The moment we’ve all been waiting for is upon us — in-person events are coming back! It’s time to start opening your doors, welcoming back your excited attendees and ushering in the highly anticipated return of live events. Before you dive in, make sure you have the best tools and resources at your disposal so you can host a successful reopening. Read on for our list of the must-have tips for your event’s reopening and the tools you need to host tomorrow’s events today.

1. Dig deeper into your data.

You should have all the data from your past events, so put it to use! Analyze your most important historical data, like how far out customers typically purchase tickets, what days and times are most popular, and what activities your attendees enjoy most at your event so you can make informed decisions and better allocate event resources.

2. Transform how you sell tickets.

Consider a new ticketing strategy for your event, like implementing timed entry or reserved seating. Timed entry empowers you to control capacity at individual time slots, stagger attendee arrivals to ensure social distancing and set dedicated cleaning times throughout the day. Meanwhile, adding tables to your venue or utilizing reserved seating encourages attendees to stick to a central location and decrease physical interaction with other attendees. Depending on your event needs, both options can be tailored to fit your venue.

3. Ask the right registration questions.

Gaining a better understanding of who’s attending your event and how to contact them is more important than ever. Consider adding custom waivers and registration questions right on your checkout page to collect additional data from your attendees, like their contact information and location, so you can easily reach out to them later if needed.

4. Stay in constant communication.

Share important information with your attendees before, during and after your event through different mediums so they’re always in the know. Make full use of your event pages by adding event details and refund policies; send attendees automated emails 24 hours before your event outlining your on-site procedures; post your guidelines on social media; and take advantage of the customer data you collected to send targeted communications after your event.

5. Create new event experiences with an event app.

If you really want to set your event’s reopening apart from the competition, an event app is the perfect solution. Enable customers to order and pay for concessions straight from your app, deliver important information with targeted push notifications, and set up mobile reservations so attendees can save their spot in a virtual queue without the need to wait in line.

6. Make the move to contactless admissions.

The key to a successful event reopening is a contactless admissions strategy, so you should consider taking advantage of touchless technology, like RFID wristbands, QR codes and self-serve kiosks. These tools make it easy for your staff to get attendees into your event safely and practically eliminates queuing outside your venue.

7. Put the cash and cards away.

Replace the need for a physical exchange of money with fast, secure cashless payments. Empower your customers to make purchases with a wave of their RFID wristband, so you can not only streamline purchases and reduce queuing across your entire event, but also give customers a contactless purchase experience that saves them time and Purell!

8. Fully immerse attendees on-site.

Even though you’re promoting social distancing at your event, you don’t need to sacrifice any on-site experiences. In between your highly anticipated event programming, consider setting up media activations and gamified experiences attendees can interact with without staff assistance, like digital scavenger hunts, self-service photo and video booths, scan-to-win activations and more.

9. Remember to live stream!

Just because in-person events are returning doesn’t mean virtual experiences are going away. If you’ve explored hosting online events, you’ve probably gained a few new virtual followers, so consider live streaming your in-person events for these new audiences. Live streams and virtual meet and greets are still a great way to engage expansive audiences and drive additional streams of revenue.

Ready to take control of your event reopening strategy? Patron Technology has you covered. Contact our team for more information on how our complete technology solution can help you host a fully contactless event, control event capacity, gain deeper insights and so much more.

This article was sponsored by Patron Technology.