EventElephant wishes all its readers a festive Christmas

Wherever you are this Christmas and whether it's snowing or the sun is shining, we'd like to wish you a great Christmas and success with all your events.

If you need any help over the holiday period there'll always be someone on hand to answer your queries.

EventElephant wins Innovation, Imagination & Excellence Award

EventElephant’s online events planning software received an award at the MBA Association 's first Innovation, Imagination and Excellence in Business Awards on Saturday November 27, 2010 in Belfast's City Hall.

Una Coleman, Head of Marketing EventElephant, accepting the award with Liam Fennelly, President of the MBA Association, and David Quinn, Partner PWC and sponsor of the award.)

“Four exemplary companies and people were honoured for their innovative approach to building their businesses” including EventElephant, according to the MBA Association.
Sir George Quigley, Chairman of Bombardier-Shorts, the Awards sponsors, who celebrated 100 years of innovation in 2009, told the 200 strong business audience that innovation was not solely the responsibility of business and industry but needed to be applied in the political arena too. He called for Government to revisit the idea of a reduced corporation tax rate for Northern Ireland, to encourage investment and enterprise and to rebalance the economy by building the private sector.
Liam Fennelly, President of the MBA Association of Ireland, the representative body for MBAs (Masters in Business Administration) praised the shortlisted companies: “This is a great opportunity to celebrate the excellent track record of innovation within many companies on the island of Ireland, a record which has enabled them to compete with the best in the world and win.”
The Innovation in Service Development Award was taken by EvenElephant, the online event management and booking system that’s been hailed as “the event organizer’s best friend”.

David Quinn, as sponsor of the award in the service category to EventElephant commented: "In a new world where consumers will play an unprecedented role in product and service development, CEOs are looking to their customers, partners and supply-chain for product and process innovation. Innovation, technology and globalisation are the new partners in a race for corporate advantage and all of us are runners in that marathon". "And in a world where close to 90% of CEOs expect the internet, mobile devices and social media to determine future business strategy , service innovation will become the driver of growth in a shrinking world where borders and time are irrelevant."

The inaugural MBA Association Innovation, Imagination and Excellence in Business Awards were supported by Bombardier Aerospace, HSBC and Queen’s University School of Management.
It was another great outing for EventElephant.

Social Networking is changing the way concert promoters & clubs run their gigs.

We ran a survey back in the beginning of the Autumn to understand how Social Networking is influencing the choices people make about attending music events. The results say it all. Facebook matters!

Here are the results of our survey.

What is your preferred platform(s) to find out about upcoming music events?













How many Facebook music event invites do you receive each week?


Use EventElephant’s Facebook Integration Application to promote your club nights.










If it was cheaper to buy a ticket to a gig, concert, festival, event online - would you prefer to book online?

Sell more tickets online and take secure online payment with EventElephant’s set-up to sign-up music ticketing platform.









How much do you spend on music tickets in a year?

Music remains a key entertainment spend even in recessionary times.
With EventElephant’s marketing tools you can be a LOUDER VOICE for your club nights.








What’s your preferred method of receiving your tickets?

The overwhelming number of respondents are happy to receive their tickets via email. This is cost effective for music and venue promoters and don’t forget your can manage attendee entrance at your events with our EntryElephant barcode and scanning verification
Note, some respondents selected more than one option.




Do you check Promoters Facebook pages for information?

Promoters, there’s alot more you can do to engage with your prospective attendees. Add your events to your Facebook page with EventElephant’s Facebook integration application. Offer promotional discounts on your Facebook page: get your attendees to like your page and keep you in front of mind. We’ll add your details to our EventElephant Faceboook MusicandEntertainment page.



Age categories:













38% of our respondents were female, 62% male.

What's influencing your choices of music gigs you attend?
What will your annual spend be on music events in 2011?
Leave your comments below.

If you’re a music promoter and you want to learn more get in touch with our music man, andy.noonan@eventelephant.com
http://www.twitter.com/andynoonan
facebook.com/musicandentertainment

Winter Latest updates: New features and benefits for Event Organisers

We’ve upgraded our Key Features page, to help you see at a glance all the features of our event planning system: making event planning easier for you.

Our product development teaming are always working away in the background, adding new functionality to our online event registration platform. We also get lots of feedback from our event organisers with suggestions on what would make things easier and better for them.
Here are a few of the things we’ve been working on, including new features which will definitely help boost your ticket sales.

