Global Events innovates with engaging onsite technology

Introduction

Global Events is an international event management and planning company. Based in Greece, the company specializes in organizing a wide range of events, including corporate and medical conferences.

The team at Global Events has a strong track record in delivering across the entire event life cycle. With the changes to event delivery and shift to digital delivery during the early era of the pandemic, they were able to drive forward with innovation in this area.

Global Events was recognized as the winners of the Best Use of Onsite Technology Award at EventsAir’s Innovation Awards, which were announced at AirTime 2023 in London. This is the second time they have been recognized in the Innovation Awards, which cements their status as one of EMEA’s leading PCOs.

The team were recognized for their innovative on-site registration system at the 29th Scientific Conference of Hellenic Medical Students, which was held in Alexandroupolis in May 2023.

According to Theocharis Sideras, Business Operations Manager at Global Events: “The conference presented a fantastic opportunity to leverage EventsAir’s cutting-edge technology to create an efficient, user-friendly and inclusive experience for attendees.”

Key results

• 1200 check-ins facilitated in four hours (1500 in total)
• Overall satisfaction rating of 4.94 out of 5 from conference participants in post-event feedback survey

Unique event challenges

The 29th Scientific Conference of Hellenic Medical Students is a unique event in the Greek events landscape as it is focused on students. This presents an exciting challenge in terms of marketing the event for various audience segments across a broad landscape.

“For many medical students, it’s their first time attending a professional conference, so they’re not familiar with the specific processes and procedures with registering, submitting abstracts, checking in and so on – even though they’re familiar with different types of technology,” said Theocharis.

“Meanwhile, we also have the more seasoned professors and medical health experts who are coming to share knowledge and network with the medical students. This means we have to create the perfect balance of technology, whilst capturing and sharing knowledge, so the final outcome benefits all attendees.”

According to Theocharis, the most pressing challenge at this conference is the high volume of attendees (1500 people in 2023), most of whom arrive at the same time because they want to capture the full benefit of networking opportunities – from the very start of the day to the end.

“Because so many people arrive at the same time, we knew from previous events that we needed to make the arrival and check-in process as smooth and seamless as possible,” mentioned Theocharis. “It’s such an important event for the medical community in Greece, that we knew we had to get it right.” 

As a final complication, the scientific programme for the conference was divided between two different venues. For Global Events, the pressure was on to create a seamless check-in experience for all attendees across both venues.

Creating a customized, streamlined experience

Global Events has been using EventsAir’s event management solutions since 2017, and Theocharis knew it was the right solution for the 29th Scientific Conference of Hellenic Medical Students.

“Given the complexities of managing this audience, we knew that EventAir was the right partner because of its flexibility and automation capabilities, which helps us to use both our technology and staff far more efficiently,” said Theocharis. “We also love the in-depth reporting and analytics functionality, as well as the OnAIR platform for virtual and hybrid event delivery.”

“EventsAir offers a complete package, so we can deliver a seamless experience for the entire event life cycle and manage most of it ourselves rather than outsourcing different functions. In particular, the self check-in and self payment capabilities made things very easy for our medical student attendees, who are less familiar with professional events and conferences.”

The ability to create a customized attendee app was a critical enabler for this conference, with attendees able to check-in and print their own badge on arrival, minimizing the administrative workload on Global Events staff. However, the benefits of the app extended far beyond self registration and check-in.

Attendees could also use the app to access event schedules, maps, speaker information and real-time updates through the app using the EventStream social networking functionality. The Global Events team used the conference app to update attendees every 10 to 20 minutes with alerts, news and networking options, harnessing the built-in EventStream social networking functionality.

The Global Events team also leveraged the app’s multilingual capabilities to deliver an inclusive and accessible conference, by offering language support in both Greek and English to accommodate the attendees traveling from outside Greece.

“In summary, our aim was for everyone to have access to the right information, at the right time,” said Theocharis.

A resounding success

The on-site self check-in process was a resounding success, with many attendees providing very positive feedback.

“The overall check-in experience was seamless and issue-free, with no lengthy queues, even though around 90% of the 1500 attendees arrived at the same time,” shared Theocharis. “All the hard work and preparation was worth it.

“After the event, our attendees evaluated the on-site registration system as being the best in the history of Global Events, which is a testament to its success. We’re incredibly proud of the impact and innovation that our solution brought to the event industry, setting a new standard for future events.”

Theocharis highly recommends EventsAir as a trusted partner for other PCOs looking to deliver exceptional event experience.

“Overall, EventsAir can really uplift your event, and for this particular conference it provided the ideal mix of creating a personal connection with the audience, as well as incorporating the latest and greatest event software and technology,” said Theocharis. 

About EventsAir

EventsAir has been bringing people together for more than 30 years. We’re proud of how we’ve helped thousands of event planners connect millions of attendees, speakers, exhibitors and sponsors around the globe using our live, virtual and hybrid technologies.

We have one simple mission: to help event planners deliver the WOW in their events with the world’s most powerful event management technology. We’ve delivered some of the world’s biggest events, and we’d love to help you too.

About Global Events

Global Events is a group of companies that specializes in business tourism and conference management, corporate events, incentives and company trips. Founded in Greece in 2007, the team at Global Events has a goal to provide high quality services, to satisfy customers’ needs in a distinctive way.

The Global Events values of reliability, professionalism, trust, discreet management, flexibility and customer service guide all its client relationships, both in Greece and internationally.