For organizers, the quest for a smooth, secure, and engaging event is never-ending. Over the past few years, a shift has begun in how technology can be used to elevate the overall conference experience, and the Wicket platform is at the forefront.
Through numerous deployments at large-scale events for some of the biggest companies in the world, we’ve gathered invaluable learnings that underscore the transformative impact of such technology. This isn’t just about futuristic tech; it’s about tangible benefits that streamline operations, enhance security, and ultimately make events more enjoyable for everyone.
Focus on the User Experience
Imagine a world where the frustration of long check-in lines fades into a distant memory and operational concerns such as badge sharing become impossible – this is the tangible reality that Wicket delivers today. By leveraging facial biometric technology, which cannot be lost, forgotten at home, or shared with others, check-in and session access can take seconds instead of minutes – or even hours.
The process is remarkably fast and highly accurate, with consistent performance across all user demographics. Instead of performing a manual lookup of attendee information, showing an ID, or finding an email, users instead simply walk up to an iPad which will identify them in less than a second and display configurable instructions and messaging.
This express check-in experience has been proven to increase check-in times by 3x compared to traditional check-in workflows, and has seen user satisfaction ratings of 99% at select events. The last thing event organizers want is for attendees to be disappointed with unnecessary wait times that take away from the reason they’re there – to enjoy the event.
The Power of Partnerships and Integrations
A big part of the success Wicket has seen in the conference space is thanks to great partnerships and integrations. A great example is our partnership with RainFocus and integration with their industry-leading event management platform. This direct integration has allowed customers of RainFocus to easily add Wicket facial authentication into their event registration process and has seen upwards of 80% adoption rates and 65% utilization rates across all attendees.
This strong partnership has also enabled us to co-develop best practices as it relates to marketing, communications, and operations based on combined industry knowledge. Over the course of 3 years deploying this integration to a marquee customer event, specific aspects of registration and deployment were refined based on prior learnings to increase usage by nearly 300% and to reduce check-in and badge print to as little as 15 seconds from identification to badge print.
Adaptability is the Key To Scale
For anyone who has ever been part of the planning or operations of a live event, one thing is almost always certain: adaptability isn’t just a nice to have, it’s a requirement. This gets even more apparent as event size increases up to tens of thousands of attendees, which means every single operation and workflow needs to be able to scale to those numbers.
Part of the beauty of software is that when implemented correctly, scaling it up is a breeze – which is exactly what happened at Dreamforce, the marquee event for Salesforce. In their first pilot deployment of express check-in powered by Wicket, over 8,000 check-ins were streamlined using what they called Digital Pass, and registration lines were significantly reduced compared to prior years.
Notably, Salesforce measured the time taken for check-in and badge retrieval, and the integration of Wicket into this workflow resulted in a remarkable 3x faster process compared to general badge pickup. This led them to expand the program and make it the primary workflow for attendees at Dreamforce 2024. An impressive 60% of attendees opted in for express badge pickup by providing their photos in advance, and over 20,000 used the technology to check-in in mere seconds. This further demonstrated the platform’s capability to handle a large-scale, high-profile event setting that inherently has many logistical constraints and challenges.
The Future of Event Check-In is Already Here
Wicket uses these learnings to continue building our reputation as an industry leader in conference check-in solutions, and is thankful to our early customers who had the vision to see the value in our platform. Streamlined check-in using biometric technology is no longer a futuristic dream, but a present-day necessity for creating exceptional conference experiences for attendees and staff alike.