We’ve got some great new features to tell you about which will definitely boost your ticket sales. They’re based on your feedback.



Setting up your event registration website couldn’t be easier with EventElephant’s ticketing software. That’s the first step. Now you need to market your event. Check out all the tools you can use to create a buzz and promote your event: Market Your Event









We’ve upgraded our Key Features page, to help you see at a glance all the features of our event planning system: making event planning easier for you.











EntryElephant: Our barcode and scanning verification to help you manage attendee entrance at your events. You can scan etickets at the point of entry and you can generate name badges










You can now select whatever text is relevant to your event for the Register Now button, eg Book Now or add your own.











To make it clear we have changed the "credit card fee" to Payment charge" everywhere.












You can remove the PDF ticket attachments from confirmation emails: we know some event organisers prefer to send their own branded tickets to their attendees










Keep your comments coming. You want to sell more tickets. We want you to sell more tickets.
If you want to learn more contact your account manager OR marketing@eventelephant.com

EventElephant wins best ebusiness award

Best and Brightest Rewarded for their Contributions to the Online World
The winners of Ireland’s prestigious Eircom Spider Awards were announced at a gala awards ceremony on Thursday 18th of November. EventElephant won BEST EBUSINESS category.
With over 700 attendees, the best and brightest representing hospitality and tourism, entertainment, financial services, education, community, retail, charity to mention some of the categories, were there to acknowledge their peers, creating the online revolution.
According to Stephen Beynon, eircom Chairman of the Judging Panel “There’s a really high quality entry this year. There are people embracing social media as main stream for the first time. The judges were bowled over by the quality of this year’s entries.”



It’s a fantastic endorsement for EventElephant’s online events registration system. We are so proud and pleased to be recognised as THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST FOR OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE ONLINE WORLD.

Photo: Una Coleman and MC Jimmy Carr at the Spider Awards.

EventElephant goes Reality TV

The Only Way Is Essex
Jack and Mark slugging it out on “The Only Way is Essex

The punching is about to get serious on ITV's latest reality TV show, “The Only Way Is Essex” as Mark Wright & Jack Tweed enter the celebrity ring in the next episode against the boys from “Big Brother”. But this time, it’s all in a good cause. The Essex Boys are putting on a fight, Deuces Boxing Special, in aid of charity on Sunday 7th November at 20:00 at the City Pavilion, Collier Row in Essex.

The ITV show will have the cameras present as the latest reality celebrities slug it out in the ring and later, no doubt, slug the champagne at the after match party.
Mark Wright is a budding entrepreneur and club promoter, a business where a boxing skill might well come in handy, to cut a less than fine pun. For a 23 year old his achievements are impressive. His company, Unique Parties, hosts over 100 events a year in venues in London’s West End and Essex. He is about to open his new bar this Friday, Deuces Bar & Lounge in Essex.

And, he’s as comfortable with technology, using social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook to cost effectively promote his events and EventElephant’s online registration platform to sell tickets for Sunday night's fight. With thousands of followers on twitter and Facebook and now a million+ watching the show, he is leveraging his new celebrity status to promote Sunday’s fight night.

What remains to be seen is whether they will be as pretty after the show.

Daily Mail: The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright turns training session with Jack Tweed into Rocky photoshoot
ITV.com: The Only Way Is Essex
Daily Mail: Jack Tweed's best friend Mark Wright makes his own bid for fame in The Only Way Is Essex

EventElephant using social media to set it apart from herd

Irish Tech journalist, Marie Boran recently did a feature piece on EventElephant for the Irish Times, focusing on our social media strategies and how social networking is contributing to our revenue and its impact as a lead generator. You can read her article here.

FOR ONLINE businesses, global reach also means global competition but Dublin-based ticketing firm EventElephant is separating itself from the herd – by tapping into the fast-growing social media scene where word of mouth and “liking” something based on your friend’s recommendation are what sell tickets.

EventElephant was founded in 2008 but already has prestigious clients including KPMG and An Post, and is signing up nearly 500 new event organisers per month across Ireland and the UK.

Catering for smaller companies as well as large-scale events EventElephant is an end-to-end service that includes branded event website, secure online payments for tickets, a Facebook app for event promotion, sales tracking and a contact database that the client can export

The recently added Facebook integration provides an easy “one-click” way for events planners to socialise their event online without getting bogged down in social media strategies.

