Think Business Events & Australian International Education Conference

Learn how Think Business Events executed the Australian International Education Conference in a fully virtual format with the help of Cvent

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85%

Participation rate

1873

Virtual appointments

14,400+

Total session views

"Cvent’s end-to-end solution allowed the Think Business Events and IDP Education teams the confidence to go full steam ahead in pivoting AIEC 2021 due to continuing pandemic restrictions. With such a short turnaround time in adapting the event from hybrid to virtual, it was great having the support of the Cvent team to ensure the event was a success."

Kim Stevenson, Director, Think Business Events

A Foray into Virtual

The Australian International Education Conference (AIEC) is a preeminent event for the international education sector in Australia that has been connecting people and ideas for more than 30 years. This conference welcomes many delegates, speakers, and chairs from the education sector, from around the globe every year.

After the disappointment of having to cancel the 2020 in-person iteration of the event, IDP hoped to move their 2021 event to a hybrid format. However, their plans were dashed. With the ongoing effects of the pandemic and only 10 weeks out from the conference dates, there was no real choice but to run AIEC 2021 in a fully virtual format. As the official organiser, Think Business Events (TBE) had to move quickly and execute their back-up plan to ensure a seamless switch to virtual.

Transitioning with Confidence

Spread over 4 days, the virtual conference was expected to have over 230 speakers, 70+ sessions and a virtual expo with over 50 exhibitors. Despite the complexity of the event, Think Business Events was confident they would deliver. Having used Cvent previously for several other virtual events, the team at TBE knew that transitioning AIEC from a hybrid to a virtual format would be completed with minimal fuss, and they would get timely support from the Cvent Client Services team.

"Cvent has been a core component to organising our events. Having one platform that links registration, programme and speaker management has been a big time-saver. The all-in-one platform has reduced the number of hours we’ve needed to cross-check information across different platforms and spreadsheets.”

Ariane Dwyer, Conference Manager, Think Business Events.

The Virtual Experience

Along with pre-conference processes such as registration and speaker management, the AIEC team utilised the Attendee Hub, Cvent’s virtual event platform, and several of its in-built features like gamification, seamless transition overlay, session duration tracking, feedback survey, and push notification, for both the live days of the conference as well as before and after the live event. Some of the key features that made an impact to the event were 1:1 appointments and messaging, both of which were heavily used, and which led to the creation of 1,873 virtual appointments between attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors.

To ensure everyone got ample opportunities for engagement, the organisers made sure to have inclusive family-friendly social events as part of the programme. This was particularly helpful for those delegates who were in the midst of home-schooling and lockdown. Inviting children and other family members to attend these sessions made the conference agenda more manageable for everyone and created a point of difference.

To boost engagement, the AIEC team and TBE created an on-demand video catalogue to showcase their ‘Inspire’ and ‘World in Focus’ video presentation series, which comprised 60 pre-recorded content-driven sessions. These videos were available on the Virtual Attendee Hub when it was launched two weeks prior to the live event. To prolong the life of the event content, the live session recordings were added to the on-demand catalogue and all 200 sessions (50 hours of learning) were made available up to 3 months after the event.

Proving the Value of Virtual

By leveraging the end-to-end solutions offered by Cvent, coupled with the flexible and expert conference management from the Think Business Events team, AIEC was able to successfully meld virtual networking, learning and fun into a single education conference for delegates from across Australia and the globe.

The virtual conference had a total of 1,225 registrants and saw an overall participation rate of 85% with average session attendance of 56%. The sessions received 9,200 live views and an additional 5,221 on-demand views after the event.

The TBE team also valued the assistance provided by Cvent’s dedicated project team, who helped with everything from troubleshooting and speaker prep to green room and on-the-day support.

All in all, the event marked a successful collaboration between IDP, TBE and Cvent.

“Cvent is a dedicated, customer-focussed and reliable technology partner. We received great feedback from our delegates with regards to the registration and virtual platform experience, and the Cvent team were always professional, timely and easy to work with.”

Josephine Williams, AIEC Conference Manager, IDP Education

About the Company

Think Business Events (TBE) is an experienced professional conference organiser that excels in planning conferences for associations, academic groups, and government bodies.

The Australian International Education Conference (AIEC) is a non-profit event, held every year in Australia, for international education practitioners, teaching staff, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to learn about major industry trends and network with their Australian and international colleagues.

The conference is jointly presented by IDP and the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA). Though IDP retains the intellectual property of the conference and manages all the logistics, the event is co-branded IDP and IEAA.