brightonSEO, organised by Rough Agenda, is somewhat of a unicorn event. It started life in a room above a pub, and just a few short years later, it now runs biannually, with its April event attracting over 6,000 attendees from more than 100 countries.

Rough Agenda’s approach has always been to create events that are truly of value for the digital marketing community. The team prides itself on its attention to detail and its ability to adapt and grow in line with the dynamic world of SEO. To achieve this, they needed an event technology partner to streamline the substantial exhibitor and sponsor administration, allowing them to focus on delivering fantastic event experiences. 

Tim McGregor, Exhibition Manager at Rough Agenda, knew there had to be a better way to manage the growing number of exhibitors than with a spreadsheet.

“It’s fair to say that our sponsor management was incredibly manual. At Rough Agenda, our relationships with exhibitors and the SEO community are the foundation of our events. To give our exhibitors and sponsors the attention they deserved and the most accurate information, I used to send individual emails with links to individual Google Drive folders that contained all the files I needed to share with exhibitors; PDF exhibitor manuals for example.

Honestly, it was incredibly repetitive and mundane. It was also a real pain to ensure I captured all the orders correctly. Suffice it to say, this was not the reason I got into event management.

Knowing this was a challenge, a member of our senior management team sent me a link to FFAIR’s website. We had a demo with the team and knew straight away that FFAIR was the solution we were looking for. We were super impressed with the platform, and the price was very sensible. 

The platform was not only easy to use and set up, but it also gets easier year-on-year with the ability to copy information from one event edition to the next. I can make any amendments to the Show Information and manual content on the fly as the event approaches, taking just minutes and ensuring all our exhibitors have the same information, reducing any worry about version control.

Exhibitors are able to manage their presence across our events via one single platform, making their lives much easier. We received feedback about the number of automated email reminders the exhibitors were receiving, so I was able to adjust the frequency easily to suit this audience. I can also adapt the information that different sponsors and exhibitors see, so they only receive tasks relevant to them, saving a lot of confusion.

Another advantage is that it’s much quicker to share information with exhibitors. If they have questions, I can send them a link to exactly where in the exhibitor manual the information is held. 

I’m not the only source of information about exhibitor matters anymore. Other team members have access to FFAIR, so they can answer questions from exhibitors as well. This has meant that if I’m onsite for another event, our exhibitors and sponsors aren’t waiting around for their queries to be answered. 

We’ve doubled our sponsorship revenue while reducing the time and resources needed to manage exhibitor deliverables. It’s in our game plan to look into utilising FFAIR’s Shop functionality to improve the sponsorship add-on experience and streamline ordering stand essentials even more.

In addition to the platform, the ease of contact with Lisa and Adam has been fantastic. They reply to any queries quickly and are a real support to the organisers.

FFAIR has significantly changed the way I work for the better. I’m no longer bogged down in admin. Managing exhibitors used to take a significant amount of my time but with FFAIR, I’ve managed to claw back time to focus on what matters most: building good relationships with our partners and exhibitors.”

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Want a better way to manage speakers, sponsors and exhibitors? Check out our revolutionary online exhibitor manual.