“We are currently running a survey to look at how social networking is influencing the choices people make about attending music events,” says Una Coleman, the firm’s marketing manager.

“For instance, 63pc of respondents say Facebook is their preferred platform to hear about music events and 48pc say they receive between one and five Facebook music event invites a week.”

Social media is also an important enterprise tool for the company itself; 10pc of new business each month is a direct result of its social networking activity, which includes a blog, Twitter account and LinkedIn group.

“In as much as we can, resources permitting, we manage our presence across all the key social networking platforms. Facebook is becoming a hub for events, particularly entertainment events,” says Coleman.“We’ve had some great wins recently via Twitter including London Air Ambulance, and Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

As well as keen use of social media, EventElephant has also taken another leaf out of the new wave of Silicon Valley start-ups’ handbook: bootstrapping is preferable to relying on external funding.

“Bootstrapping is always difficult, especially when developing very complex software and there is a big investment required in the technology. Operating a ‘lean start-up’ as recommended by Eric Ries, a Silicon Valley author, speaker and consultant, you watch the costs like a hawk and measure everything.”

Where do you hear about music events?

"Social Networking is influencing the choices people make about attending music events".

"Technology is changing the way concert promoters and clubs run their gigs".

We’d like to put some facts behind the anecdotes.

Please take our survey and tell us what you do.

There are 10 questions in our survey below: it will take no more than 3 minutes to complete. And, be in with a chance to WIN an ipod!

Click here to take the SURVEY.

We greatly appreciate your support.

Events marketing service hooks up with Facebook

Click on the article to read.

Summer Special for Dublin Chamber of Commerce Members

In the spirit of the silly season we are delighted to offer all Dublin Chamber members the opportunity to set up their first event on EventElephant for FREE, for events set up by July 31st.

EventElephant is an Online Events Registration system. It’s easy to use. You don’t have to be a techie.

• Create an event registration website in minutes
• Promote your events automatically via Facebook
• Sell you event tickets with online registration
• Take secure online payments for your event bookings

Don’t forget the deadline of July 31. All you have to do is set your event up before the 31st – the actual date of your event can be any date before or thereafter. Leave a comment here that you're a member and we'll send you the promotion code.

Sign up now

EventElephant Integrates with Facebook

~ EventElephant Creates A Buzz For Event Organisers with its Facebook integration application~

Dublin, London, 13 July, 2010
EventElephant, a leading European online event registration provider, launches its new Facebook integration application. Event organisers can now quickly and easily upload their events to their Facebook pages.
“Word of mouth has always been the most effective and low cost marketing strategy for event organisers”, says Eamon O’Brien, CEO of EventElephant. “Now, “world of mouth” and social networking are great ways of letting lots of people know about your event.”


Whether you are a professional event organiser selling tickets online for your music festival or seminar and conference, a university managing alumni events, a training company marketing your training modules, or a sports organiser planning a sports event or fund raiser “socialising” your events will help you increase your ticket sales. With just one click you can upload and publish your event on Facebook. From there, event planners can invite their friends and spread the word.

Social Networking platforms like Facebook are powerful tools to help event planners promote their events. Facebook is reaching more and more users every day and it’s a great way to spread the excitement about your event and reach your target customers. Fernando T. Martin, Life Festival Director comments, “EventElephant’s new Facebook integration is good news for Life Festival and music festival organisers. Our attendees are aged between 20 and 40. They all use Facebook. They all talk to each other about the gigs through Facebook. This is a great opportunity for us to be able to promote our festival and provide a direct link to sell tickets from Facebook.”


Eamon O’Brien, EventElephant’s CEO explains how technology is both revolutionising and democratising the event industry. “You don’t have to be a techie to take advantage of these tools. EventElephant’s easy to use and affordable online event software means all event planners can have professional looking websites, can invite attendees automatically and sell tickets online. With our Facebook integration event planners can now upgrade their marketing into viral conversations and create an online buzz about their event”.


Start Socialising Your Events Today:


About EventElephant
www.EventElephant.com was established in 2008 and is rapidly gaining a reputation as an innovative technology provider in the event management industry. Its event planning technology now underpins events and festivals of all sizes in the UK, Ireland and other countries across the globe. EventElephant won the Best Innovative Start-Up through Digital Enterprise award at the Digital Media Awards 2010. EventElephant has offices in London and Dublin.


