Event digital signage is always exciting. It’s where the TrouDigital solution comes into its own.
On 9th March 2017, over 500 innovators, entrepreneurs and investors flocked to the Winchester Guildhall for Venturefest South.
Venturefest celebrates local business; championing new and growing companies; driving opportunity and inspiring collaboration. TrouDigital were invited to manage digital signage at the event.
It was an honour to help showcase local innovation on our screens. The project used our digital signage solution for a variety of purposes, including:
Programme scheduling
With a packed timetable of talks and pitches across three different ‘zones’, clear scheduling was essential for Venturefest attendees. Fortunately, event digital signage was the perfect solution. A network of screens around Winchester Guildhall displayed the day’s timetable with colour-coding deployed for clarity. An attendee browsing the 60″ programmes was a regular sight and ensured good attendance across the day’s activities.
From an organiser’s perspective, the TrouDigital solution was necessarily flexible. Last minute changes to the programmes could be updated real-time – a crucial feature enabled by the cloud-based nature of the solution. By the afternoon, content managers started removing earlier events from the programmes to ensure simplicity. While it did not prove necessary on the day, had attendance in the ‘zones’ been unbalanced, organisers would have been able to ‘push’ the events that needed a boost by increasing the screen time of particular programmes. This could be a welcome strategy for other events similarly spread out across a venue.
Keynote countdowns
One of the main attractions of Venturefest South were the three keynotes from Fred Jones, Head of Expansion at Uber; Nicole Yershon, Founder of Innovation People; and Kevin Baughan, CDO of Innovate UK. These talks were not to be missed, so TrouDigital wanted to use its event digital signage to create a buzz around them. Our screens displayed speaker profiles throughout the day. Including headshots was a simple touch, but one that made them recognisable. This encouraged attendees to engage them in conversation while they were off stage. The event after all was about opening new dialogues.
Utilising the platform’s powerful schedulability, our event digital signage also included countdown slides to create a hype of anticipation around the keynotes. General playlists that included programmes and sponsorship messages were interrupted 15 minutes before the keynotes to promote the talks and direct attendees to the main room. When the timers hit zero, and the room was closed for the keynote, scheduling automatically commenced as normal.
Sponsor messaging
Venturefest South was made possible by a host of generous sponsors and founding partners. To express gratitude, organisers used our event digital signage to pay homage to Irwin Mitchell, the Head Sponsor, and others including the founding partners, among whom were Southampton, Southampton Solent and Portsmouth Universities. The frequency of these messages was increased by the end of the day at the celebratory drinks reception.
The largest sponsors were most prominently promoted with their own profiles. Smaller sponsors were thanked too, with collective messaging and their logos clearly displayed. The event’s founding partners also enjoyed good coverage on our screens, with their roles in the event publicised. Event digital signage is a brilliant way to show thanks to organisers – the sponsorship of which is not always adequately appreciated.
Innovative signage at an innovative event
Venturefest South was a huge success and TrouDigital were honoured to be part of it. We received some great feedback on our creative use of countdown timers for the keynotes and integrated Twitter feeds #VFSouth17. Organisers were particularly grateful for the solution’s capacity to update content real-time as events like this one can be a little frantic and changeable on the day!
