by Victor Georgescu, M.I.C.E Division Manager

The energy of the participants often influences the perceived quality of the event. This energy can be influenced, many times, by the first impression that the participants have upon entering the event space, but it must be maintained during the entire unfolding of the agenda.

From our experience of organizing events with a large and very large number of people, we have identified several areas and key moments when the mood of the participants can be spoiled if their flows are not properly organized. Therefore, we share some of the most important lessons learned over time:

• Registration at the entrance to the event – queues are no longer fashionable

The first impression that participants have when accessing an event is from the registration area. To avoid long queues, which are difficult to move, we can install more registration points, but also limit the number of personal data we ask for.

Following an event with over 700 participants, organized recently, some of the post-event feedback we received was: We were glad that the participants waited less than 15 minutes at check-in in, bearing in mind that in past years the wait was even over an hour. After they were in a bad mood due to the delay of the planes, it was a real pleasure the way they felt once they entered your “hand”. This good mood continued throughout the day and even contributed to the extraordinary success of the welcome party that evening.

• Food and drink are not things you want to wait too long for

Everyone knows that when you’re hungry, the last thing you want is to wait in line to get food. Many times, the installation of several serving lines and several bars is the right solution.

In case of a lack of space (generated by the location of the event, for example) or if the event has an organized agenda with several sessions, in parallel, then we can plan the lunch in several series of participants, and not for everyone at once. Thus, we can also obtain savings from using a smaller amount of furniture (tables, chairs, etc.) On the other hand, care must be taken with the number of people helping to serve/replace food at the buffet, respectively to clear the tables.

• Handover of gifts when the participants leave

More and more events are planned so that the participants receive a “give-away” upon departure. It is a nice gesture of the organizer, and the case where waiting for these small gifts produces frustration cannot be accepted. As with registration, congestion can be avoided by organizing several distribution points.

Whatever the final gift contains, we can find some customization criteria: either by gender or size (in the case of t-shirts), or by the categories into which the participants are divided (for example, IT developers have blue boxes, business managers have green boxes, etc. .) These differences (especially those organized based on personal details) will bring an extra of value to the gift and, at the same time, offers the opportunity to release areas with potential for congestion more quickly.

• On the other hand, at the party everyone will stay together as much as possible

Taking into account all these details, we do not recommend you to fall to the other extreme and to oversize other areas of the event, without a positive effect. For example, at the party, it is advisable to have a space as small as possible (and necessarily unitary) in which all the participants can sit. First of all, because at the dance everyone wants to be together.

The very large number of participants at an event can be seen as a problem, as a threat to the success of the event, but it can also be seen as an opportunity to bring more impact. We have learned to look at such details as opportunities to make the events organized by us stand out even more, to surprise the participants and impress them with their fluency. And all this, starting from the above ideas.