Marketing & Media Contact
Una Coleman
Marketing Manager
+ 353 (86) 8186903,
+44 (0)20 34112035

Tips for Green Event Planning & Marketing

Are you planning your events in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner? Some simple actions can make a difference and win you a green badge of responsibility and another way to help you stand out from your competitors. Being perceived as green can bolster your reputation as an event organiser: indeed, many businesses actively promote their “green” practices to enhance their reputation. Many companies have already learned that an increasing number of consumers are demanding more environmentally responsible products and services: you’ll also find that it encourages good business practices among your employees.

We hear a lot about going green in the event marketing and planning industry. Luckily, the worlds of "cost-effective" and "eco-friendly" are converging - in many cases, going green can actually cut costs and time. Whatever event you are organising, it’s easy to go green. Here are some easy ways that EventElephant can help you to support the green movement from within your organization.

1. Be Creative
Why not get your staff together to brainstorm promotional and marketing techniques that cut down on flyers and printed advertisements. Produce environmentally responsible marketing materials and signage. Use ambient media instead of flyers where you can communicate with just as many people with less cost and waste.

2. Use Paperless Technology
Use new media and electronic technology to cut down your paper use. Create a conference web site; offer online registration and confirmation; and promote your event online using the web and/or email. It’s environmentally friendly, reduces your administration costs and your workload!

3. Use the Internet and Social Media to Promote Your Event
Reduce waste and use our online invitation tool to invite your guests to your events. Send them reminders and deliver their tickets online.
Use Social Media to promote your event. EventElephant’s new Facebook integration allows you to post your event to your Facebook page and inform your “friends” of your next event. Eliminating paper and using e- invitations will save you money on postage and printing cost as well as reducing the environmental impact of your event.

4. Use Transport Services
Can you organise buses and car pooling to your gig? How far is the venue from the airport? Is there a shuttle service? Can attendees share taxis? Having your venue in a rural location can mean an overload of traffic and massive traffic pollution: it is the biggest cause of pollution at festivals. Here’s an example of how Sibin Festival 2010 used its EventElephant festival website to organise transport for the attendees: they could book their tickets online but also buy bus tickets online to get to and from the festival: You can build a customised website in minutes and include detail on a whole range of subjects relevant to your event.













5. Sell Tickets Online
Did you know that you can anticipate an increase of 20% in ticket sales when you sell tickets online? And be environmentally at the same time.

Now spread the word! Ask delegates to evaluate the sustainability aspects of your conference, your music festival or golf tournament for instance. You can post a questionnaire on your EventElephant website and email to attendees to fill out after the event. It’s also a good way to build your relationship with your attendees, for future events. Tell delegates and the media about your sustainable practices. You'll be surprised, green efforts are contagious.

Turn your marketing green with us today. Get Started Now!.

Take the stress out of organising your golf event and sell tickets online

We’re all fired up with enthusiasm and renewed interest in our golf game after last week’s fantastic win by Graeme McDowell – the first European to take the coveted trophy since 1970. What an achievement and great day for the Northern Irish man.

Over the next few months most of you are probably going to have busy playing schedules: more of you will be running golf tournaments and competitions, planning corporate and golf society outings. Deliver a successful golf outing and you can be a winner too!

Whether your clients golf on a single digit handicap or just play for pleasure EventElephant, the online event registration system, is here to help you make your golfing events run smoothly and professionally.

EventElephant automates all the essential tasks to help you market and promote your golf event. You can:

• Create a contact database and event contact list.
• Sell tickets online. We know this will increase your ticket sales by at least 20%.
• Set up several ticket categories, including concessions and promotional offers.
• Send promotional emails about your event and manage the responses, attendee sign-up and create name badges.

All that will give you your albatross!

Here are a few tips to running a winning golf society event.

• If it’s a fundraiser get it registered on the website of the charity / charities you are supporting.
• Send out invites early and ensure you collect your funds through EventElephant to avoid cancellations. EventElephant lets you send email invitations for your events straight to your target audience.
• Social networking sites are great for letting lots of people know about your event. It’s easy and cost effective. Just log on to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and send your url to your contacts. With EventElephant’s new Facebook Application, as the event organiser you can automatically and quickly upload details of your event to your Facebook page, getting notice of your event in front of your own friends. Ask your contact list to spread the word and upload to their social networking sites.
  
