Open Forum

Hello, all! We're here with your next edition of Tip of the Week. Since Cvent has launched our new virtual platform, the Attendee Hub, we have seen many of you begin adopting the product and supporting your virtual events. So, I connected with Taylor Bohn, Cvent's Senior Event Technology Analyst who was the brains behind Cvent CONNECT Virtual, and Evelyn Jaramillo, Assistant Team Lead on our Virtual Event 360 team supporting live client events, to learn more. These ladies have seen many use-cases for the Attendee Hub and shared some go-to tips for your live virtual event.

1. Have a Know-Before-You-Go email series leading up to the event to ensure your attendees are comfortable with accessing and navigating through the VAH platform. This will ease day-of troubleshooting issues.
2. Add the Attendee Website link into the Registration Confirmation emails for any new registrants moving forward after you send the manual Know Before You Go emails. This is to ensure no registrants miss out on the important details, such as the link, when they register maybe the day before or even day of your event.
3. Add the Event Summary page weblink (from your Flex event) in the event description, so when people add the overall event to their calendar, they always have a link to the event. The Virtual Attendee Website can then be accessed from the summary page, but this is 'home base' until the Attendee Website is launched.
4. Use a custom event website page and link to it from the Virtual Attendee Website. This is a great option while custom pages are not currently available through the Attendee Hub.
5. Space out sessions to allow for quick breaks and include interactive or entertaining ice breakers in the meantime – remember your attendees are not in the conference center secluded from their normal jobs or lives. They may still have work emails to handle, kids to check in on, pets to take for walks, or a few moments for a mental breather.
6. Have an exhibitor booth renamed to "Help Desk" or use a chat-bot to assist with live issues or troubleshooting.
7. Have one (or several) staff members manage your speakers through a virtual green room. They will check in the speaker, answer any last-minute questions, make sure their lighting and audio works, etc.
8. Use OnArrival to track real-time attendance and session participation during your virtual event.
9. Use custom Engagement Scores to track your attendees' engagement from start to finish of their event journey. While the system does offer default scores, our experts recommend creating custom scores to truly assess what's important to you and your team.
10. Use the Q&A function to its fullest and get creative. Evelyn's favorite use of it has been as a voting feature during a session.

Questions for you: 

• If you have implemented any of the above tips, such as Know-Before-You-Go emails or custom Engagement Scoring, share examples with your peers below! 

• If you've used the Virtual Attendee Hub already, what else would you add to this list?
• If you are just getting started with the Attendee Hub, what other tips would you like to know?

Let us know any of your tips, use-cases, or questions below! #CventTip

*Note: We will be moving our Tip of the Week posts to Wednesday's. Look out for next week's tip then! ​
#Flex-Creating/ManagingEvents
#ManagingVirtualEvents

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Danni Czark
Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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We've definitely been using the 'know before you go' both for in person and virtual emails. We send out reminders the day before and a few hours with calendar and links to join. Depending on the platform we'll ask them about downloading the installer if required and advise them to join 15 min. early. Link them to any articles if applicable the session will be on so they can read blogs or posts from the people speaking before the session and come armed with Q&A if they want.

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Rachel Sigley
Sr. Brand Marketing Manager
Tata America International Corporation
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I also like putting the Know Before You Go information on all of the social media channels as well, in an effort to reach as much of the audience as possible.

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Amy Zientek
Director Of Sales
Visit Lubbock The Convention and Visitors Bureau
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We just finished our first Virtual Event using Virtual Attendee Hub. Using Advanced Production for our session through Cvent Professional Services really added polish and professionalism to our sessions. The only think missing was a chat function on the VAH.

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Scott Sward
Global Travel and Events Manager
Viewpoint, Inc.
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Hi Danni,

These are great tips - I'm trying to learn as much as I can by attending webinars, completed the certification, and keeping these marked so when we get ready to start using the Virtual attendee hub (hopefully by next year) it will be an easy process for us.

I like that you can set up the Q&A function , and that you could use a custom event website page to link to the virtual attendee website.
Andrea

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Andrea Timbes-Cox
CRM Administrator & Lead Catcher
Visit Fort Worth
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Wow!!  I wish I had seen these last week!  We just produced our first event using the Attendee Hub.
I was a little frustrated that I could not add more customization but completely understand that it's on the roadmap and that I just need to be patient...great idea for having the HELP desk through exhibitors...will need to try that soon. 
A developer suggestion is to have an option as to how early participants can enter a virtual meeting room.  Right now it is set to 5 minutes but our group had a lot of early birds who wanted to join 10 minutes early....and that was where all of our fire drills began with people asking for tech support.
Otherwise - everything worked great!!  
Next time we will be using the Cvent video conferencing and not our Zoom account so that will make things even smoother!! :-)
Great product - looking forward to the features in the pipeline!

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Shelley Gabel
Operations Coordinator – Meetings & Travel
ZS Associates, Inc.
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Hi all!

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with virtual events and the Attendee Hub! It is great to hear all of your successes :).

I wanted to share an exciting Community update - we have officially launched our newest page, the Virtual Event Resource Center. This page can be considered your one-stop shop for all virtual event and Attendee Hub resources in the Community, including virtual event discussions, Attendee Hub Knowledge Base articles, Cvent Academy Training, and more.

Check it out and let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

Best,

Danni

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Danni Czark
Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2021 14:40
From: Shelley Gabel
Subject: Virtual Attendee Hub Best Practices

Wow!!  I wish I had seen these last week!  We just produced our first event using the Attendee Hub.
I was a little frustrated that I could not add more customization but completely understand that it's on the roadmap and that I just need to be patient...great idea for having the HELP desk through exhibitors...will need to try that soon. 
A developer suggestion is to have an option as to how early participants can enter a virtual meeting room.  Right now it is set to 5 minutes but our group had a lot of early birds who wanted to join 10 minutes early....and that was where all of our fire drills began with people asking for tech support.
Otherwise - everything worked great!!  
Next time we will be using the Cvent video conferencing and not our Zoom account so that will make things even smoother!! :-)
Great product - looking forward to the features in the pipeline!

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Shelley Gabel
Operations Coordinator – Meetings & Travel
ZS Associates, Inc.
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Does anyone have a good email for when opening the mobile app/attendee hub to attendees.

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Nicole Whaley
Meetings & Education Manager
National Asphalt Pavement AssociationUnited States
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