Event Organiser Blog - Resources for Event Organisers

Between the Tapes

An Event Organiser Blog

Records 1 to 4 of 14



Tuesday, June 29, 2010 New Partnership with The Running Bug Posted by: Team Active at 11:55:38 Active has partnered with The Running Bug (www.theRunningBug.co.uk) to deliver components of its events calendar to the Running Bug audience. Events using our online registration platform will not only be visible on the www.Active.com/UK events calendar - soon they will also display on The Running Bug calendar. The Running Bug has a loyal running audience and is quickly becoming one of the top online destinations for running enthusiasts throughout the UK. This added exposure is a great win for Active and all of our partner events. The Running Bug will be joining Triathlete Europe (http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com) and Tri Spirit Events (http://www.trispiritevents.com) as a publisher of Active’s event calendar.
Monday, June 28, 2010 Free Websites for Events Posted by: Team Active at 12:46:28 You may have already used Active's online event registration forms to collect attendee data and payment but have you had a look at our free website builder? Clients that collect online registrations through Active's event management platform also have access to a robust website publishing system. Plublicise your event with a free event website and include your event details, event images, event schedule, contact information, links to your sponsors, integrations with all the popular social media channels and more. Active enables you to instantly publish your free website to the web and submit it to all the major search engines - all with no hosting fees or experience with HTML code or web design needed. You can find the website builder in your Regonline manager. Select the event you would like to build a website for and click the "Event Website" tab on the navigation bar. Adding content to your website is as easy as using any word processing program.
Friday, February 12, 2010 Run for Water London Announced Posted by: Team Active at 14:10:06 Online registration is now available for the Dow Live Earth Run for Water - London. The event, scheduled to take place in Victoria Park on April 18 2010 will include a 6km run/walk to bring awareness to a very important cause. 6km is the average distance many women and children walk every day to secure water. The event will take place over the course of 24 hours in countries around the world and feature activities and education aimed at raising awareness of the growing global water crisis. Active is the proud provider of event registration software for the Live Earth Run for Water event - we are excited to be a part of such an important cause. For more information about the event please visit the official Live Earth website: http://www.liveearth.org.
Thursday, January 07, 2010 British Downhill to Take Entries Online Posted by: Team Active at 15:30:16 The Active Network is proud to announce that it will supply online event registration for the British Downhill Series in 2010. Anyone who has ever participated in this series knows what a professional event they run and Active is thrilled to join the team! Si with British Downhill says, "Everyone has been asking for online entries since day one. Through Active we can now deliver this seamlessly to the riders. From a race organisers perspective my job has just become so much easier!" For more information about the series, visit http://www.britishdownhillseries.com
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Increase Event Entries with a Web Button Posted by: Team Active at 13:33:48 Web buttons have proven to increase entries by as much as 67%. Using a web button will make online registration for your event or club more accessible than ever before, giving you an increase in participation. Here are step-by-step instructions on how you can easily create your own web button with Active’s event management software: Log into your Active RegOnline Account. Click on the event you would like to create a web button for. Click on “Button Designer” under Additional Resources. If you are using the new BETA version, the interface will look like this... If you are using the CLASSIC version, the interface will look like this... Once you click on “Button Designer”, you will see a pop-up window like the one below. Select “Button” and click Next. Choose where your button will link to (e.g. your Registration Form, the Event Website, or your Events Calendar). Customise the color and text of your web button. The system will automatically generate the HTML code for you to use! Just copy the code and paste it into your website. The web button will appear where you placed it, with a live link to your online registration form. For maximum visibility, place the button on the top half of the right hand side of your web page and watch your registration numbers rise!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 Active Teams Up with Live Earth Posted by: Team Active at 14:59:00 We’re excited to announce that Dow Live Earth Run for Water has chosen to team up with Active and use our event management software to power their events. Live Earth will launch a series of 6km runs/walks that will take place over a 24 hours period, span multiple continents and raise money and awareness for global water shortages (6km is the average distance many women and children walk every day to secure water). The events will take place on Earth Day, April 18, 2010. Active will provide secure online registration to Live Earth registrants and participants will have access to Active’s popular ActiveTrainer platform which is designed to help individuals create customised training plans to help reach personal fitness goals. In addition, participants will be using online fundraising tools that will allow individuals to create personalised fundraising pages and send donations directly to charities benefitting water challenges worldwide. For more information about the Run for Water and how you can register for an event in your area, visit www.liveearth.org.