Concidering gamification for your event? Make sure you'll ask the right questions upfront to select the most suitable tools.
The world of event gamification is big and many event apps have gamification modules as part of the experience. You can gamify steps in the attendee's customer journey like checking in, finding the seating, picking up info materials and answering feedback polls. In such cases, the game is just a fun lightweight activity during your event.
In some events gamification is integrated on a larger scale. A game is then an important part of the event itself (networking, engaging with seminar content, team training) or even the main attraction (charity fundraisers, team building, city rallies).
The engagement of attendees during events is something every event organizer wants to improve. Doing it with a game is a good option. You just need a goal, choose a platform for the game, set it all up and let people play. Connecting games with the main subject of the event can heighten the impact of the event. There are multiple aspects to consider however when setting up the gamification plan for an event. Consider these questions by Loquiz in preparation of the perfect game.
Goal
- What is the purpose of the game? Is there one dominating goal? To have fun, learn some facts, promote a brand, interact with other people in real life, walk around the venue, pay especial attention to the details of the event, explore the local surrounding businesses?
- What is the one main emotion you want the attendees to remember?
- What is the 'hard' knowledge you want people to learn about?
Technical data
- What's your time frame to create a game?
- The duration of the game on your event?
- Size: How many people will be attending?
- Do attendees know each other or not? If not, are they from the same industry?
- Will people be playing individually or in teams?
- Will you want to guide people on specific content order or let them discover freely?
- Will they need a map based on the game to navigate around?
- Will you need indoor questions/tasks?
- What is the availability of data connection in the area?
- Will you provide the devices or can people use their own?
Content
- Do you have some classical corporate 'template' of tasks/questions you can and want to use for the game?
- What is the share of corporate event-specific info you want to use in a game?
- Do you need to transform corporate facts into interesting questions?
- Do you want to use creative tasks, fact questions or logic puzzles?
- Can you visit the location to create location specific questions?
- Do you need to use photos and images within the game or promote a website people should visit?
- What kind of output you need from players' answers? Do you need to poll them, do you need longer text input, do they need to take photos or shoot videos?
Venue
- Where is the event held? In one place or at multiple locations at the same time?
- Is it an indoor or outdoor event?
- If it is an indoor game, will people be playing while seated or they should be moving around?
- Are there specific booths and stands they need to visit or is there a list of tasks they have to complete?
- If it is a city guest, are there objects, activity or drink stations and local businesses to visit?
Team
- How many people in your team will be involved with making the game?
- How many people will be facilitating the game? Running game with an app it can be from 0 to multiple.
- How much does the client want to be involved in the content input of the game?
Outcome
- How is the game wrapped up? Is the winner important or is the playing experience a reward?
- Do you need statistics for the answers the players have given?
- Do you need to administrate the scores and a moderator to give points to the players?
- Do people need to share their game experience on social media (like photos they took)?
Above mentioned aspects will help you to have a discussion to set the goal, choose the right tools and run your event games smoothly. After considering the aspects of gamification at an upcoming event you have multiple options to choose from. One option is to use a special gamification platform like Loquiz which will help you to deal with short lead times and deliver innovative concepts. Check their website for more info on how to create seriously fun game experiences for events:
