YOUR EVENT, YOUR WAY: Delivering a seamless registration experience: The Global Parliament of Mayors

“Registration is not a glamorous subject. It's necessary, fundamental even, but there's nothing intrinsically exciting about it. From a delegate's perspective registration should be a quick and painless process that gets them signed-up and (sometime later) signed-in with the minimum of fuss."

“From an organiser's perspective however registration can make or break an event. As events become more complex and security moves higher up an event organiser's agenda a robust, secure and accurate registration process becomes even more crucial."

“Case in point was the Global Parliament of Mayors Summit 2018. This international multi-day, multi-venue summit saw 67 Mayors from 36 countries, 400 expert advisors, guests and support officers arrive in Bristol to discuss key global challenges. Professional delegate communication and support was essential to the smooth running of the relatively lengthy pre-event registration process. Given the high-profile nature of the delegates, registration needed to form an integral part of the Summit security plan - allowing applicants to be vetted as well as collecting attendee photos and data. The registration process also needed to allow the accurate tracking of travel arrangements, session and activity selections, personal support arrangements, networking preferences and more."

“EventReference proved itself to be a capable solution to these challenges. Using multiple registration links we streamlined the booking process allowing us to segment our delegate support teams and lower resource costs. Personalised e-shots allowed us to send pre-populated registration forms - improving the delegate experience and reducing the number of abandoned registrations. User access control meant that our client was always up to date with progress and could flag any issues with specific delegations. Clear reporting allowed us to personalise the delegate experience – from hotel collections to welcome gifts. We were also able to blacklist records on-the-fly in response to changes in security status. Registration on-site was quick to set-up requiring minimal infrastructure requirements - allowing us to process delegates quickly and with minimal disruption."

“From a delegate's perspective the experience was as simple and seamless as it could be. They simply completed an online form and brought their photo ID to the event. Like so many elements of event management our delegates had little idea of the work that was going on in the background. And that's just how it should be.