Posted on April 17, 2023

Event Gamification: An Event Planner’s Guide.

You’ve made the right decision by deciding to use a digital event gamification app for your next event. Now what next?

To start with the fantastic read about event gamification, I came across this quote and couldn’t resist sharing here- 

“There’s no one without purpose in a game. That’s what Gamification is all about.”

― Vineet Raj Kapoor

What Is Event Gamification?

Let’s define it as the capability to add competition, games, rewards, and other elements of game-playing, like point-scoring, to encourage engagement at your in-person, virtual, or hybrid events. It is easy to use and inexpensive. Attendees can participate via social media and custom mobile apps. 

Mobile event apps are the most effective way to keep attendees focused on your event.

Let’s look at some numbers related to Gamification in Events: 

• The global gamification market is worth $11.94 billion and is estimated to grow to $58.8 billion by 2028.
• When workers are incentivized through gamification, customer satisfaction, and staff performance improve considerably.
• Gamification has a remarkably beneficial effect on user engagement, with an estimated 60% increase. 
• 70% of the Global 2000 organizations use gamification in some capacity.
• A staggering 95% of employees want a gamified work environment.

Gamification has recently exploded in popularity due to the increased productivity, profitability, and employee engagement associated with a gamified environment. It has proven a solid reason for having the products embedded into them with some sort of gamification.

Those new to gamification may find it challenging to determine where to begin. However, InEvent offers our clients professional assistance in personalizing activities that perfectly suit their events.

Benefits of Event Gamification.

The goal of your experience should be to make the attendee feel awesome in some way. Event gamification, when correctly implemented, suits everyone and pushes attendees to be more active. It allows us to learn new things and watch how they become more straightforward and understandable, turning event experiences into high-quality activities.

Gamification in events helps with the following:

• Increase attendee engagement and experience: Adding interactive elements and games to your event makes attendees more likely to participate and interact with each other, making the event more lively and fun. Plus, who doesn’t love a good challenge, right?
• Create a more relaxed atmosphere: When attendees are engaged and having fun, they’re more likely to let their guard down and enjoy themselves. Games can act as icebreakers and help people to feel more comfortable and at ease.
• Boost the self-confidence of attendees: Another great benefit of event gamification is that it can boost the self-confidence of attendees. Completing challenges or winning games can give attendees a sense of accomplishment and improve their confidence. Plus, everyone loves feeling like a winner, so incorporating games with prizes can be a great motivator.

• Generate sales & more revenue: ​​Gamification can also help generate sales and revenue for your event. Incorporating custom game development or challenges requiring attendees to visit certain booths or interact with sponsors drives traffic and interest toward those areas. In addition, you can even sell tickets to specific games or activities, creating an additional revenue stream.
• Improve events management: In terms of event management, gamification can also be a great tool. You can use games to gather data on attendee preferences, improve event flow, and even incentivize attendees to arrive on time or participate in surveys. With the right tools and data, you can improve your event management practices and improve future events.
• Create a sense of achievement: Gamification can create a sense of achievement. Completing challenges or winning games can give attendees a sense of pride and accomplishment, which can be a powerful motivator. Plus, gamification can reward attendees for attending multiple events or engaging with your brand on social media, creating a loyal and engaged community.

The specific purpose of event gamification directly relates to the event’s success. Using game thinking and applying it to non-game systems is much more appealing, engaging, and fun for the stakeholders, whether we talk about customers, actual or potential customers, suppliers, distributors, etc. There are some events where employees, suppliers, and distributors are obliged to participate, like seminars, team building, and conferences.

In these cases, you need to find different ways to make them more useful. If the information is passed across unexcitingly, making it difficult for the audience to comprehend, it may be unable to attain the event’s goal. Hence, Gamification in events is the best approach to involve your audience and get them to hear you. 

Game On: How to Incorporate Gamification Into Your Event.