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 Growing Your Event During a Recession Posted by: Team Active at 15:38:34 Slashed marketing budgets and a public that is saving their money for uncertain times could mean lower attendance rates for the events industry in 2009. We’ve talked with some of the industry’s top event organisers to see how they are beating the economic crunch. Across the board, the feedback we received shows that everyone is trying to accomplish one thing in particular: Increase attendance while lowering costs. This can be a real challenge but here are some low cost marketing ideas many are using that could also help you grow your event in a down economy. Email Advertising Minimise the amount of print advertising you are doing. Paper, ink and labor involved can be very expensive and oftentimes, it is very difficult to gage the success of a print advertising campaign. With a limited budget, you need to be able to show a return on every cent you spend on marketing. Email marketing costs nothing in materials and you have access to reporting that will instantly show your return on investment. Social Media The best advertising for an event is word of mouth. Social Media is a very low cost and effective way to create word of mouth on the internet. Make a presence for yourself in places like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs or forums where the audience would be interested in an event like yours. SEO If you have an official event website, you need to focus on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The goal is to get your website at the top of the search returns for keyword searches such as “Marathons in Singapore” or “Singapore Marathon”. With some small adjustments to your website, you can vastly improve your Google rankings. Just imagine all of the people out there searching for what you offer – they just don’t know about you yet! Offer Online Event Registration Collecting participant data online with an event management system will streamline your staff’s workload and open up more time that you can devote to all of the above.
Friday, July 24, 2009 Online Survey Forms for your Attendees Posted by: Team Active at 14:42:56 If you have already created an event registration form, you may have noticed that our event management software offers a variety of other types of online form templates. Try using the online survey form template to collect attendee feedback after your event is over. Providing your participants with a quick and easy way to submit their feedback online will increase the likelihood that they will respond. Many event organisers include a link to their online survey form in an email delivered hours after the event has finished. You may want to consider providing an incentive to complete the form such as a discount code for next year's event. Not only will you get valuable feedback but also a head start on marketing next year's event! The survey form template can be found in the form type menu...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Easy Email Marketing For Your Event Posted by: Team Active at 15:37:56 Email can be a low cost and highly effective form of event advertising. Reduce your printing costs, more easily track your return on investment, and increase event attendance with Active's easy to use email invitation tool. Active's event management software includes an integrated email marketing feature that clients can use free of charge to advertise their events. Upload as many contacts as you like into the system and send them beautiful invitations to register for you event. Reporting features will enable you to track email open rates and registrations that resulted from your email campaign. Start creating your email invitation by selecting the event you want to associate it to and the contact list you would like to mail it to. Choose a pre-designed theme or create your own. Write your content or choose a template that is commonly used by other event organisers. You can merge the contact's name and other information into the content if you choose. Once you have finished creating your email, all that is left to do is schedule delivery, relax, and watch the registrations come in! For more information about Active's email marketing system click HERE.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Team Registration Made Easy Posted by: Team Active at 14:16:25 Active’s new and improved team registration feature will make it easy for team captains to register their teammates. Team captains can create their team name, register each team member and then return to the event registration form at any time to edit team member info, change the team name or add more participants to their roster. Team management is also easy for the event organiser. View team reports, limit the size of a team, designate a new team captain, substitute participants and cancel team members. To activate team functionality for a registration type, open the Advanced area within that registration type and select the "Collect Team Name" feature. You can also limit the size of the team on this screen. Team name data can be viewed in all standard and custom reports. You can also merge the registrant's team name into all confirmation and follow-up email.
Thursday, March 26, 2009 Keeping Them Engaged Until Event Day Posted by: Team Active at 12:15:00 Efficiently collecting event participant data is only half the battle. Fully utilise your event management software and keep your registrants engaged all the way up to the day of the event with customised follow-up emails. The key to hosting a great event is to keep your participant’s excitement level rising steadily from date of registration to the day they show up to your event. If event registration opens 3, 4, or 5 months prior to the event date, expect that some registrants may get preoccupied at the office or with daily life and lose that feeling of exhilaration they experienced when signing up for the event. Keeping in contact with your participants on a regular basis will build anticipation and ensure they show up to the event ready to have a great time. The great thing about using a fully automated event management system is that you can schedule your follow-up emails to be sent out automatically on the date you choose with the custom content you want to deliver. Some ideas for follow-up email content could be: Inviting the registrant to visit your event website for more event information. Announcements of new event merchandise for sale with a link to your online registration form for purchase. Training tips Testimonials from last year’s event participants Results or video from last year’s event Reminders of where and when to pick up your race packet A final email including last minute updates to the event schedule and weather forecast. These are only a few examples of email content that has worked well for event organisers we partner with. Our best advice would be to get creative!
