Wi-Fi has become a staple at almost every tradeshow. But only recently have event coordinators started to take wireless to the next level with valuable location-based services like wayfinding, proximity notifications, and traffic analytics.
Mist’s virtual BLE solution is key to this transition, as it enables highly accurate location services without relying on battery powered beacons. There is no manual calibration or ongoing site surveys required. And mobile users don’t have to be connected to a Wi-Fi network for it to work.
Recently, we put the Mist vBLE solution to the test at the global sales conference for a Fortune 100 company. Here are some interesting stats:
- Approximately 300 Mist BT11’s were deployed in just 2 days by the event team
- 18,000 people downloaded the application for the event
- 18,000 tags were put on the registration lanyards worn by the attendees
- Over 1,200 people used the wayfinding application concurrently for tune-by-turn indoor directions throughout the large venue
- Over 10,000 people used wayfinding throughout the course of the whole 3day event
- Approximately 30% of attendees used the wayfinding capability more than once
- Mist was able to deliver booth/pod level accuracy for the attendees coming into to view the demonstrations with its Asset Visibility solution
- With the traffic flow analytics in the Mist cloud, insightful data was extracted on congestion points, and traffic movement throughout the 3 days of the event, via the mobile app as well as the lanyard tags
By all accounts, this show was a great example of the ease and scalability of the Mist vBLE solution, as well as the “stickiness” of indoor location services at tradeshows and other events.
In this instance, the BLE was deployed just for the show as an overlay network. If the Mist solution was already in place at the event hall – or better yet, used for both BLE and Wi-Fi at the show – the ROI would be even more incredible.
Location services are a big benefit to event attendees and a strategic tool for event organizers. With Mist, they can finally be deployed easily, cost effectively, and with tremendous scalability.
