Organizers provided tables and power supplies in the rear of the keynote theater for "influencers"—attendees who were blogging and live reporting from the sessions.
German software company SAP AG has established itself as a leader in the creation of hybrid events and in using an online platform for year-round engagement. At the same time, it continues to innovate the design of its largest face-to-face event: Sapphire Now, held every May in Orlando. This year’s show had a record 20,000 attendees, which prompted organizers to redesign the layout by organizing content in industry “forums” and creating an open keynote theater.
“How do we bring our story into their worlds, without just telling it our way? That was a fundamental change,” said SAP vice president for global events Michael Trovalli. “So we’ve taken our content and organized it by the way our customers think to make it more relevant to our attendees.” SAP created four distinct forums, which served as hubs for attendees in specific industries—such as retail, manufacturing, or financial services—to get the Âinformation they needed. “You don’t have to wander,” Trovalli said. “We did a heat map basically [from last year’s show]. We looked at one industry and all of the content that was presented over three days and how many places on the show floor you’d have to go to get that. It was all over the place. Now you are in one forum all day long and you get all that content.” Each forum had a presentation stage and smaller meeting areas.
The continued growth in Âattendance each year also led Âorganizers to reconsider the use of the Orange County Convention Center’s one million square feet of space in the north and south halls. For 2013, the team created an open layout for the keynote theater that, without risers or doors, used less space. Positioned in one corner of the exhibit hall, the section had about 6,000 chairs facing an 80-foot-wide stage surrounded by six screens, each 20 feet high and nearly 87 feet long. With the back of the theater open to the rest of the show floor, organizers were able to “give the perception that we are bringing the SAP ecosystem into the keynotes,” Trovalli said.
The company made several additional changes to the layout, such as getting rid of the large broadcast studios that in past years were used to create and share interviews and panel discussions with online attendees. Instead, organizers produced the Web broadcasts from the show floor. “We found those large, glass-front studios were not as engaging. People were intimidated to step inside,” Trovalli said. SAP also expanded the executive meeting center, an area for private meetings between staff and customers, and added a stage inside the global Âcommunications center to host all press conferences.
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