What to consider before the event?

Transcription

1 What to consider before the event? Check bookings, participation and interpreter Confirmation of participation Did all participants having B2B meetings confirmed attendance? Confirm participation status on behalf of your participants if you know that they attend for sure (see Annex) Participants should book further meetings Phone participants and ask them to book B2B meetings (if not done yet) Interpreters needed? Download and print the B2B meeting Excel list and check which meetings do need an interpreter The Excel list shows at what table and time an interpreter is needed (once meetings are scheduled) see Annex Meeting room and tables Enough tables? * Is each table equipped with 3 or 4 chairs? * Does each table has a clearly visible table number (1,2,3, ) Reception Desk? Close to the meeting room(s)? On the reception desk participants receives their final meeting schedule Printing Schedules and Participation List Participant List in Excel format 1-2 days before the Event you should print and layout an Excel file showing all participants in alphabetic order Print it and use it to indicate who has registered and picked up the B2B schedules B2B Meeting schedules print it twice 1-2 days before the event B2Match: Menu Reports -> Meeting Plans How to print schedules only for participants having scheduled meetings? See Annex Catalogue Participants Here you can see in a very compact form which participants have meetings at what time and table

2 What to consider at the event? Registration How many persons required for the registration desk? One person can t hand over PDF schedules quickly enough if there are 10 or more persons in the queue Rule of thumb: One person per participants B2B Meeting schedule - Hand out a paper copy to all participants The Meeting schedule has also been sent by to all clients about 2 days before the event The paper copy contains very last minute changes (New meeting requests and cancellations) Every participant must receive the final PDF schedule from the registration desk only these schedules contains the very last updates Inform about last minute cancellations (if already known) If you already know that some participants will not show up inform participants about this Before the B2B meeting sessions Briefing of all administrative staff Who is responsible for what? - - Handing out meeting schedules - - Ring the bell 2 min before timeslots end Meeting room prepared? Table numbers fixed? 2-3 chairs per table? Some participants are joined by a 2 nd person Identifying no-shows Are all B2B meeting schedules from the registration desk handed over to participants? How many PDF schedules are not handed over? Make phone calls and try to locate these participants. How to announce no-shows? If you get informed about very last cancellation inform other participants via - Flip-chart in front of the meeting rooms (Headline Last minute Cancellations write company name below) - announce them in the auditorium (if possible) - inform meeting partners personally about no-shows Brief Interpreters Hand over a copy of the meeting list showing at what time/table interpretation is needed (see Annex) Plenum - Give a 5-10 min introduction how the B2B sessions works (if possible) Has everyone picked-up his schedule, location, start/end/length, Info desk, answer questions, Make sure that coffee and water is available at all times Make sure that B2B meetings start sharp at given time During the B2B meeting sessions Start of meeting / Changing tables Check if everybody is talking with its appropriate meeting partner Search meeting partners for participants sitting alone on a table How to indicate end of meetings? - Ring a bell! Ring the bell 2 min before timeslots end (to indicate the next round will start soon) Make sure that none of the participants is speaking overtime and switching the table in time Make sure that enough assistance is available at all times, e.g. to provide information or bringing the partners together (One support person per participants) Potential success stories? make photos, interviews clients & partners

3 How to manage on-site meetings requests? Manual arrangement of meetings (without computer) Person A wants to talk to person B 1) Organizers check the meeting schedule of B via the Participants Catalogue and identify free timeslots 2) A is informed in case B has free timeslot(s) 3) Event staff is attending A to the table where B has one of the meetings and introduces A to B. 4) B is asked for availability of a non-scheduled talk at the next free timeslot (time/table have to be arranged) 5) Make notes of these additional meetings (organisation A/B; Table / Time) This approach has proven very efficient and successful and can be managed in a few minutes. The day after register all those persons in B2Match and also book/schedule all onsite meeting requests. Participant Catalogue Meetings arrangements with B2Match Requirements: 1-2 laptops Printer Assistants handing out updated schedules to participants The work flow: 1) Participant A want to have a meeting with B, C, D, 2) An online registrations has to be made for A (we suggest event organizers to make the online registration) 3) Event organizers book requested meetings for A 4) Meeting requests have to be scheduled (manually) Schedule meetings to one of the next free timeslots 5) Print schedules for all participants involved via the Agenda links in the scheduler eg: 3 bookings = 4 schedules 6) Assistants hand out the meeting schedules to all persons involved On the schedules you can see when and where (time/table) you can find these persons

4 ANNEX How to manually confirm/cancel participation of a client? 1. Go to your clients Dashboard 2. Click on the Tab: Settings 3. Activate Yes or No for the Participation confirmed question If you select No all meetings (if any) will be automatically cancelled How to book meetings for your clients? 1. Access the Dashboard of the relevant participant 2. Click on Participants in the main Menu Companies attending with more than one person Every person registered to B2Match having activated one of the B2B Sessions can book own meetings or receive meeting requests A company is attending with 2 persons but only one of these persons is allowed to manage B2B meetings? In this case you must de-activate all B2B sessions of the person not allowed to book or receive B2B meetings requests!!! If this 2 nd person already have B2B meetings please inform us, we try to merge the meetings of both persons to one person (e.g. transfer all meetings of person No 132 to person No 121) Of course 2 persons from the same company can join together the B2B meetings If a persons is only attending as assistant (not booking meetings) please delete the person from the database!!! It makes no sense to have 3 persons from one company listed on the B2Match website Have participants confirmed their attendance? It is of utmost importance that participants having B2B meetings really show up How can you manually set the confirmation to Yes or No? If you know for sure that a participant will show up you can manually confirm his participation. Especially focus on those participants having many B2B meetings (see picture below) Use the link Additional Settings in the Participants Dashboard to confirm or cancel participation. If you cancel a participant all meetings are automatically removed from the booking list and the schedule. Interpretation? In the Excel meetings list (Reports -> Meetings & Meeting Feedback) the last column indicate if interpreters are needed. This list also indicated at what time at which table the interpreter is needed. If you know that a participant speaks a certain language (e.g. English), please tick this Language checkbox in the registration form (if not done yet), then all meetings of this participant where the counterpart also speak English are not any longer marked with Interpretation needed.

5 ANNEX Meeting schedules Different Versions? There are 3 different versions of meeting schedules Preliminary schedule To be sent out about one week before the event (works as appetizer and preview) Contains usually 70% - 80% of the meetings Final schedule sent by Scheduled about 1-2 days before the event ~95% final version Final schedule printed version This is the very final version taking into account the very last book requests and cancellations. This schedule should be printed the day before Example of a PDF Meeting Schedule Printing Meeting Schedules for all participants? You can control which participants are listed in the overall PDF schedule file you have to print twice. The two most relevant options for creating the overall PDF schedules file are: a) All participants b) Only participants having scheduled B2B meetings How can you control who is listed in your printable overall PDF schedule? You have to create a user defined participation list first See Menu: Participants --> Button: Edit Lists --> Add list Recommended settings for option b): Participant Status: Validated + Confirmed Meetings: Scheduled Meetings Printing a nice layout participant list It is important that you produce and print a nice layout participant list from the downloaded Excel file. Please arrange (move) the position of the columns as you prefer.