We’re so excited to be attending Fest Forums Santa Barbara this year. With so many great minds and festival power players in one place, we’re sure that exciting ideas and energy will be abundant.
Like every festival organizer, event attendee experience remains the most important part of the FestForums team’s responsibilities. 42Chat is so pleased to support and enhance their attendee experience with Santa B. Santa B. is a text-based conversational chatbot that creates a 1:1 communication channel with FestForums event attendees.
By creating meaningful, engaging, and informative conversations — without spamming you with texts — Santa B. creates a positive experience for everyone they interact with.
But how are Attendee Experience and Attendee Engagement Related?
Attendee experience encompasses far more than just how your attendees feel during your event. An event organizer must consider how they’re also made to feel before, and long after the on-site experience wraps up.
If attendees stay engaged, they’ll experience all aspects of the event more positively. Coming up with a strategy to keep your event attendees engaged year-round means that you’ll improve your attendee experience — meaning a higher percentage of repeat attendance in the future and a positive impact on your company’s reputation and bottom line.
Read on to find out three ways FestForums uses Santa B. to enhance the attendee experience with innovative A.I. tech
1. Paying Careful Attention to the Q & A’s
Before, during, and after your event it’s likely your staff will be overwhelmed with questions from your attendees. With a chatbot, you can introduce staffing to your festival that provides 1:1 attention. Santa B. can respond to all FestForums attendees questions in less than 3 seconds — effectively scaling staff and keeping attendees content and informed.
Santa B. also helps FestForums respond to issues and keep guests engaged in live time. If an attendee can’t hear the speaker, Santa B. can inform organizers of the problem and text back to say that the problem is getting resolved. Having Santa B. performing these tasks means that FestForums has a platform for keeping their attendees engaged and their questions answered.
2. Driving Revenue with Amazing Attendee Opportunities
With a chatbot, it's easier to drive action through a 1:1 communication method. By providing insightful and compelling opportunities year-round, you can drive revenue by guiding attendees to merch availability, special offers, and event registration or ticket purchase chances such as early-bird sign up and pre-sale. Looking to drive sales, send a text to prior year attendees and let the EventBot respond to questions.
Call to actions can also be helpful in case of a crisis of any size. As smart phones have an incredible 98%+ read rate, you can ensure your messages will be read quickly, which is especially important if you have to correct a mistake on the schedule or let your attendees know the protocol in an emergency.
3. Increase Engagement and and Communication Year-Round
With Santa B. FestForums can drive engagement in a disengaged world.
One of the amazing things about a chatbot like Santa B. is that once a guest interacts with the bot at your event, their phone number stays in your database until they unsubscribe – and most won’t! This means you can stay in touch with your audience in the months after your event.
So what should you do with that opportunity? It’s critical to find the right balance between providing value and over-engaging (aka spamming). Right after the event, guests are open to relevant follow-up information like getting copies of the speakers’ slide decks or recap videos. In the months after that, value-add content like an exclusive interview with last year’s headliner or a merch discount will be well-received. Then, suddenly, you’re selling tickets for next year’s event. Your community is engaged with your brand and primed to buy those tickets.
Want to Turn Your Guests into Raving Fans? Download Our Audience Engagement E-Book to Find Out How.
