Open Forum

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

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Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
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Hi Denise!  I just went to Cvent Connect and that's how you signed up for sessions.  I thought it worked well using AttendeeHub.

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Denise Morrison
Registration Manager
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

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Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Thanks Denise. I thought it worked well too and is where I got the inspiration to use for my upcoming events. 

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Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-29-2025 08:58
From: Denise Morrison
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

Hi Denise!  I just went to Cvent Connect and that's how you signed up for sessions.  I thought it worked well using AttendeeHub.

------------------------------
Denise Morrison
Registration Manager

Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Hi, Denise.

We have a slightly older demographic, and we found that the website is much easier for them to use, as it allows for a bigger visual field. Also, we have paid sessions, which can only be handled via the AH website. You cannot pay for a session via the app.

I should note that we don't open up session selection right away when we open up registration. This allows us to send an email letting them know selection is open and how to sign up for sessions. We give them the link and instructions. We also have an instructional video that we add so they can see how to select sessions via the website or mobile app.

We also close session selection about a week before the event. This helps us get accurate catering numbers and set rooms properly. We also send regular reminders to complete session selection that reinforces the deadline. This pushes people to get it done.

For those that register during session selection, we include those links and instruction in the confirmation email, as we don't do session selection during the registration process at all.

I hope this helps. 

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Kelli Mahoney
Associate Director, Global Events
American Jewish CommitteeUnited States
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Hi Kelli,

We have fees for non-members on our precons and last year they still had to do the "modify" flow to add precon sessions, even though we had the attendee website option available. Are you saying they can do that through the attendee website now? That would be amazing! We're getting ready to announce a new precon and I want to provide the correct instructions for them to add it to their calendars.

Thanks for your guidance!

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Kim Nawrocki
Assistant Director, Events & Programs, WCET
WICHEUnited States
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-29-2025 09:56
From: Kelli Mahoney
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

Hi, Denise.

We have a slightly older demographic, and we found that the website is much easier for them to use, as it allows for a bigger visual field. Also, we have paid sessions, which can only be handled via the AH website. You cannot pay for a session via the app.

I should note that we don't open up session selection right away when we open up registration. This allows us to send an email letting them know selection is open and how to sign up for sessions. We give them the link and instructions. We also have an instructional video that we add so they can see how to select sessions via the website or mobile app.

We also close session selection about a week before the event. This helps us get accurate catering numbers and set rooms properly. We also send regular reminders to complete session selection that reinforces the deadline. This pushes people to get it done.

For those that register during session selection, we include those links and instruction in the confirmation email, as we don't do session selection during the registration process at all.

I hope this helps. 

------------------------------
Kelli Mahoney
Associate Director, Global Events
American Jewish CommitteeUnited States

Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

My company hosts a conference each year.  We have been doing registration for the event and session registration separately for quite a while now, but found that it was clunky having folks go back into the registration process to modify their registration and add sessions that way.  This year, for the first time, we launched the Attendee Hub website about 2 months earlier than we normally would have (we usually launch it about 2 weeks prior to the event itself) and had folks sign up for sessions in the Attendee Hub instead of in the registration process.  We had a lot of positive feedback about it.  Folks found the Attendee Hub easier to navigate, easier to read all of the information about the sessions, and a more user-friendly way to sign up for sessions.  They also really liked having access to the calendar view of their sessions so far in advance of the event. We did still include the session registration widget in the registration process once we launched session registration so anyone signing up for the event for the first time could also choose their sessions at the same time without having to go into a different page.  We held the mobile app version of the Attendee Hub until 2 weeks before the event as we had in the past, but this ended up working well.  Because attendees were already familiar with the Attendee Hub layout and flow from signing up for sessions via web browser, the transition to the app seemed to go much more smoothly than it has in the past.  We got tons of positive feedback about the event app, which has never happened before.  I attribute a lot of that to the fact that we launched the web browser Attendee Hub so much sooner. 

When we launch session registration, we do a full marketing campaign to get people's attention and entice them into coming back to sign up for sessions.  It, of course, doesn't get a 100% return, but most people who are already signed up for the event do come back pretty soon after launching session registration to choose their sessions.  We pointedly say that sessions will fill up quickly, so sign up now to get into the sessions you want.  We do email and social media campaigns around the sessions, and promote the event by talking up the featured sessions and presenters.  We always have folks who wait until the session list is released to determine whether they want to attend the conference, so we usually have a big uptick in registrations around the time we open session registration.

