Did this episode sound familiar? Read below, and see how you can avoid a similarly gruesome fate at your events! Human beings are social creatures. They yearn for engagement—in fact, they need it. Live events are a great way to keep people engaged, but sometimes they aren’t enough to hold everyone’s rapt attention. If attendee engagement drops to scary low levels, be afraid, for you may have triggered a zombie apocalypse at your event. Now, the rules for zombies vary from movie to movie and there usually isn’t a cure once infected—but, fortunately, this isn’t a movie… this is event planning. Obviously, when we talk about zombie attendees, we aren’t referring to the flesh-hungry, dead-eyed monsters from horror classics. We’re referring to the event witching hour. It’s the critical time when attendees become so disinterested in your event that they start playing with their phones and zoning out, instead of listening and interacting with what’s happening on stage.
Not all events are created equal—we can’t all be TED talks or happy hours. Sometimes your event’s speakers are a little drier than you expected. Perhaps, your content isn’t exactly resonating the way you thought it would. Don’t fear, modern technology can help you change up your tone and stave off those zombies. Cvent’s SocialWall is the perfect antidote for attendee zombification. Build pre-event hype by embedding SocialWall on your website and creating an event hashtag. Encourage attendee engagement by projecting their tweets, Instagram photos and your own custom posts during the event (let’s face it, people love to see their #selfies and tweets on the big screen).
Attendees will be sure to pay attention to your speaker so they can tweet out the most compelling moments of the presentation. After the event, you can use SocialWall to promote next year’s event by using your event hashtag to post updates and share more content on your website’s embedded SocialWall filmstrip or gallery. A live social media display is extremely effective at deterring zombie attendees. It may be the only surefire solution proven to safeguard events of all types. Better get yours soon, we hear they are in short supply this Halloween season.
