Fill your sessions and help delegates meet the right people

Open your agenda so delegates can pick sessions

Every talk and workshop on your agenda that delegates cannot pick yet waits in Sessions, ready to open. Its title, time and room come straight from the agenda. You add how many people the room holds, a track such as Design or Leadership, and a description delegates see before they choose.

Open a session for picking now, or prepare it and open it when your programme is final. Group sessions by kind and by track, the way your printed programme does, so a delegate looking for every leadership workshop finds them together. You can also add sessions that are not on your agenda, such as a sponsor's breakfast briefing.

Turn on a waiting list for the sessions you expect to fill. When someone drops a session, the next person on the list gets an email offering them the place. Your popular workshops stay full without your team chasing people.

• From your agenda: title, time and room already filled in
• Kinds and tracks: talks and workshops grouped the way your programme is
• Waiting list: the next person gets an email when a place comes back

• Let ticket holders pick the conference sessions they attend

Give every delegate an agenda of their own

Delegates find Your sessions on the order page they already have, with each session's day, time, room and the places left. They pick, drop or join a waiting list, and one button adds every pick to their own calendar. A buyer who booked for colleagues picks for each of them.

If a session clashes with one a delegate already picked, they see which before they tap, so nobody holds two places at the same hour and leaves a seat empty. Delegates need no app and no second account, because their agenda is on the order they received when they bought.

Your team sees each delegate's picks too. Look up any ticket holder, see the sessions they chose and add them to another. This suits a speaker's guest or a sponsor who needs a seat in a full room.

• Pick and drop: on the order page delegates already have
• Clash warnings: before two picks overlap
• Their calendar: every pick added in one step
• Add to a session: your team places a delegate by hand

Make late changes without upsetting delegates' plans

Once delegates have picked a session, its time and places stay as they are, so nobody loses a place or finds a clash they never chose. You can still change the title, room, track and description, which covers the speaker swaps and room moves that come up in the last week.

When a talk moves on your agenda, its session says Agenda time changed, so your team sees the difference and never works from two different times. Ask Fai to make a session from an agenda item or open one for picking, and she shows you the session before she saves it.

• Picks protected: time and places held once delegates have picked
• Everything else changeable: title, room, track and description
• Agenda time changed: flagged when the talk moves on your agenda

Keep each room to the delegates who picked it

Your door team scans each ticket at the room door. The door says Let them in, Already in with the time they first came in, or Not for this session with the reason in plain words. The reason might be that they did not pick it, the room is full, the door is not open yet, the session has ended, or another ticket on the same account already used the place.

The door shows how many people are inside, how many picked the session and how many places the room has. Your room never goes over its numbers and your door team never has to count heads. If two doors scan the same ticket at the same moment, it gets in once.

• Session door: lets in the delegates who picked it
• Plain reasons: every turn-away explained in plain words
• Inside, picked and places: the room's numbers at a glance

• Scan delegates into event sessions at the door and see who came

Put a volunteer on every room door, using their phone

Share a door link for each session, and a volunteer scans tickets from their own phone with no dashboard login. The door page shows each person's first name and ticket type so the volunteer can greet them. It never shows an email address or an order.

Each link opens one session's door and nothing else, and you stop it when the session is over. Ask Fai to make a door link for a session, and she shows it to you before she makes it.

• Session door link: one session, one phone, no sign-in
• Only what the door needs: first name and ticket type
• Fai: makes a door link after your yes

• Let event staff work a desk from their phone with a desk link

Plan next year from the sessions delegates attended

Attendance shows, for every session, how many delegates picked it, came in, did not come and were turned away, with the most and least popular sessions at the top. Size next year's rooms from it, repeat the workshops that filled and rethink the ones that did not.

No-shows are the figure most organisers never see. If many delegates picked a session and never came, you can overbook it next time or move it away from lunch. If a session turned people away at the door, it needs a bigger room.

• Attendance: picked, came in, did not come and turned away
• Most and least popular: your strongest and weakest sessions first
• No-shows: delegates who picked a place and never came

Help delegates meet the people they came for

Switch on the attendee directory and ticket holders see Meet other attendees on their order page. Each delegate chooses what others see, from job title and company to their interests and who they would like to meet. Only delegates who joined can see each other. Delegates who share an interest, such as ticketing or sustainability, are suggested to each other.

Add your meeting places, such as the meeting lounge on level 2, with how many meetings each holds at once, then add blocks of meeting times for each day. Delegates ask each other to meet at a choice of your times, the person asked accepts one, and each booked meeting gets a free table. Nobody, and no table, is booked twice at the same time, and the other person gets every request, answer and change by email. Exhibitors switch on meeting bookings from their own exhibitor page and add what they offer, with their own times, your meeting times, or both. Ticket holders find them in Exhibitors on their order page and book. The exhibitor's team accepts or declines each booking, and you see every exhibitor meeting beside the others in Meetings.

A delegate unsure what to say to a stranger can ask Fai for a first message. She drafts a short note in their language from what both people chose to show, and the delegate edits it and sends it themselves. Fai never sends a meeting request for anyone.

• Attendee directory: delegates join it and choose what shows
• Meetings at your tables: booked at the times you set, never double-booked
• Shared interests: the right people suggested to each other
• A first message: drafted by Fai and sent by the delegate

• Give exhibitors warm leads and sponsors proof of return

Get the room asking questions with live Q&A and polls

Add a Q&A for a keynote or panel, linked to its session on your agenda, and show its QR code on the projector. Delegates scan it with their phone camera to ask questions, vote for the ones they want answered and answer polls, with no app and no sign-in.

Choose whether questions show at once or after a moderator approves them, allow anonymous questions when you want honest ones, and decide whether delegates see poll results after they vote. Your moderator shows, marks answered, hides or puts back each question.

The presenter view puts the top questions in large type with the open poll beside them, so your speaker can read the room at a glance. New questions appear within seconds. When you close a Q&A, every question stays for afterwards, and you can open it again.

• QR code and link: shown in the room, with no sign-in
• Moderation: show, mark answered, hide or put back each question
• Polls: with results for the room or for you alone
• Presenter view: the top questions in large type