Overall, using the Attendee Hub for session registration this year was very successful, and this will most likely be our model moving forward.

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Jess Olcott
Training Program Coordinator
ETC, Inc.
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Hi Denise,
I used this process for a weeklong internal training for a group in our Australia offices, so I do want to preface that we did not have paid sessions.  I did want to share that we did get positive feedback on having attendees being able to select their session selections for the week thru the Attendee Hub website mainly due to the filtering features we added based on office locations, timing, rank/level, recommended sessions and topics.   It was more user friendly to sort and customize your agenda from the attendee perspective and they could return to modify their schedule easily.   Hope this helps!

------------------------------
Jenn Wang
Global Digital Events Advisor
EY Global Services Limited
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Thank you all for these in-depth explanations and feedback. Everything shared is super helpful. 

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Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-29-2025 10:43
From: Jenn Wang
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

Hi Denise,
I used this process for a weeklong internal training for a group in our Australia offices, so I do want to preface that we did not have paid sessions.  I did want to share that we did get positive feedback on having attendees being able to select their session selections for the week thru the Attendee Hub website mainly due to the filtering features we added based on office locations, timing, rank/level, recommended sessions and topics.   It was more user friendly to sort and customize your agenda from the attendee perspective and they could return to modify their schedule easily.   Hope this helps!

------------------------------
Jenn Wang
Global Digital Events Advisor
EY Global Services Limited

Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Hi Denise!

For our first meeting with Cvent we had attendees select sessions through the website as part of registration, but found there were limited capabilities. While a touch annoying to kick everyone out to the Attendee Hub after registration, it helped familiarize the attendees with the Attendee Hub quicker. It is also functions much better and we could have attachments already uploaded to sessions. Our attendees don't have to pay for individual sessions so that was not a consideration. We do have separate registration paths for virtual attendees (so they only see certain sessions), regular attendees, and paying attendees. - but then they all access the Attendee Hub at the end for session selection. I also can limit which sessions our paying attendees can see in the Attendee Hub. 

Good luck!

Erin

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Erin Knutson
Manager, Communications & Publications
COG Research Foundation LLCUnited States
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------

Hi Denise, 

We have been doing exactly what you explained for a year now...for 3 events.  One of our events has been in existence for 26 years, and this was the first year we used the Attendee Hub for session selection instead of doing it through registration, and I only heard positive feedback (I expected some kickback from our long-time attendees as many of them don't like change, but that never happened).  We open our Attendee Hub at the time of Attendee registration (by that time the sessions have been added to Cvent and things are all ready for them anyway) and once they are registered they get an automatic email inviting them to the Attendee Hub.  

Our main reason for switching to this and getting rid of session registration during the event registration process is that the number of sessions we have, and the sometimes lengthy descriptions, were causing the registration to time out...which frustrated MANY of the attendees.  Now that we don't have that issue anymore, I hear very few complaints about the site timing out.  

One caveat that we have is we have one session that we charge extra for, as it is a workshop.  That session we DO have them add to their registration when they register for the event, but that is literally the ONLY session that they can select.  If they don't add it when they register, we have the attendee hub set up that if they click to add it, it sends them out to the registration site so they can add it there and pay for it.  

Overall it has been working great for us and has simplified things for the attendees and made it a much more positive experience for them.  

I hope this helps.  Let me know if you have any other questions about it.

------------------------------------

Vicki Thiele
Senior Event Coordinator
BrainStorm Events, Inc.

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Vicki Thiele
Senior Event Planner
BrainStorm Events, Inc.United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2025 14:34
From: Denise Behlmann
Subject: Attendee Website Pros & Cons

What are your pros and cons for asking attendees to select sessions from the Attendee Website, after registration is completed? I am looking to host session selection on the Attendee Website versus within registration, which will be a new process for our attendees. I would love feedback on how it worked and how you enticed your attendees to come back to build their agenda.

#AttendeeHub
#Registration

------------------------------
Denise Behlmann
Director of Meetings
Dot Foods, Inc
United States
------------------------------