How to Track Your Attendees Efficiently

When  it  comes  to  effective  event  management,  tracking  your  attendees  is  as  important  as behavior measurement, as both play a vital role in the overall success of your event. What if you are  organizing  a  conference  with  multiple  concurrent  events  or  seminar  and  you  have  about 1500  delegates  checked  in?  What  would  be  the  best  tools  you  can  use  to  track  these attendees? Which seminar that they can enter? Which session that they participate in? ­ Wow! It Could be a disaster if we do it manually, right?

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), has several applications including quality management and attendance tracking. To support event management, this technology uses radio waves to locate  attendees  throughout  the  event  space.  RFID­based  event  management  provides  a comprehensive tracking system to monitor the movement of attendees at every critical point of the event through RFID wristbands that are to be worn by all attendees.

How RFID works?

● RFID attendance tracking leverages radio waves that are transmitted and received by a device, known as ‘tag’. A tag is a Radio Frequency (RF) transponder or data carrier, with an attached antenna paired with a microchip. Working in collaboration with the tag is a reading device that is capable of reading the data relayed by the tag.

● RFID Tag ­ May contain a wide range of information for varied purposes. These tags are kept in a body made of paper, plastic or some other material and affixed to a product or its  container,  package  or  pallet.  The  tag  is  probed  by  an  RFID  reader,  after  which  it begins to transmit and receive radio signals.

● RFID  Readers  ­  Range  from  handheld  devices  to  a  portal  to  manage  a  significant number  of  tagged  devices.  One  example  of  such  a  device  is  ‘pallet’.  In  all  cases,  a special  software  solution  is  used  to  collect  and  process  the  information  received.  To track the movement of attendees, RFID readers are placed at multiple spots in the event space, ensuring constant monitoring and effective behavior observation.

How RFID benefits event?
Using  RFID  tagging  to  track  and  measure  attendee  behavior  is  much  more  advantageous compared to barcodes and other traditional methods. Some of these perks include:

● Help collect valuable business intelligence on the inclinations of attendees.

● Tags can be read remotely.

● Different attendees can be tracked simultaneously, as multiple tags can be read at once.

● Unique identification marks can be given to tags to track individual attendees.

● Some  types  of  tags  can  be  overwritten  to  enable  updates,  such  as  information  on movement of attendees from one booth to another.

In conclusion, event with RFID technology addresses the need for effective attendance tracking; whether  you  choose  to  employ  handheld  RFID readers  or  other  types. Given  the  features,  it would be safe to say that RFID event solutions represent a failsafe way for organizers to have complete control over their events, and at the same time, collect valuable market data.