Attendee Communication

How do you let your attendees know what they need to be aware of before / during the event? With all the events and workshops happening, you'll want attendees to be aware of what's going on. This can be done during Pre-Event and On-day, we've included some of the possible methods you might want to consider below.

Email Updates

Good way to keep interest about the event going. Regular weekly emails can have information like:

  • When the next batch of tickets is coming out (if using First-Come-First-Served ticketing).
  • Reminders to cancel tickets if attendees can't make it.
  • Information about the hackathon (Sponsors, Welcome Pack etc).
  • Emphasising the venue might be cold and bringing thick layers is helpful.
  • Information / Resources for those first-time hackathon attendees.
  • Reminder about Code of Conduct.

Welcome Pack

The information pack you have for your participants! This will be really helpful in letting your attendees know what to expect beforehand. It also conveniently centralises information for your attendees. Information you may like to put in the Welcome Pack include:

  • Venue-related: Floor plans, fire exits, building access and how to get to the venue
  • Overall Schedule
  • Workshop / Events Specific Schedule
  • Wifi Details
  • Food Menu and Meal Times
  • Challenges
  • Sponsors
  • Prizes

Things worth noting:

  • How you make your Welcome Pack available is important! Ways to deliver include:
    • PDF on website.
    • Printed out booklet on day (Budget-dependent).
  • If the Welcome Pack is available on your website, be ready to quickly upload the edited Welcome Pack. You don't want attendees missing out on workshops / events they want to attend.
  • Attendees sometimes forget to list down their food intolerance(s) / allergies. Being able to see the food menu makes them more likely to reach out and let you know beforehand.

Volunteer Helpdesk

Plan to setup a Volunteer Helpdesk at an easily accessible location in your event. The Helpdesk should be the main point of contact between Organisers, Volunteers, Sponsors and Attendees. Aware of what's going on in the hackathon the helpdesk's responsibilities include:

  • Answering questions on Slack, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter).
  • Answering questions on-site.
  • Directing people to the right mentors and vice-versa.
  • Making announcements on Slack for food, workshops, activities etc.

Having a dedicated team for handling such communications helps reduce redundancy and allows other volunteers to focus on their specific roles. However do ensure the rest of the team knows what's going on.

Volunteers

You and your volunteers will be engaging with the attendees throughout the event, for more details check out the Volunteer Section.

Slack

Ahhh, the ubiquitous Slack. For the uninitiated, Slack is a messaging and collaboration system for teams. Its many service integrations can be helpful for a variety of reasons such as:

  • Announcements for food, workshops / mini-events / talks and other cool stuff.
  • Event-specific bot created specifically to answer questions like where different rooms are, sponsor challenges and schedule amongst others. [1]
  • Sponsor-specific channels. Discussions, Q&A, sponsor specific announcements can all be done here.
  • Spotify Integration? If you've got a Spotify playlist playing, attendees can add tracks to it. (Make sure the music doesn't breach your Code of Conduct though).

While nothing really beats on-day human interaction, Slack is a good way to get pre-Event hype going. By inviting attendees and sponsors onto the Event Slack early on, everyone can talk to each other and get to know more about the event, its sponsors etc.

Signage

You've definitely been annoyed at unclear, confusing signs before. So how else do you ensure attendees know where to go? Places like the food area, hacking spaces, talks / events or sleeping rooms - clear directions to getting there are important. Nothing is more frustrating than being lost in an unfamiliar environment.

  • Scout your venue and get an estimate of how many signs need to be printed and where they can be placed
  • When printing signs:
    • Make sure the signs are frequent enough so people aren't lost.
    • Check if the venue's walls can be easily damaged by sticky-tape / blu-tack.
    • Ensure large prints and simple fonts so they can be easily spotted from afar.

Announcements

  • Is there a Public Announcement System in the venue?
    • Microphones - Wired / Wireless?
    • Does the PA System reach throughout the hacking spaces?

[1]: Wilhelm Klopp has an excellent write-up on bot-building here.

The On-Day Execution Segment can be found here

results matching ""

    No results matching ""