One of the biggest factors in the success of an event is undoubtedly the correct, efficient and effective management of the guest list. Anyone who organises events professionally knows it: respecting the excitement people feel about attending an event while keeping up with their needs and expectations is essential if attendees are to leave satisfied.
Much of that pressure can be relieved by using reliable, practical and secure technology to support the management of one of the main calling cards of any event: the moment of check-in at the door. And while technology fortunately gives event organisers new tools every day, it is not always as easy to know how to use them well and get the most out of them.
That is why we have collected some of the questions we are asked by event organisers who come to us needing to manage attendee lists quickly, securely and flexibly, and who choose SharEvent to do it. We have turned them into a short three-point guide that we think will be useful — whatever the type and size of the event — for getting the best out of tools of this kind.
1. Build a workable system for collecting and storing information
Let us start with the most important thing, which is the ability to collect, manage and store information about the guests at your event, so that you can reach it at any time and ideally from different devices: the computer in the office, the phone when you are on the move. Of course, once you talk about a “guest list app” you can take for granted that these tools are designed to be used first of all on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. Necessary as that is, it is not enough. To become real working tools they need a few more qualities:
- the ability to manage guests both as a whole and segmented into lists;
- the ability — or rather the option — to add last-minute attendees, and also on the door;
- the ability to link related guests to each other, for example the “+1” at ceremonies and social events or, more simply, certain members of lists and sub-lists;
- the ability to give different lists different permissions, for example for access to specific areas or activities.
2. Think of an ecosystem, not a single tool
A guest list app must, first of all, be able to manage the people invited to an event simply, efficiently and reliably.
But is that really all?
It is worth looking a little further ahead, at the set of features that over the medium and long term can make the real difference between one tool and another, and make one of them far more strategic. Here are a few, all drawn from several years of working in the events industry:
- the ability to turn each guest list into a personalised channel for communicating anything at all: from a warm welcome message to instructions for getting the most out of the experience and, of course, last-minute updates;
- the ability to build engagement and participation through social and networking activities and even through gaming;
- the ability to create private areas holding material that only the members of a given list can open, and where those same members can share photos, documents and information. Shared, protected spaces like these could easily become many things, from personalised guest books to a record of an unforgettable experience, if for example they stayed available after the event ends.
3. Work on a continuum, not on a single moment
The job of a guest list app is to decide who can come into the event and who cannot, and with which permissions, if any. There are, however, other factors — some of them tied to the specifics of individual events — that can make the picture a little more complicated, such as:
- the need to manage not only check-in but also check-out, one person at a time or in groups, and therefore with or without the option to re-enter the venue or the room;
- the need for attendance and footfall data that can be analysed in real time and linked to other activities such as voting or satisfaction surveys;
- recurring events that let you build on the experience — and the data — of the previous edition, instead of starting from scratch every time.
These three points certainly do not cover every way of making more strategic and practical use of a guest list app. They are meant instead to give some food for thought to anyone looking, professionally, for the right product for their needs. That is why we have set out a few questions that in our view help make a fuller assessment, starting from the same questions that guided us in designing and building the SharEvent guest list app.
If you would like to hear our answers, or you have other questions for us, you can simply write to us here or request a live demo, during which we can look at the tool in action together.