With hundreds of guests coming and going between education sessions, meals and free-time excursions at large meetings and events, planners can get left fumbling with spreadsheets and binders to figure out where their attendees are. But there's a weapon against the paper war that's winning more and more favor among more planners: online registration programs.
While it may not be necessary to use the Web for cocktail party RSVPs—although some people do it— a custom-made Web application can help meeting and trade show planners keep track of all the details for large, multi-part events with numerous attendees. The systems can store guests' contact information, hotel reservations, schedule choices, food preferences, and even their golf tee times and whether they want a deep tissue or hot stone massage after a meeting.
"Paper is so last century. It's a white flag of inefficiency. It gives a bad, dated look," says meetings technology guru Corbin Ball, president of Corbin Ball Associates. "You want to have one source of information, and you want to have it online."
More event planners are starting to agree. When Cardinal Communications introduced online registration site Regweb in 1997, the program had 11,000 registrants; this year Cardinal expects that figure to rise to about 700,000. Certain Software's Register123, another registration service, has experienced a 400 percent increase in new registrations in just the last 10 months.
Ellen Rosen of Sterling Receptive Services, an Arizona-based destination management company, used an online registration program for the first time to track and arrange ground transportation and excursion schedules for a recent 8,000-guest conference. She used special fields in the program, Count Me In, to track which excursions the attendees chose for their recreational time during the convention. And having their hotel information easily accessible made arranging their transportation to and from the events easier.
In the past Rosen used various databases and spreadsheets to record attendee information, but using online registration minimized the work. "I don't have to print emails or deal with faxes," she says.
Most providers set up the registration site and tailor it to look like a client's Web site. Attendees then input the required information, and planners get backend access to the data and various ways to sort it into printable spreadsheets.
Costs vary by provider, and often depend on how much customization is necessary.
—Jennifer Levi
What to Ask
Looking into using online registration programs? Meeting technology guru Corbin Ball suggests posing these 10 questions about potential providers:
Do they understand my industry and my needs?
How well do they respond to customer questions?
What are their privacy policies?
Do they read customers' data?
How secure is the data?
Is it easy to add, customize and track new fields?
How do they handle financial transactions?
How do they price their services—is there a start-up fee, monthly fee and/or fees per user?
What type of customer support do they provide?
Do they provide online training courses?
This story originally appeared in our newspaper, the BiZBash Event Style Reporter.
While it may not be necessary to use the Web for cocktail party RSVPs—although some people do it— a custom-made Web application can help meeting and trade show planners keep track of all the details for large, multi-part events with numerous attendees. The systems can store guests' contact information, hotel reservations, schedule choices, food preferences, and even their golf tee times and whether they want a deep tissue or hot stone massage after a meeting.
"Paper is so last century. It's a white flag of inefficiency. It gives a bad, dated look," says meetings technology guru Corbin Ball, president of Corbin Ball Associates. "You want to have one source of information, and you want to have it online."
More event planners are starting to agree. When Cardinal Communications introduced online registration site Regweb in 1997, the program had 11,000 registrants; this year Cardinal expects that figure to rise to about 700,000. Certain Software's Register123, another registration service, has experienced a 400 percent increase in new registrations in just the last 10 months.
Ellen Rosen of Sterling Receptive Services, an Arizona-based destination management company, used an online registration program for the first time to track and arrange ground transportation and excursion schedules for a recent 8,000-guest conference. She used special fields in the program, Count Me In, to track which excursions the attendees chose for their recreational time during the convention. And having their hotel information easily accessible made arranging their transportation to and from the events easier.
In the past Rosen used various databases and spreadsheets to record attendee information, but using online registration minimized the work. "I don't have to print emails or deal with faxes," she says.
Most providers set up the registration site and tailor it to look like a client's Web site. Attendees then input the required information, and planners get backend access to the data and various ways to sort it into printable spreadsheets.
Costs vary by provider, and often depend on how much customization is necessary.
—Jennifer Levi
What to Ask
Looking into using online registration programs? Meeting technology guru Corbin Ball suggests posing these 10 questions about potential providers:
Do they understand my industry and my needs?
How well do they respond to customer questions?
What are their privacy policies?
Do they read customers' data?
How secure is the data?
Is it easy to add, customize and track new fields?
How do they handle financial transactions?
How do they price their services—is there a start-up fee, monthly fee and/or fees per user?
What type of customer support do they provide?
Do they provide online training courses?
This story originally appeared in our newspaper, the BiZBash Event Style Reporter.