Networking is one of the biggest driving forces to attract delegates to a conference. This is often a decision-making question for delegates to attend a conference and they tend to give a clear thought whether they would get the opportunity to build the right business connections during a particular conference. Beginning the conversation is the first step towards building a connection but needless to say, everyone will not be interested in striking up a conversation among strangers. So it becomes the unsaid responsibility of the conference organizers to create a platform that can encourage the delegates to get involved in meaningful conversations and develop connections.
By embedding some great opportunities for conversations throughout the conference, you’ll help create a strong community of professionals and encourage genuine business relationships among them. When such strong communities are built, delegates tend to return year after year to strengthen their professional ties. How to promote delegate networking at a conference has always remained a challenge for the organizers.
Here are our suggestions to break the ice during the conference-
- Involve The First Time Delegates-
The ones who have been a part of your earlier conference don’t need much of your time in terms of conference introduction and can make themselves comfortable in the event. Retaining the delegates from your previous conference is certainly an achievement but what about the new ones? Here are some activities to keep the new ones as engaged as the repeated ones-
- Try to club a new delegate with an old (repeated visitor) delegate as a “Con-Buddy”.
- Arrange a “Pre-Conference Meet” of 30 min-45 min which can help delegates to know each other.
- Try to divide them into groups based on basics like – From the same city, From the same industry, Having the same first name, etc., and allow them a few minutes to discuss their expectations from the conference, and collect the inputs later on.
- The Readable First Name Badge–
We have seen delegates wearing the badges all the time during the conference but have we ever thought of using them for networking? What about printing the First Name on the badge in comparatively bigger fonts so that someone can read it from a distance also instead of using regular small fonts which makes a badge almost useless? Also, there is a mobile application available called Attendee that you can use to scan the QR code given on the delegate badge and get all the official details of that delegate. This application is loaded with multiple networking features, so next time don’t forget to approach the Attendee App Team before launching your event! The link to the Attendee website is- www.attenddee.com
- Try “ Team Sports” as a Platform for Networking-
In case of a full day or more than a day conference, it’s not tough to find a slot for team activities. Try to divide the delegates into small groups. Indiattitude is an intelligent conference organizer when it comes to planning interactive activities for delegates, here we believe that the more you involve your delegates the easier it will become for you to motivate them to form new connections with fellow conference members. For instance- You can try dividing delegates into teams and run a quick session of quizzes where the questions are related in some way to the session topic. Offer a gift to the winning team to make it more interesting. The gift can be a shopping voucher of an amount, a discount coupon on flight booking, or a discount on registration for next year’s conference, etc. Participants from each team will feel closer to their co-teammates and would exchange their thoughts to emerge as a winning group. The added advantage for the organizers can be the information or ideas which all the delegates will share during this activity.
Conclusion– Every conference is different and there are multiple unique ways possible to engage the delegates in mutual conversations. Facilitate them to make as many connections as possible and they will surely come back next year to strengthen their bonds!
Happy Conferencing!