• Send out reminders 3 days in advance with start times: ask attendees to arrive 30 minutes early to allow time for players to get introduced and find their team members. EventElephant’s email functionality allows you to send an email to everybody who is registered and or invited.
• Remind people to advise you if they’re not available to play so you can reallocate places and reorganise teams.
• If networking is important to the event make sure you get permission from attendees to circulate the attendee list in advance of the event.
• Advise people of the club’s dress code. You can do this in your invitation or reminder. You can also include a section on your EventElephant website on dress code and any other club rules.
• Give clear instructions to all players when they arrive: facilitate introductions to get players quickly sorted into their teams.
• Ensure the teeing off times are kept to schedule. Try booking tee times 4 months in advance to secure the date you want. Business societies usually prefer to get tee times from 1.30pm onwards.

Get Started today: learn more and see what other golf event organisers have done: click here.

“We are running our 6 golf events on EventElephant’s online event registration software. It has made life so much easier for our society golf organisers. We have a great looking website with all the information of the tournaments. We can email our members directly and people can sign up to our mailing list. In fact, we use EventElephant’s registration system as the website for the IFSC Golfing Society. It’s a tremendous resource and so cost effective”. Honorary Secretary, IFSC golf society.

Now go for that hole in one – Eventelephant online event registration software. It’s free to give it a go – just click here.

Balancing a laid back atmosphere while delivering a well run music festival

Life Festival now has it all: an efficiently managed, fun festival, trouble free for both organisers and attendees, providing a personable experience to free spirited aficionados who attended from all around the world for a weekend of music, arts, dance, and culture in Belvedere House Park, Westmeath, Ireland during the June bank holiday weekend 2010.

Smaller than Electric Picnic and Oxegen with a maximum capacity of 5,000, Life Festival is famed for its laid back, relaxed atmosphere and good time crowd. It’s chilled out character and alternative music is what sets it apart for the attendees. Behind the scenes, EventElephant delivers an online event registration system and tools that guarantee success for the event organisers and ensures the festival goers enjoy the music.


This year there were many firsts for EventElephant and Life. It was our first collaboration. Previously, Life Festival used TicketMaster as its booking engine. With EventElephant, Life Festival retains control of the database. This is a great advantage for festival and event organisers. They retain control and have a contact list to market and promote their events in future years.

As well as providing EventElephant’s usual service of tracking sales, creating reports & managing bookings from the one place we introduced our new barcode scanning and verification application which allows the organisers to scan each printed ticket on entry using a barcode scanner.

We sent our “Festivals” man Andy Noonan along to oversee its introduction.
“With a venue like this it is important to control the attendees entering and the ones who shouldn’t be. Entry at the gate was efficient and quick. We caught the few trying to pass off duplicate tickets. Our new system worked without a glitch, ” said Andy.

And, it was good for the attendees too. We talked to Lifer, Eimear Staunton and an event organiser herself, now at her fourth Life Festival. She reckoned this year was her best Life experience yet.
“I loved the venue this year. Good vibes, great music and cool people. The scanner is a great idea, lots of people do use fake tickets and if it helps Life to come back bigger and better next year then that’s even better”

It’s hard to keep track of a large crowd, but with EventElephant’s new barcode scanning and verification application it’s simple.

How It Works
As well as providing EventElephant’s usual service of online ticket registration and payment, distribution and promotion, our new application allows the organisers to scan each printed ticket on entry using a barcode scanner.

To get started you need to:
1. Download the Scanning Application.
2. Purchase a 2D Barcode Scanner.
3. Download the Attendee List and upload it to the Scanning Application.

The organisers upload their attendee list into the barcode scanner and EventElephant emails a pdf ticket to the customer containing the bar code which they can print and bring to the event. Each ticket includes a unique barcode which identifies the ticket. When the ticket is presented for admittance to the festival or show, the barcode is scanned to check validity and a match to the customer database. After the event, the event organiser can upload the attendee numbers and details back into the system for next year’s promotional activities, for instance. It’s that simple!
The Benefits

• Prevents ticket forgery
• Keeps a record of attendees
• Makes the work of the box office simpler
• Easier to manage large numbers
• Record of who has attended and who has not
• Reduced costs through not having to print and post tickets

And the outcome? Easy event planning! Check it out here.

Event Elephant is delighted to be involved with "Europe’s best underground electronic festival" in its fifth and greatest year to date.