It’s a great way to educate and immerse your attendees in your event at the same time. Let’s walk you through some vital steps to gamify your next event:

1. Allocate your budget: Before you start gamifying your event, you need to determine how much money you can allocate to the gamification process. This will help you decide what games or activities to incorporate into the event. You can consider the number of attendees, venue, equipment, technology, and prizes. Your budget will also determine whether you need to hire a professional gamification consultant or use an existing platform.
2. Setting goals and choosing the right solution: As an event planner, you must identify the objectives you want to achieve through gamification. For example, you can increase attendee engagement, improve brand awareness, or generate leads. Once you have set your goals, you can choose the right gamification solution that aligns with your event’s objectives. It could be a custom-built solution or an off-the-shelf solution. Ensure your chosen solution is user-friendly, scalable, and compatible with your existing technology infrastructure.
3. Choose the correct gamification strategy: You can broadly classify gamification strategies into competitive and cooperative categories. Competitive strategies create a sense of competition among attendees, while cooperative strategies focus on teamwork and collaboration. Depending on your event’s objectives, you can choose the right strategy. Some popular gamification strategies include points and rewards systems, scavenger hunts, quizzes, and leaderboards.
4. Pick the apps: If you use technology to gamify your event, select the right apps. Various event gamification apps are available, each with features and benefits. You can choose an app that aligns with your event’s objectives, is user-friendly, and provides real-time analytics. Some popular event gamification apps include InEvent, Attendify, and Scavify.
5. Set the rules: Once you have chosen the gamification strategy and app, you must set the rules for the games or activities. The rules should be simple, straightforward, and easy to understand. They should also align with your event’s objectives and the chosen gamification strategy. Before the event, communicate the rules to attendees so everyone knows what to expect.
6. Invite your attendees to indulge in your event in a much better way, creating a memorable event experience for them: Finally, you need to invite your attendees to participate in the gamification process. Communicate the benefits of gamification and how it can enhance their event experience. Encourage attendees to participate by offering incentives like prizes or recognition. During the event, provide real-time updates on the leaderboard, points, or rewards. This will create a sense of excitement and engagement among attendees and make the event more memorable.

Gamification in events is simply voluntary. Make this clear to your event attendees that participation is not mandatory.

Event Gamification: Creative Examples

Are you ready to get your creative juices flowing? Here are a few commonly used event gamification examples:

1. Bingo – Bingo gamification can help you achieve various goals for your event. It is a simple and effective way to improve networking and vendor interaction for your event, such as finding vendors, participating in activities, or connecting with people outside an attendee’s region or country. Attendees would receive a bingo card populated with information based on their preferences. Participants can earn bonus points once completing a horizontal row, vertical column, diagonal row, or board. 
2. Photo Contests – these are a great way to spotlight important event features and encourage guests to interact with sponsors’ products and services. Attendees love to see and interact with visual content. Participants can upload photos in the app and vote on their favorite submissions. Examples could include a selfie station featuring your event logo or a contest that involves taking pictures with vendors’ products. And the best part is you’re in total control of the content—no need to worry about the types of photos your attendees upload. You can manage and edit every image as an administrator in our content management system.
3. Trivia – Event attendees answer questions throughout your event to help them retain critical information. The questions can be related to presentation content or vendor products. Participants can earn points for each question they answer.
4. Creative Lab – Are you launching a new product or service? Do you need creative ideas surrounding one of your business processes? Our creative group activities can help your attendees generate ideas to help improve your business. Integrating games creatives into your event strategy not only enhances engagement but also fosters a dynamic environment where innovation thrives, making it an essential component for modern event planning. To begin, attendees split into teams. The organizer will ask each group to develop creative ideas to improve, promote or apply to a new product or initiative. Each section then presents its views on stage in front of the entire group. Other attendees can invest in the ideas they like the most with digital investment dollars. The winner is the team with the most investment dollars at the end of the presentations.
5. Scavenger Hunts – Digital scavenger hunts can give your attendees tasks based on the areas of your event you would like to highlight. You can provide participants with a long list of tasks to complete throughout the event or smaller lists of tasks released daily. The scavenger hunt tasks can focus on various event features, including sponsor information, meeting content, featured speakers, or networking opportunities.

Summing up

Gamification is a great way to educate the attendees and immerse them in your event simultaneously. Look at it this way: if used correctly, you can get them to indulge in your event much better, creating a memorable event experience.

The above examples are just a tiny sample of how gamification can enhance your event. We can customize a solution that perfectly matches your event type, goals, and atmosphere.

To see event gamification examples live, schedule a brief demo to review and discuss customization options, and reach out to us today. We’re always happy to help!