Early bird registration ends Friday February 3 for the event with an amazing lineup of speakers–experts on virtual events–including Tony Lorenz, Kenji Haroutunian, Stephen Nold, Amy Hager and Brad Williams.

The live (not virtual) workshop will train participants on the basics required to launch a virtual event.  Registrants will walk away with a 30-day plan and a printed workbook. Early bird price is $199. Full registration price is $249.

“Trade Show Auditing: Part of a Complete Sales & Marketing Plan” is about the ongoing conversation over third-party attendance verification for trade shows, particularly on how verified attendance data can help sell more booths.

“iPads for Show Organizers: Hip and Functional” describes some of the ways that organizers are using tablets on the trade show floor for real-time online booth sales and as a replacement for forms, orders, checklists, and laptops.

“What is Happening at the University Level That Will Change the Exhibitions and Events Industry?” describes the preferences, needs, and behaviors of students–the next generation of trade show industry workers.

If you’re a trade show junkie, enjoy these and other articles from E2.

• Why planners want mobile apps
• How planners can explain their needs to developers
• How meeting apps function
• How to select an app that meets the needs of the audience
• The difference between the mobile web and native apps
• Developer relationships with platform providers
• Using apps as community builders
• Future functionality of the apps
• The trajectory of mobile for the future
• Mobile as a valuable marketing channel
• Mobile as a tool for planning better meetings
• Costs of mobile

Members of the audience also received a printed copy of the Buyer’s Guide to Mobile Apps from MeetingTech Online.

The next question is invariably why companies (our clients) just don’t do this themselves. That’s actually an easy question to answer and there are many reasons why our services are called upon. First and foremost is expertise. Most companies do not generate a constant stream of material that requires printing. Print has taken a back seat to electronic and online communication. And, while there are a multitude of talented individuals and companies that can handle those tasks, there are fewer and fewer people around that understand the complexities of the print process. I’ll save that for a later post, but it suffices to say that there are many different printing formats, applications, papers, and post press processes and it’s not a subject that many folks are familiar and comfortable with.

It follows that if you don’t fully understand the complexities of your print job, you’re also going to have a hard time determining which printer is qualified to undertake your project. Not only that, most large commercial printers will not undertake a job submitted by the end user. More often than not, the client ends up submitting files that have not been properly prepared and it becomes a time-consuming process to make the job “print ready.”

There’s also the “business relationship” issue. Printers would much rather receive files from a broker that has already evaluated their suitability and deal with a party with whom they have already established payment and credit terms. And for that matter, since we receive “wholesale” pricing, it really doesn’t cost the client any more to utilize our services than if they were able to find a printer that would undertake their project directly.

Recently we undertook a project on behalf of a large out of state client. The job consisted of printing a 16 page booklet with a “spot” metallic color on the inside and outside of the front and back covers; printing and inserting a full color flyer within the booklet, and arranging for the mailing of the booklet to several thousand addresses. The end results were dramatic.

Our job was to verify that the submitted files were “print ready” (in this case there were several missing fonts and links that we needed to fix), select a qualified printer (not every printer can do spot metallic colors), choose and deliver the printed brochures and flyers to a post-press facility that could undertake the insertion task, and then deliver the finished product to a qualified mail house that could ink-jet the addresses, tab the booklets closed, and submit the job to the post office for delivery. The client had the peace of mind that we would shepherd the job through the various stages of production and the recipients of the booklet received a top quality product in a timely manner.

In the end, we were able to select a printer and mailing house that could meet the qualifications of the job. Since we had a sample of the booklet that the client had printed previously elsewhere, we were able to compare the quality of the new print job against that of the old one. The enhancements were obvious in terms of resolution, color balance, and metallic spot color application. The images were crisp, the color was rich, and the overall quality of the mailing was enhanced considerably. For companies that choose to print (rather than send files digitally), the quality of the print piece matters. It is an extension of the client’s reputation and we were pleased to put our expertise to use.

The guide was designed to assist event organizers with selecting apps and providers. It covers topics such as developing a mobile app strategy, native apps vs. mobile-optimized Websites, pricing models, revenue opportunities, and choosing a provider. The resource also includes a directory of leading app developers for the event industry.

The Buyer’s Guide to Mobile Apps is the first in a series. The “Buyer’s Guide to Registration Solutions: Professional Event Organizer and Corporate Event Organizer Edition” is due out in mid-january.

During the campaign, Rogers customers and prospects received a series of emails. Each email contained instructions for clicking through to a trivia question about the cities located along the imaginary road from Chicago (Rogers’ headquarters) to New Orleans. Questions covered topics related to Chicago, IL, St. Louis, MO, Memphis, TN, Jackson, MS, and New Orleans, LA. The answers involved Chicago restaurants, sports celebrities and teams, the history of the cities, and even Elvis (of course). Contestants received gifts (at the booth) for playing and a chance to enter a drawing for an iPad.

The campaign was an even bigger hit this year than the year before.  Seventy eight trade show managers played the game consistently over a four week period and the number of booth visitors doubled from last year. An iPad was awarded to one of the trivia enthusiasts when the show concluded and comments are still rolling in from folks that loved the game and some that wanted proposals from Rogers. The campaign was a huge success and plans are in the works for a permanent trivia game with prizes throughout the year.

Instead of the typical one-way dynamic of a speaker at the podium and information seekers in the audience, the Full-Time MBA Program changed things up a bit.  For one thing, they gave the information session a look and feel. The “MBA Backstage” concert theme was a jumping off point for advertising, signage, presentation titles, and blog posts. Early attendees on the day of the event were given an opportunity to battle each other and the Dean of the Business School on rock band-style video games.

A social media presence on Facebook, Twitter (the event was live-tweeted), and WordPress helped recruit attendees and generate buzz about the event. Traditional advertising in local newspapers helped reach the non-social crowd. For those unable to attend in person, the event was live streamed to a virtual audience. Attendees were given backstage “passes” to enter the event and plenty of chances to win prizes including a FREE GMAT test prep course, snow skis, travel mugs, and flash drives. Oh, and future full-time MBA students learned a lot about the University of Utah’s Full-Time MBA Program.

Sports-Am’s customers are young, active, business professionals that use social media tools to communicate. In the sporting events business, it’s important to have direct channels to the event participants for schedule changes, updates, deadline reminders and other last minute info. The reverse is also true. Does anyone pick up the phone any more?

We decided to start them out on free platforms to see whether they could handle this type of community engagement and because James was unfamiliar with using the tools. Bruno Group did all of the behind the scenes set up with James Zwick as the primary administrator and/or owner of all of the accounts. This is important for when the time comes for him to (possibly) take over the content generation and curation that we are helping him with now.

Now that Sports-Am has “come out” of the social media closet so to speak, we’re working on using his web site, mailings and email as ways to generate more followers for his social media outlets. As we move forward we will be integrating the social media marketing with other traditional and non-traditional marketing mediums. James’ first tweet?  ”Zames Zwick has entered the 21st Century.” We’re glad to help you James.