" We are glad we used Eventelephant as our management and ticketing system for Life Festival 2010. Having an EventElephant representative on site helped the festival to go smoothly. The Barcode scanning system worked perfectly making the entry to the event really quick for punters and easy for the box-office staff." Fernando T. Martin, Life Festival Director.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE OF SECURING SPONSORSHIP FOR EVENT PLANNING IN THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CLIMATE

The costs of running an event can be significant. Selling tickets online (attendee fees) may not be enough to ensure success and achievement of your financial goals. Securing sponsorship for your event may be a requirement. Professional event organizers will be well versed in the steps to securing suitable sponsors and sponsorship. New event organizers may find it daunting the first time round. All event organizers are challenged in the current climate to secure new sponsors and or retain existing sponsors. But, this is still possible. How? Start early!

The process commences at least a year in advance. Once you have your sponsorship guaranteed you have secured the financial status of the event. This in turn gives you the option of discounting attendee fees or even making the event free to some/all attendees. You can also look at offering a discounted fee for early bird registration, always a great help in managing the significant cashflow issues around event management.

First, as an event organizer, you need to do your homework on your targeted sponsors.

What are their company goals and objectives?
Are your conference / event attendees their target audience and buyers?

To secure sponsorship with any organisation, you need to demonstrate how they can reach their target audience through your event. Have a look at their competition and what they are doing: can you help them establish a meaningful difference through your event, for instance?

Be clear about the benefits. Before you meet them, identify where they will get coverage: on your website, in your newsletters, emails about the event to your database, in the lead up to the event. Placement of their banners at the conference or event itself. Think about a brochure / event booklet and where your sponsors can get mention. Booklets can be a great way of attracting additional funding, for instance, if you are running a charity ball. What about any media activities you are conducting? Can mention of your key sponsors be incorporated?

Professional event organizers need to have an understanding of their sponsors’ business and maintain ongoing good working relationships with their sponsors. Remember that a race isn’t won at the beginning or the end, it’s what you do along the way that counts. And never under-estimate the value of post event follow up meetings and discussions to ascertain what you can improve on/do differently the next time out. Don’t take the money and run. Stay in touch.

If we can help, get in touch: info@eventelephant.com

If you have any wining tips that you wish to share then do get in touch!

Thanks to Marie at Event Management International for her contribution.

The highs and lows of being an event organiser

Eamon O’Brien, EventElephant’s CEO, regaled his listeners at Bizcamp Dublin recently, with his story of how EventElephant came about.


“Who here has organised a large event for business?” Eamon asked his audience. “Did you enjoy the experience, was it a success for your attendees?” The responses were typical: “We struggled keeping track of all the event information”: “Not having an online booking engine or a means of taking payment online seriously impacted our sales”. Eamon knew the story well. Prior to EventElephant he ran his own successful event management company, Event Management International . “Nine years of frustration where I aged significantly” is how Eamon described event management without proper tools.
It all started back in May 2006 and “The Heineken Cup Final Rugby Tour from Heaven (and from Hell).... Munster vs ‘Le French’ from Biarritz – Heineken Cup Final”. (We like our rugby at EventElephant). “I volunteered for the job of event managing the gig”.

Case Study: The Bright Idea (from hell)
The job : Cardiff - Utter Munster Mania / Madness

• 60 adults & 60 kids; 5 hotels
• 2 buses (both ended up dented... driver error!!)
• 2 match (Bective minis vs. Ynysybwl !!)... Up the narrow street of the valleys
• The framed jersey (how to ensure that you are always welcome back!)
• 120 tickets from ERC
• No system, no proper records, no payments, cheques everywhere, some early, some lost
• No system structure...... 3 weeks work – 3 years older!

The outcome

• “It didn’t win me business but.....
• It made me alot of friends and admirers (no other gom (read crazy person) would have taken it on, but today it lives in the memories of 100 people so if I am honest (and it helped that we won) I got a huge buzz out of it”
• “Made me think there HAD to be a better way of doing this.”
• “Here comes EventElephant”

Now we are winning awards for our innovative online event booking technology and we are making event planners lives easier, as confirmed recently by Andy Carr, director of the Sunset Music Group, and the Sunset Music Festival 2010 explains: “We were searching around for a system that could handle the complexities of festival ticket registrations. We needed a system that could monitor and track daily tickets sales and at the same time receive regular income direct into our bank account so we could keep control over the event finances. We are now seeing record ticket sales.” Published in a recent article in Stand Out magazine: (see page 39).
It’s been a long way from Cardiff to here but a great journey so far”

“Event technology is in vogue"

The June edition of Stand Out magazine (see page 39) looks at the impact of technology on event organisers and planners. As a leading provider of online event registration technology, Stand Out sought the views of EventElephant.



