On the UP with Shamir and Transitions

Corporate Event Management

During the last couple months we have been working on a corporate sales event for our clients Transitions Optical and Shamir Lenses.

It’s been an exciting and busy time, whilst Verve isn’t a dedicated events company these sales meetings form an important part of healthcare professional engagement and we have much experience in that! Educate and enthuse sales teams and the message is taken forward.

We managed all the logistics (from choosing the location to organising transfers to …) and content (theme, marketing materials, decorations). It’s been a huge work and we couldn’t be happier of how successful the event was.

In this blog, we are going through the various elements we have taken care of to prepare the event and the strategy we have adopted to make it successful.

Logistics

One of the challenges for this event was the number of attendees (around 70 people).

Additionally, the delegates came from all over Europe with not all of them fluent English speaking. Therefore, we had to involve simultaneous interpreters and all the technical equipment that comes with it. It was like a UN conference!

For the venue, we partnered with Châteauform and found a castle in Germany in a beautiful location. We chose Châteauform because of their different approach from the usual conference hotel; offering beautiful, historical locations with highly skilled chefs where you can feel at home. (www.chateauform.com)

A memorable theme

But the most interesting bit for us was coming up with a concept and create content for the whole event. The theme “UP” came from the client and their objectives for the event. We took it and developed it throughout the event.

We created the UP logo and imagery and used it across marketing materials like presentations, leaflets, and banners. We also created an “above the clouds” atmosphere in the plenary room and dining room with giant helium balloons and UP shaped lights. It was very impactful.

The agenda included a fun activity in the afternoon. We opted for a series of sport activities organised by local experts. The attendees, all divided into teams, would compete against each other in a series of sport disciplines.

We chose to mix up the countries to encourage people who had never met before to communicate and bond through sport. Also, we chose the disciplines to make sure that everyone, with different skills, would be able to contribute somehow to their team. From Archery and tennis to tower building and fire starting. You can imagine with sales teams the level of competitiveness was huge!

The icing on the cake was our UP App (try to pronounce that!). We partnered with Attendify to create a successful app for the event. Attendees were able to register their profile and access key information on the event: agenda, interactive venue map, speakers info and more. They were also able to post pictures and comments on a social media-like wall. This definitely added a bit of fun and it was useful during the presentations. Indeed, attendees could ask questions through the app and the speakers later replied at the end of their presentations and also by commenting in the app directly. This ensured that everyone understood and that key data and statistics that came in the answers would stay in writing for future reference.

The app also allowed more interactivity during the workshop sessions, as we were able to integrate it with Google Forms. People accessed the form through the app and replied in real time. The answers would update instantly on the projected screen. It was great to see how the delegates reacted positively to this interactivity — the first poll had around 30% response with the final polls receiving more than 85%.

At the end of the event we sent out a feedback survey (via the app, of course) and were delighted with not only the positive scores but how much everyone appreciated every aspect of the event.