In your company, are you responsible for booking venues, facilities, restaurants and organizing transportation for meetings and events?
| Trends for 2012: Keeping Current in a Mobile World |
An interactive app for conferences and tradeshows, EventMobi is affordable, fully customizable and professionally managed. Not requiring downloads, it detects and interfaces with any device, ensuring that all attendees have access to conference materials regardless of their platform. With scheduling, mobile polls and surveys, networking and more, it is created in minutes to go green and reduce costs.
Grupio allows mobilization of an event in four easy steps. Import your event data from a spreadsheet or through the online Web interface, publish your data to the mobile app, notify attendees about your uploaded information, and modify and republish event data at any time. If you want extras, custom add-ons can feature your event name, logo and splash screen on many mobile devices.
Guidebook mobilizes events with customized schedules that let participants choose sessions to attend and receive reminders, view interactive maps and access searchable exhibitor and speaker lists with their locations. Users also can participate with the Social Buzz feature, which allows them to comment in real time about the event in progress.
TripBuilder EventMoblie enables users to easily view schedules, exhibitors and speakers, attendees, sponsors, floor plans, instant alerts and more. Attendees also can create personalized lists of people and companies they want to see so they can maximize their time at the event. In addition, TripBuilder EventMoblie has a “places to eat and visit” recommendation and mapping functionality that helps attendees get the most out of the event city.
Mobile app technology is definitely at the crux of the event industry today. It makes the coordination and execution of an event easier for planners and attendees in a new virtual world. New apps are popping up every day, so go out and look for a solution to your event-planning needs and wants.
Light it up
Setting the proper mood can make or break an event. One of the easiest and most effective ways to influence the right attitude is with effective lighting. Many people underestimate the power of event lighting, but alone it can improve the ambiance with elegance or drama and match a mood to an event’s theme or purpose, thereby emotionally connecting guests with the experience. Much more affordable than drapes, props, screens, flowers or balloons, mood lighting is a quick, cost-effective and vivid way to decorate an event space of any size.
Because humans’ primary sense is vision, lighting has the single biggest impact in transforming an event space and creating a distinctive and original environment filled with emotional appeal. That being said, lighting design is much more than just flipping an on-off switch. It is a science that creates a visual environment through illumination and should be considered carefully and used in intentional ways to serve a variety of distinct purposes.
Exterior Lighting: There is nothing like a first impression, so light the outside of your event space if possible. Creating a dramatic initial image can set the tone for your entire event. Likewise, you want your guests to leave with a positive final impression. Exterior lighting also will be one of the last things they see so make it memorable.
Functional Lighting: Lighting at its most basic lets people see. More than that, it casts shadows and highlights areas to focus guests’ attention and support the experience. Eyes and focus will wander unless you use lighting to direct them where you want and away from unused areas or less-than-ideal architectural elements you cannot conceal. Also, from a business standpoint, appropriate lighting is important for event photographers and workers to contribute effectively and productively to the event.
Decorative Lighting: Use lighting as your decor. Project images or textures into your design with gobos (metal plates with cutouts that fit over light fixtures). Gobos come in a variety of images, but you can customize them with a company logo or text. Gobos also can create subtle patterns and textures on surfaces to add visual depth or contribute to the event’s theme. For example, use leaf gobos with green or blue filters for soft nighttime lighting, or try soft-focused abstract patterns with warm colors for a mellow mood. If you want to change the color scheme during an event, use LED technology to provide an array of easily changeable options.
Aesthetic Lighting: Add dimension and drama to your overall dÈcor with aesthetic lighting. Be careful to never make it too dark or too bright; always go a little darker than you think you should, but make sure you have control over the lighting amplitude in case adjustments are necessary. Work with layers of light. Use saturated colors or focused lights to enhance dÈcor and set a particular mood. Add candles for a beautiful glow or concentrated “pin” spotlights to highlight decorative elements. Up-light the perimeter of a space to soften the walls, warm up the room or highlight architecture. When creating intensity or focus with beam angles, symmetry is incredibly important. Unless the lighting is deliberately asymmetrical, it should define a space evenly. Just remember, whatever lighting aesthetic you choose, balance it where guests are sitting with lighting that makes them look and feel good.
Lighting Logistics: Consider the following when planning lighting design for an event. Does the facility have sufficient power for your plans? Can you employ in your design and control existing lights at the venue? How will ceiling height affect the lighting plan? Do windows or skylights need to be darkened or incorporated into the scheme? Does the venue provide personnel or have restrictions on who can hang lights? Are there regulations and permits you need to know about or acquire before you incorporate additional lighting? Does your lighting contractor have proper insurance? Is there time in your load-in schedule for light installation, setup and takedown?
Grupio allows mobilization of an event in four easy steps. Import your event data from a spreadsheet or through the online Web interface, publish your data to the mobile app, notify attendees about your uploaded information, and modify and republish event data at any time. If you want extras, custom add-ons can feature your event name, logo and splash screen on many mobile devices.
Guidebook mobilizes events with customized schedules that let participants choose sessions to attend and receive reminders, view interactive maps and access searchable exhibitor and speaker lists with their locations. Users also can participate with the Social Buzz feature, which allows them to comment in real time about the event in progress.
TripBuilder EventMoblie enables users to easily view schedules, exhibitors and speakers, attendees, sponsors, floor plans, instant alerts and more. Attendees also can create personalized lists of people and companies they want to see so they can maximize their time at the event. In addition, TripBuilder EventMoblie has a “places to eat and visit” recommendation and mapping functionality that helps attendees get the most out of the event city.
Mobile app technology is definitely at the crux of the event industry today. It makes the coordination and execution of an event easier for planners and attendees in a new virtual world. New apps are popping up every day, so go out and look for a solution to your event-planning needs and wants.
Light it up
Setting the proper mood can make or break an event. One of the easiest and most effective ways to influence the right attitude is with effective lighting. Many people underestimate the power of event lighting, but alone it can improve the ambiance with elegance or drama and match a mood to an event’s theme or purpose, thereby emotionally connecting guests with the experience. Much more affordable than drapes, props, screens, flowers or balloons, mood lighting is a quick, cost-effective and vivid way to decorate an event space of any size.
Because humans’ primary sense is vision, lighting has the single biggest impact in transforming an event space and creating a distinctive and original environment filled with emotional appeal. That being said, lighting design is much more than just flipping an on-off switch. It is a science that creates a visual environment through illumination and should be considered carefully and used in intentional ways to serve a variety of distinct purposes.
Exterior Lighting: There is nothing like a first impression, so light the outside of your event space if possible. Creating a dramatic initial image can set the tone for your entire event. Likewise, you want your guests to leave with a positive final impression. Exterior lighting also will be one of the last things they see so make it memorable.
Functional Lighting: Lighting at its most basic lets people see. More than that, it casts shadows and highlights areas to focus guests’ attention and support the experience. Eyes and focus will wander unless you use lighting to direct them where you want and away from unused areas or less-than-ideal architectural elements you cannot conceal. Also, from a business standpoint, appropriate lighting is important for event photographers and workers to contribute effectively and productively to the event.
Decorative Lighting: Use lighting as your decor. Project images or textures into your design with gobos (metal plates with cutouts that fit over light fixtures). Gobos come in a variety of images, but you can customize them with a company logo or text. Gobos also can create subtle patterns and textures on surfaces to add visual depth or contribute to the event’s theme. For example, use leaf gobos with green or blue filters for soft nighttime lighting, or try soft-focused abstract patterns with warm colors for a mellow mood. If you want to change the color scheme during an event, use LED technology to provide an array of easily changeable options.
Aesthetic Lighting: Add dimension and drama to your overall dÈcor with aesthetic lighting. Be careful to never make it too dark or too bright; always go a little darker than you think you should, but make sure you have control over the lighting amplitude in case adjustments are necessary. Work with layers of light. Use saturated colors or focused lights to enhance dÈcor and set a particular mood. Add candles for a beautiful glow or concentrated “pin” spotlights to highlight decorative elements. Up-light the perimeter of a space to soften the walls, warm up the room or highlight architecture. When creating intensity or focus with beam angles, symmetry is incredibly important. Unless the lighting is deliberately asymmetrical, it should define a space evenly. Just remember, whatever lighting aesthetic you choose, balance it where guests are sitting with lighting that makes them look and feel good.
Lighting Logistics: Consider the following when planning lighting design for an event. Does the facility have sufficient power for your plans? Can you employ in your design and control existing lights at the venue? How will ceiling height affect the lighting plan? Do windows or skylights need to be darkened or incorporated into the scheme? Does the venue provide personnel or have restrictions on who can hang lights? Are there regulations and permits you need to know about or acquire before you incorporate additional lighting? Does your lighting contractor have proper insurance? Is there time in your load-in schedule for light installation, setup and takedown?
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If accepted, your submission will be edited for length and clarity. There is no monetary payment if your item is used; instead, you can publicize yourself through a five-line biography with your contact information that will appear at the end of the article.
Send submissions to
editorial@MeetingPlannerResources.org. We will contact you if your submission is chosen.