there’s often a lot going on at an event. Networking opportunities, exhibitors, and even sightseeing plans are all competing with your educational content for the attendees’ attention. How can you ensure that your event is remembered not only as a good time but as an educational event that offered valuable learnings? Why? With a game of course!
Join us on May 8 for our webinar, 5 Ways to Crush Your Event Goals with Gamification, where we’ll cover four additional common event objectives and share tips on how to use gamification to help you achieve them!
Getting Started with Event Gamification
Many event planners express interest in incorporating gamification into their events, but they often struggle with where to begin. We always recommend starting with the primary goals and objectives of the event – that way you can position the game as an integral part of the event experience, rather than a novel side attraction.
If your goal is to boost attendee learning and information retention, introducing an event game can help you by further shining a spotlight on your event’s content.
The Game: Test Your Knowledge
People love to be seen as subject matter experts, so you’re sure to ignite some competitive spirit by positioning your event’s game as a test of their knowledge. In this game, you’ll be asking questions that directly relate to the content and theme of your event.
Here are a few tips for how you might set up the game to really integrate it with your content and achieve the best results for your event:
Create Questions Based on Key Takeaways
What do you want your event audience to remember? If you’re hosting a sales kick-off, your questions might focus on a new product line you’re providing training on. If you’re running an annual general meeting (AGM), you could create a trivia game that helps to highlight the accomplishments and milestones of your organization over the past year.
Get Your Speakers Involved
Gather inspiration for your game by asking your speakers to identify one or two of the key takeaways they hope to convey in their sessions. Speakers can either explicitly call out the trivia question during their presentation and provide the answer directly, or they can simply advise the audience to pay close attention so they don’t miss anything.
Test Your Attendees on Conference Materials
Do you have any reading material, brochures, or training content that you hope your attendees will review during the event? Let them know that the answers to certain trivia questions can only be answered by reading over the educational material you’ve provided.
Don’t Forget to Measure Success
In your post-event survey, aim for an average of 4 out of 5 stars in response to the question, “I feel like I’m walking away from this event with valuable information.” Not only will the answers to this question help you to demonstrate that your event has achieved its core objective, but the question will act as a final reminder of the value you’ve provided to your attendees.
Just remember: a good game adds value to the event and to the attendee experience. A truly successful event game, however, also supports the primary goals and objectives of the event.
Leveraging an App for Event Gamification
No doubt about it, you can create a game for your event without event technology. But there are a lot of reasons why event gamification and event apps are a great match.
Gamification delivered through an event app:
- Easily makes the game rules and challenges available to all event participants
- Saves you time and hassle by allowing you to avoid manually tallying points
- Lets players view their progress in real time on a leaderboard
- Provides a medium for players to connect with each other through messaging
- Makes it possible for remote participants to get involved too
Join us on May 8 to learn more about how gamification and event app technology can be leveraged to help you achieve your event’s goals.
Register for our webinar 5 Ways to Crush Your Event Goals with Gamification!