EFI is a global leader in high-end, large-format printing for commercial clients. The company provides several other services that include printing, productivity software, and Fiery print servers. EFI strives to continue to serve their customers towards the growth and success of their print business. With over one-third of the market share in high-end, wide-format printers, they have over 20 million users of their various products.

With the halt of in-person events due to COVID-19, EFI was forced to go virtual for their yearly January conference. The EFI event team wanted to showcase an engaging and immersive virtual event that went far beyond the typical static webinar platform formats. However, the EFI team at the time was brand new to the virtual events world and did not know all the capabilities. With this, EFI brought in the ProGlobalEvents team to create a visually stimulating 3D conference, powered by XtendLive, to strikingly demonstrate all that EFI has to offer.

Design Challenges

Without the EFI team having much prior knowledge to virtual events, there was a learning curve that went into play during the process of creating this event. The ProGlobalEvents team helped the EFI team understand all the capabilities that the XtendLive platform had to offer.

Once the EFI team gained a better understanding of the capabilities, the ProGlobalEvents team recognized that their event requirements were extremely challenging:

• Create personalized agendas with calendar syncing capabilities for over 1,000 attendees with 450 live sessions over 8 days.
• Send daily reminder emails for the attendees with their personalized agendas.
• Provide 4 different language filters and allow easy access to a global user base of more than 50 countries.
• Create a paid conference and eTicketing site for coupon codes, all-access tickets, and limited access tickets for specific breakouts.

Solution

The ProGlobalEvents team created their annual live user conference with an eight-day 3D virtual experience with a much more engaging interface than a simple webinar. The virtual experience was user-friendly and accommodated the complex set of requirements. Users had shortcut navigation tools to jump into different rooms quickly, as well as see a top-down view of each room. A menu system provided access to all the attendees, a group chat, and the agenda. The inspiration for designing this project came from large and modern expo centers. The virtual location was the San Francisco Bay, and it featured a waterfront plaza at the entrance. The buildings had a modern feel, with large glass walls to see the skyline in the horizon.

The interface included a large lobby to welcome guests and a welcome video from an EFI executive. Attendees were able to view all EFI products through a product showcase exhibit. From the lobby, the users could see entrances to the General Session Theater, two different breakout session rooms, and the large Expo Hall. The breakout rooms hosted different sessions with WebEx recorded meetings.

Result

The EFI conference was a huge success. The users found the site easy to navigate, informational, and interactive. The client met their goal of over 1,000 attendees, and users from 58 countries were able to attend.

From the attendee perspective, the conference provided a visually stimulating and engaging 3D digital experience that didn’t require any downloads and could be experienced on computers and mobile devices. A beautiful, modern conference center featured a waterfront plaza, lobby, general session theater, two breakout rooms, and a large expo hall. Users could walk through, look around, gather information, chat with other attendees and product specialists, view videos, and choose to attend live video sessions from more than 450 agenda choices. 

One of the conference sponsors summed it up by saying, “Having sponsored and attended several virtual events over the past year, Engage 2021 provided a level of attendee engagement that few others have been able to deliver.