Whether it’s an elegant art exhibition, a rocking music show, or a trendy food and wine expo, you need to know how many people are at your event. Only by controlling this information will it be possible to optimize traffic flows, improve service levels, implement security measures, manage queues and plan and market future events more effectively. One solution equips event managers with in-depth insight into all of these factors (and more), and it’s revolutionized event management as we know it: Real-time visitor counting.
◉ What is Real-time Visitor Counting?
Real-time visitor counting is a solution that combines 3D camera technology to capture visitor data and data analytics software to transform data into insight. Visitor counting can be referred to as people counting or footfall counting, but in the context of event management, it is generally called visitor counting.
Advanced 3D camera sensors are placed strategically throughout an event location to dynamically monitor and measure visitors' amount and behavior at an event. The data are collected by integrated analytics software for analysis and visualization on customizable dashboards, heatmaps, or reports. Insights are gathered from customized KPIs and metrics that show, among other things:
▶︎ How many people are at the event
▶︎ How people move around the location
▶︎ How long people stand in-line
▶︎ Where people dwell
With this insight, event managers can improve crowd control, queue management, marketing effectiveness, and revenue management. Let’s explore these factors in more detail.
◉ How does Real-time Visitor Counting Improve Event Management?
Crowd control
Where there are large crowds gathered together, the threat of danger is always lurking. Ensuring the streamlined flow of traffic through an event location is essential to keeping visitors safe. Real-time visitor counters register event occupancy levels with 98% accuracy by counting the number of people entering and exiting in real-time. Occupancy limits can be more effectively maintained in this way to prevent overcrowding. Heatmap analysis alerts event managers to overcrowded areas or bottle-necks holding up the streamlined traffic flow for intervention and deployment of additional staff or security.
Queue Management
While security at large events takes precedent, a positive visitor experience is also extremely important. Various studies have shown that approximately 75% of people will leave a queue if they have to wait longer than 15 minutes. Effective queue management is explicitly linked to the visitor experience and also impacts potential sales opportunities.
A real-time visitor counting solution monitors queue formation, length, and wait times and prompts event management to step in when queues are too long or the wait time exceeds a predetermined value. This enables event managers to deploy additional workforce and open more service points to expedite the queueing process and improve the visitor experience.
Marketing Effectiveness
Because events and exhibitions are primarily focused on businesses making lasting impressions about their products and services, the success of marketing initiatives leading up to any event, as well as the performance of marketing initiatives at an event, are fundamental to the success of the entire event and subsequent events. A visitor counting solution gives you the tools to optimize marketing campaigns according to demographic analysis for targeted campaigns and popular dwell zones and traffic flow patterns for optimum product or marketing material placement. The lead generation and sales conversion results, among other things, can be measured and analyzed to find the most effective marketing initiatives to be replicated and refined for future events. At the end of the day, businesses want to evaluate if their marketing efforts for the events are paying off in terms of ROI.
Exhibitor Revenue Management
An often-overlooked advantage of visitor counting solutions is the data-driven evaluation of prime hot spots and high traffic zones. Heatmap analyses show where people at an event are most likely to move around and dwell, identifying popular hot spots and routes easily. With this data at hand, event managers can charge a premium for those areas, knowing that those exhibitors will see the most traffic and sales opportunities.
Are you ready to host an epic event with all the tools you need to manage it effectively? Then it would help if you learned more about Vemcount, a fully configurable and easy-to-use people counting analytics solution. We offer 18 years of experience and the most advanced technology and BI analytics at affordable subscription-based pricing.
Contact us today!