“At some point every event organiser will have no choice but to join the online revolution. Not doing so is increasing the risk of becoming uncompetitive, of creating attendee dissatisfaction and of rapidly eroding event margins.”
With online payment technology an event planner can boost revenue. EventElephant research suggests on average event organisers report a 20 per cent increase in attendee numbers when they offer an online registration and payment facility. Attendees are much more likely to take action and to register and pay straight away if they are presented with just an online option. They are more likely to postpone their decision to sign up if they have to confirm and pay by phone or post.
We recently helped the organisers of Sunset Festival 2010. Andy Carr, director of the Sunset Music Group, explains: “We were searching around for a system that could handle the complexities of festival ticket registrations. We needed a system that could monitor and track daily tickets sales and at the same time receive regular income direct into our bank account so we could keep control over the event finances. We are now seeing record ticket sales.” The reality for event organisers is that fully embracing web technology is no longer an option – it is an urgent requirement. Sell your tickets online now. Read the rest of Stand Out’s article here: (see page 39)

EventElephant speakers at Bizcamp

We’re at Bizcamp Dublin this weekend.

Our online event planning tool is being used by Bizcamp to manage online bookings and sell tickets online. And, we’re speaking at the event. Eamon O’Brien, our CEO, is talking about the How and Why of “Effective use of event organisation and technology as a tool for business development in the Noughties.” Eamon is an entrepreneur of long standing. Before EventElephant he’d already established a successful event management business, Event Management International. Eamon spotted a gap in the market for a simple to use and cost effect system to help event planners manage their events with online registration and taking bookings online. Eamon is going to share his entrepreneurial journey and some top tips on event management.
And our Marketing function is there too. Una Coleman will be giving a talk on International Marketing, covering “Preparing Your International Marketing Checklist”, Cross Cultural Marketing, International Social Media Marketing, Competitive Analysis.
If you’re around please drop by to say hello: and we'll give a discount to all attendees to our sessions who set up events. Come along and learn more.

Life Festival 2010 Photo Competition

Do you want a free weekend camping ticket for Life Festival 2010?

Life Festival is giving away 1 Weekend Camping Ticket for Life Festival 2010 happening over the June Bank Holiday weekend, June 4, 5 and 6.

All you have to do to win is post your photo that you believe best describes 'LIFE' to our EventElephant Facebook wall.

The “best” photo wins 1 weekend camping ticket.

The rules – they’re simple. First, like our page: then, post your photo to our Wall. Leave a comment. The photo must be yours. We’ll decide the “best” photo.
Whatever takes our fancy. Yes, you’re at the mercy of our whimsy!

Closing date: Monday 31st May @ 16:00.

We’ll let the winner know via his/her Facebook account.

How Apples iAd Platform Will Transform Mobile Event Advertising

Event Advertising has increasingly struggled in the past few years to capitalise on online opportunities and interaction. Long gone are the days when magazine advertisements alone can generate the level of promotion and excitement that are needed to get the online communities buzzing about an event. Since then we have quickly moved from desktop search, to using Smartphones, and then mobile apps. The growth of apps has been phenomenal, with Apple announcing yesterday they having surpassed the 4 billion mark for apps downloaded. This provides a tantalising market for anyone looking to broadcast their event to a sizeable growing audience right from their mobile device.

Previous attempts at online event advertising centred on using expensive banner advertisement placement on specialist websites, or running Google AdWords campaigns; but neither were able to adequately communicate all the essential information that would convince attendees to register.

Step forward Apple iAd. Yesterday Apple boss Steve Jobs announced the launch of the iAds platform which is looking to add ‘emotion’ into online mobile advertisements. From what we saw at the press launch, Apple iAds has the ability to take event marketing to a whole new level. Once launched the platform will allow app developers to provide advertisement space within their free apps, to effectively monetise them without the user having to spend a penny. With the figures that were released yesterday, this is prime real estate for advertisers to get their hands on.

