Eliminate Five Pain Points of Planning Meetings and Locations

When beginning the planning process of any meeting or event, there are many variables to identify. What is the most advantageous location? How much will it cost? What environmental impact will the event have?

More than ever before meeting planners, travel managers and meeting owners need an easy-to-use, intelligent tool that helps eliminate the guess work from planning meetings and events.

Today, we’re introducing Meeting Locator to help address this pain point. Part of the Active Network | StarCite Strategic Meetings Management solution, Meeting Locator uses a patent-pending algorithm that searches an up-to-the-minute, aggregated travel database from our partner, Carson Wagonlit Travel, combined with StarCite’s sophisticated meeting spend platform.

Here’s how Meeting Locator eliminates five key pain points in the meeting planning process:

1. Research and evaluate meeting locations: By leveraging a patent-pending algorithm, Meeting Locator reviews recommendations based on various criteria including traveler and delegate locations, current airfares and hotel sleeping room rates, telepresence options, and CO2 emissions.
2. Review and evaluate travel data: Eliminate the tedious process of researching, gathering, and sifting through loads of disparate travel data. Everything is available via Meeting Locator, saving you time and money.
3. Expedite the approvals process: Incorporated into the approvals workflow, you can use Meeting Locator to evaluate, forecast and make decisions about meetings and events, quickly and easily.
4. Communicate the value of your meetings: Use Meeting Locator to leverage historical travel and cost data and provide more accurate information about the true cost of your future meetings.
5. Reduce carbon footprint: Using Meeting Locator, you can select your meeting location based on its carbon emissions count or available telepresence options. Meeting locator is a great tool to help promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) as part of your meeting or event program.

What are your pain points in the meeting planning process? Share with us below.

Meeting Locator Resources:

• Meeting Locator data sheet
• Meeting Locator information
• Meeting Locator press release

Betty McNulty is a General Manager for Active Network | StarCite, part of  Active Network, Business Solutions. With significant experience in the meeting and event planning industry, she is also a strong advocate for the globalization and adoption of Strategic Meetings Management programs for Active Network| StarCite clients worldwide.

Written By: Betty McNulty

Mobile Suite Launch: Adding Mobile Event Apps to Your Meetings and Events

According to the International Telecommunication Union (2011), 87% of the world now has mobile technology. What does this mean for marketers, event professionals and sales organizations? That mobile is an essential component of our business and a necessity for creating engagement with our key audiences – customers, partners and employees.

Today, I’m pleased to announce the introduction of our mobile suite that provides a portfolio of mobile event apps to address the marketing needs of an organization and for any type, size or complexity meeting and event.

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Written By: Cece Salomon-Lee

Active Network is Added to the General Services Administration Schedule

Today, Active Network announced that its ActiveEvents RegOnline product has been added to the General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule. Under the GSA Schedules program, GSA establishes long-term government-wide contracts with commercial firms. Offered through Active Network’s Events division, RegOnline is now one of the 11 million commercial products and services that has been contractually approved by the federal government and can be accessed at volume discount pricing.

The U.S. government is the largest consumer in the world, spending more than $600 billion each fiscal year on contracts. The contracts under the GSA Schedule help alleviate the complications that vendors and customers face when navigating the rules and regulations of the government market. The GSA Schedule offers fast, flexible, cost-effective procurement solutions that significantly reduce the time and oversight of the acquisition process for both the contractor and the federal customer.

Written By: Cece Salomon-Lee

Active Network Adds One-Touch Social Media Integration to Make Global Event Promotion Easier

The Active Network announces the addition of a social media integration module to its ActiveEvents RegOnline product that makes global event promotion easier for event planners. Clients can now use RegOnline to promote an event on social media sites like Facebook, Eventful, Upcoming and Google. Event planners can then link social media users back to RegOnline to see their event’s official website and access online registration.

Active Network products assist event planners in promoting and running events in their communities and around the world. Active Network provides organizers with software solutions to register participants online and create custom websites for events and conferences of all sizes and types. One-touch social media integration broadens Active Network’s offerings even further and subsequently reduces the workload for event planners while offering an affordable way to increase participation.

Written By: Cece Salomon-Lee

Active Network Announces Release of ActiveEvents Conference 6.2

Today, Active Network announced the release of ActiveEvents Conference 6.2, which features innovative new tools that help grow event communities. Available through Active Network’s Events division, the latest version of ActiveEvents Conference offers organizers the ability to better connect with participants and exhibitors through new features such as:

• iPad™ Onsite Tools for Administrators: Event organizers can now easily view event statistics and onsite activity from an iPad. The tool includes reporting and search capability for key accounts, exhibitors, sessions, attendees, surveys, and registration. Plus in addition to viewing reports, organizers can use “Concierge Check In” on the iPad to check in and print badges for registered attendees who have paid for the event.
• New Updates to ActiveEvents Connect™: A new “Shop Window” page lets exhibitors display contact information, logos, videos, product information, related sessions, and interested attendees. A three-dimensional, detailed profile facilitates attendee and exhibitor connections.
• Price Point Management & Reporting: With improved, centralized price point management, all prices, discounts, and fees for registration packages are managed from one place—a new central Package Pricing page. Plus a Price Point Revenue report makes it easy to see how many attendees or exhibitors have purchased packages at a certain price point or for a certain category. The report also shows projected revenue, compared to actual revenue, for each price point, so your budget stays on track.

To learn more about ActiveEvents Conference 6.2, visit www.ActiveEvents.com. Or download the Conference 6.2 Release Guide.

Written By: Cece Salomon-Lee

Active Network Announces Release of ActiveEvents Conference 5.1

April 15, 2009 – ActiveEvents, part of the Active Network, announced the release of  Conference 5.1 today, with new functionality and refinements that further enhance the latest edition of its leading enterprise management solution. New Features include:

• Lead Management & Retrieval
  ActiveEvents provides a new lead management and retrieval system that now includes data mining, dynamic groups, built-in reports and integrated email capabilities. This new functionality will help exhibitors with better reporting and with ability to follow-up with leads by grouping and sorting with a set of important criteria. Target groups or “Smart Lists” can now be set up beforehand to better qualify leads or sort them into territories, verticals, budgets and more.
• SMS Messaging
  Phase I of this new offering takes real-time polling to the next level. SMS messaging allows keynote speakers to display Adobe Flash-based graphs based on real-time text voting results.
• Enhanced VAT Support
  As more global organizations use ActiveEvents Conference 5.1, VAT support has become an important requirement. These enhancements better enable event owners to manage VAT rules for exhibitors and attendees to be in compliance with local regulations.
• Web Analytics Improvements
  The integrated Web analytics offering, powered by Omniture SiteCatalyst, has been enhanced and expanded to include more tracking variables including valuable survey completion metrics.

To read more about ActiveEvents Conference 5.1 release, visit the conference product page.
Download PDFConference 5.1 New Features

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Media contact:
Dana McKeithen, The Active Network
Dana.McKeithen@activenetwork.com or 858-964-3820

Written By: Cece Salomon-Lee