Show goers are increasingly checking via mobile says ITN

Rating: Steep rise seen in use of mobile devices by pre-registered attendees

An ever-increasing number of preregistered attendees are checking in at trade shows and conferences by presenting barcodes on their smartphones and tablets. Ivan Lazarev, who is CEO with ITN International – a US-based event management specialist (and nothing to do with the UK TV company),  claims to have spotting the trend among attendees globally. At the recent IBC 2012 event which took place in early September [2012] in Amsterdam, Lazarev says that more than one-fourth of the 45,000 pre-registrants for IBC 2012 presented their confirmation code – in IBC’s case, a QR Code – on their mobile devices when they checked in at the show.IBC pre-registrants had received their confirmation codes via email. At the onsite check-in counters, they had the option to present the codes on printouts or mobile devices.

Helpers at the counters used bar-code readers to scan the codes and issue badges, a two-step process that took seven seconds to complete for each attendee.

“The increase in attendees’ use of mobile devices we saw this year at IBC check-in was substantial, but no surprise when you think how important mobile devices have become to business travellers,” Lazarev observed.

“The jump in the use of smartphones and tablets by attendees to check in reflects their growing preference for mobility,” he added.

Lazarev continued, “Every show manager wants to provide his or her attendees a great experience when they check in on site.

In the near future, the definition of ‘great’ will have to include the option to allow attendees to use their mobile devices.”

The video below should prove to the Doubting Thomas’s of this world that mobile devices’ screen are of high enough resolution for QR codes to be read efficiently.