Friday, March 20, 2009 Planning Your First Event Posted by: Team Active at 12:16:00 Having worked with a number of event organisers over the years, we’ve found that there are some things that can be easily overlooked when you are in the beginning phases of planning your first event. Giving special consideration to these 4 things from the start will ensure that your event goes smoothly: Special Events Permits Whether or not you are required to apply for a special events permit will depend on your community, town, or city law. If in doubt, we would suggest contacting your city council or local government so that they can inform you of any special requirements for holding an event in the area. Safety Issues Keep in mind that one of the biggest draws for your event will not only be the fun activities offered but also the level of organisation and focus on the well being of the event attendees. Is your event location in a safe area? Will children be safe if they stray away? Are you located near a street with heavy traffic? Can people who are not registered for your event mingle with your attendees? Addressing these and other safety issues will not only ensure your attendee’s security but also enable you to market your event as a safe occasion to be shared by all. Food More often than not, events will include some sort of food or refreshments for attendees. Two things you should consider are: Where will the food come from and how will I get an accurate count of how much food I will need? To address the first issue, you will need to decide if you will hire a catering company or purchase and serve the food yourself. The advantages to hiring a company are obviously that they will handle everything from purchasing the food, to cooking the food, to serving the food, and cleaning up after the event. The downside is the cost of course. If you have a good group of event volunteers, you may want to consider taking on the job yourself. The cost saved may be well worth the effort. The second issue of deciding how much food to buy can be the most difficult one. To get the most accurate count of food items needed for the event, make sure you include a section on your event registration form to collect the attendee’s food preference. Collecting Payment and Data The greatest challenge to hosting an event is finding a way to efficiently collect attendee payment and data. Ideally, you want to devise a procedure that is time efficient for your event staff and quick and easy for the attendee. In the past, event registration was offered exclusively on paper registration forms and probably went something like this: The attendee would fill out the paper form and mail it off to the event by post including a check. Once received by the event, a staff member would have to manually transfer the attendee’s personal information into a spreadsheet and make a trip to the bank to make a deposit. After a week or two of waiting, the attendee would get a letter back confirming his entry into the event. The main concern here is the length of time it takes your staff to process one entry and the time the attendee has to wait before receiving a confirmation. The result can be an overworked event staff and an attendee uncertain if his payment has been received. The growing trend in today’s events industry is the use of online registration software. You will want to find a software that offers complete automation of all the tasks normally required in hosting an event. Ideally your event management software should offer online credit card processing, easily customisable online registration forms, a secure database to house your attendee data, various data reporting options accessible from any internet connection, automatic confirmation emails sent to the attendee after making online payment, and an email marketing system that will enable you to keep in contact with your attendees and reach out to the them following year to invite them to your event. If you find a software that is right for your event, the resulting reduction of workload will allow your staff focus less on the mundane tasks and spend more time working on what is important – tending to your attendees!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Embed an Entry Form in Your Website Posted by: Team Active at 12:17:00 And now for our first product feature tip (which you may already be aware of): our registration form builder will allow you to embed the form on a page of your own website! This feature is called iFrame and is easy for any event director or their webmaster to use. Once you have built your event entry form, navigate to the Button Designer tool which is located under the Functions tab... Then select the iFrame function... The form builder will automatically generate the iFrame code... Simply copy and paste this code into a page on your event website. The online registration form will embed itself on the page with all of the design and navigation elements that appear across the rest of your site. This feature is really great because the registrant will fill out the form without ever having to leave your event site!
Thursday, February 26, 2009 Welcome to the Active Network UK Blog! Posted by: Team Active at 14:00:00 We are pleased to welcome you to the official Active Network United Kingdom blog. Now you can stay up to date on the latest information posted by our team of event management gurus in the UK. You'll learn about product enhancements as we make them, we’ll frequently post event industry news and tips, as well as spotlight helpful resources that may be of assistance to your team as you plan your events. Expect to see posts from a variety of people on our team. Sometimes they'll be informal and brief; others will be more structured. We hope you'll find all of them useful.