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When the response of your post-conference survey indicates a poor response, it’s time to rethink how to make your conference fun and engaging for your attendees. People attend conferences to acquire knowledge, meet new people and to share their professional experiences. While some conferences can turn out to be boring, you can be a game-changer and make your conference fun in 10 ways. Check them out.

Customize your Ticket

Don’t let this be just another conference that your attendees have to attend. Here’s your opportunity to create excitement for your conference event. It may not be a direct ticket to fame, but your conference will add value to their success. Customize your tickets according to your theme using our ticket customization feature. Sign up with Yapsody and create your ticket to success.

Ice Breakers

Most attendees feel awkward when they are in a room full of strangers. You can have a fun session soon after your introduction to break the ice. For example, you can share 3 sets of questionnaires asking questions like ‘Who among the participants have gone bungee jumping’, ‘knows 5 languages’ or ‘write 5 names of people who have tattoos’ Your attendees will have to check with everyone at the conference to understand whose names will go on that sheet. In say 10 minutes, they already know a few things about each other.

Make it Interactive

If it’s just the speaker doing the talking, the conference can get boring after a while. Instead, make it a two-way communication, where you ask questions to the participants and let them share their experiences. Let’s say, it’s a medical conference you’re organizing and you’ve invited doctors to be a part of it. To make the conference interesting, you can have a few doctors share funny experiences of patients that could lighten the mood of the audience.

Fun Emcee

One person who can add great value to your conference is the Emcee. Since he/she spends the maximum time interacting with your attendees getting a fun and engaging emcee makes a lot of sense. Attendees generally tend to create a perception of the speaker in the first 15 minutes. If you have an emcee doing an average job, you’re bound to lose out on your attendees’ attention. A good emcee knows what is the objective of the conference and how to impart knowledge without getting the audience bored.

Storytelling

People love stories. Depending on the type of conference you’re organizing, create a story to draw your attendees’ attention. For example, you want to introduce a new technology at the conference, you can explain the concept effectively through a story. Grab your attendees’ attention through a story that’s fun to hear. Be it in schools or companies, the storytelling method always works effectively to create interest and explain the concept at the same time.

Activities

All work and no activity makes your conference dull and monotonous. Organize activities at certain intervals of the conference to help attendees move out of their comfort zone. Networking is yet another reason why people attend conferences and through activities like human spectrogram or crowd polling, they meet the purpose. Human spectrogram helps you understand your audience through questions you throw at them and they pick a side depending on who agrees and who doesn’t. Whereas, crowd polling is a fun way to compare opinions through mobile apps.

Creative Video Presentations

Begin your conference with a creative video presentation. It should be inspiring enough to latch their minds to your conference. For example, if you’re planning a tech conference, say for women, you can motivate them with inspiring video presentations showing successful women, how they work their way from rags to riches. Such videos will get everyone in the theme of the conference and motivate them to learn from it.

World Cafe

Organize a world cafe at your conference to ensure maximum participation of attendees. World cafe is a way of starting a conversation between large groups, allowing attendees to learn from each other’s experiences. All you have to do is allocate a topic per table and let the attendees discuss it for 15 minutes, post which they move to the next table and the process continues. It allows knowledge-sharing and is effective in educational conferences where people discuss how to improve the academic curriculum.

Use Props, Handouts and Pictures

For a change, keep the powerpoint presentations away. Different people learn differently. While some attendees will love text content, some will grasp quicker through props or handouts. Depending on the type of conference you’re hosting, you could use pictures or props to convey your message.

Entertainment

The lunch break and the great food you organized can divert your attendees’ attention from the conference. To help them get back into the conference, entertain them with light music, shake them up a bit till they are active. Once you’ve got their attention, begin the conference from where you left before the break.

Host a Quiz and Give Away Goodies

Most conferences go for hours and attendees get tired sitting for long and listening to a speaker throughout the session. Make it interesting. Before you end the conference, host a quiz with questions about the conference. That way, you’ll gauge how many attendees have truly enjoyed the conference. You can either choose to give away goodies to the quiz winners or give away souvenirs to all depending on the volume of attendees and your budget.

Step & Repeat Wall

Everyone loves taking pictures, be at a photo booth or in front of a step and repeat wall. Create a backdrop with a step and repeat logo of your company for your conference event. Maybe for a while, your attendees can feel like they’re at the Cannes International Film festival. That way, your attendees can have a great time taking selfies for your social media profiles and indirectly end up promoting your brand online.

With these fun ideas, you’re sure to give your attendees knowledge, networking and memories of a great conference. Join our privileged conference presenters to host your own conference with Yapsody. Sign up with Yapsody and we will promote it for you through our social media sharing and blogs. Avail our holiday season offers using our promo code HOLIDAY25 and get a 25% off on your event ticketing fees, sell tickets for your conference in minutes. Get started today!