RFID Attendee Tracking

Tracking attendees at conferences, trade shows, and other business events using RFID can be a great way to obtain valuable data that might otherwise not be available. This data can be provided to exhibitors enabling them to make strategic decisions about their booth, sales strategy, and in-booth personnel in order to get more bang for their buck at these events.

When companies sign up and spend thousands of dollars to invest their time and resources into exhibiting at a trade show, they expect results. The company that puts on and manages the trade show is responsible for marketing the conference and ensuring that attendance is high, as well as providing meaningful data once the event has begun. Without RFID, that data would have to be provided by manual counting or manually scanning attendees barcodes are various locations. The labor cost to manually count and scan attendees can add up over the days, and the results are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Instead of manually counting attendees and trying to reconcile the data at the end of each day to provide exhibitors, RFID can automate some or all of the process. Event provided lanyards and ID badge holders carry the RFID tags/cards so attendees can automatically be read by RFID systems located around the conference facility.

Attendee Tracking RFID Tag Examples

Custom RFID Cards & Badges

RFID Inlays

RFID Wristbands

What Type of Data Does an Attendee Tracking Application Provide?

When an attendee with an RFID tagged badge passes an RFID system, the RFID reader can collect information such as:

- Attendee ID
- Location (Based on System’s Set Location)
- Timestamp
- How long the tagged attendee is read
- Direction of travel (if setup with directionality functionality)

While that information does not seem to be the most informative data for exhibitors, that is just the raw information collected by the RFID system. Once that information is collected, reports can be created via software that can provide exhibitors with information such as:

- High traffic areas & times
- Attendees that attended specific seminars, speakers, luncheons, or CEU classes
- Booth attendance
- Traffic patterns and flow
- Length of time attendees were in a booth
- Attendee analytics

What Other Features Can An Attendee Tracking System Provide?

In addition to traffic analytics and information for exhibitors, an RFID tag assigned to each attendee can provide a few other functionalities.

- Scanned for lead retrieval upon entering an exhibitor booth
- Access Control to specific areas like VIP rooms, special seminars, or luncheons
- Personalized experiences
- Payment method for on-site services, upgrades, food services, or seminar access
- Granting CEU certifications upon class attendance