The real game changer is the way these advertisements are displayed. For instance, imagine somebody using the Yelp app from their iPhone. Sensing a users search for local events within Yelp, an advert appears unobtrusively at the bottom of the app for your event. When the user clicks on the add, a pop up appears with the full page advertisement, giving options to view videos from last year’s event, check out speaker bios, see local accommodation, and most importantly the ability to register for the event. This level of interaction not only gives the user an experience that was never before possible, but will also create an instant connection with the event that would not of been capable with traditional advertising.

As has been seen with many Apple products before, imitation is the highest form of flattery. So it will be no surprise if this level of advert interaction is soon the norm for all online advertising, especially Google AdWords.

The cost of using the new platform is not clear yet, but one thing is for sure, we are moving into a new online advertising era that can be filled with creativity and revolutionary brand interaction and there is no reason why the events world cannot be a part of it.

To see Steve Jobs talking launching the iAd Platform, take a look at the video below.

EventElephant Now Offer Instant Payments For Organisers Through PayPal

Here at EventElephant we understand that sometimes it’s necessary for our event organisers to receive payment for their ticket sales in real time to relieve some of the economic pressures of event organisation. Well, we have put our thinking caps on and are happy to announce that EventElephant can now offer real time payments to PayPal accounts, meaning you do not have to wait until your event has ended to receive your funds!

This new functionality from EventElephant means that as soon as an attendee makes a booking using a credit/ debit card, the funds will be transferred to your PayPal account, ready for you to withdraw.

To take advantage of this new feature from EventElephant, all we ask is that you have a PayPal merchant account. If you would like more information on how to set up a PayPal merchant account you can find more information on their website here. PayPal is as fast, safe and secure as using EventElephant, and is the easiest way for you to receive the funds for all of your events.

We keep our ear to the ground and listen to our organisers needs at all times, and this is a new step in making your life easier, after all EventElephant are an event organiser’s best friend!

EventElephant Win Best Innovative Start-Up through Digital Enterprise Award

We are extremely happy to announce that EventElephant has won the Best Innovative Start-Up through Digital Enterprise award at the Digital Media Awards 2010. A big thank you to the judges who voted for us, and a very well done to the RateMyArea who took Gold, and RAIC Productions who took Silver in our category.

EventElephant won the award for being one of the most innovative and successful start-ups in Ireland with their online event registration product. EventElephant is a revolutionary product for the event sector, which makes it easy for event organisers to plan, organise and manage their events and their attendees online.

“We’re honored to receive this award,” said Eamon O’Brien, CEO of EventElephant. “We were ecstatic at our nomination, and to win is even better, and in such a competitive category is outstanding. It has been a great year for EventElephant and we are only getting better as this award proves".

The Satellite Broadband Ireland Digital Media Awards 2010 took place on 25th February in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Northwood. The industry gathered for these prestigious awards that recognise and reward excellence by showcasing projects, companies and organisations who produce the most stylish, creative and pioneering work in the digital media sector.

With a record number attendees at this year's ceremony, the atmosphere was electric! The MC for the night was Ray Foley with Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for Communication, Energy & Natural Resources as the Guest of Honour.

Keep an eye on the EventElephant Facebook page for photos from the night...coming soon!

Hats on for Haiti Day

The disaster in Haiti is almost beyond our comprehension, with official estimates now putting the death toll at up to 200,000 people. For those who are left behind, there are acute shortages of shelter, food and water, as well as the real danger of widespread disease to contend with. International aid agencies and governments are doing their best to help, but many are already branding the Haiti earthquake as the worst disaster they have ever encountered. They desperately need funds to try to alleviate the cataclysmic suffering being endured by the millions of people in the quake zone.

But EventElephant, along with the support of the Irish Red Cross have found a way for you to use your head to help Haiti - wear a hat to show your support!

Hats on for Haiti Day is supporting the International Red Cross Charities, and all donations collected by the Irish Red Cross will go directly to the International Red Cross' relief work in Haiti.

So what is Hats on for Haiti Day? It's very simple. In order to raise desperately needed funds for the human disaster in Haiti and to show your support for the efforts being made to alleviate the suffering, we are organising a Hats on for Haiti Day on Friday February 5th. To participate, simply click here to register and make your donation, and then wear a hat of your choice for the day (with the agreement of your boss, teacher, responsible adult, irresponsible adult...).

You can have a hat day at school or at work, or organise a hat party with some friends. If you wear a hat for work, perhaps you could customise it for the day to show your support for the Hats on for Haiti day. The only limit to what you can do is your head!