Blog

RainFocus AI Survey Sentiment Analysis: Speedy Survey Support

After your event ends, survey data provides a wealth of valuable information. Organizations can get a jumpstart on their planning for future events by getting answers to the biggest questions: What did your attendees think of the event? Did they like Session A or Session B better? Which networking approaches were most effective? Should you pick a new venue for next year’s conference?

In particular, survey questions that allow open-text responses can surface deep, specific information from attendees that fuels ongoing event improvements and innovation. But of course, first you have to wade through all that text — something that many of our clients said took them way too long. Although manual analysis could work for small events, it couldn’t scale for enterprise events that might involve processing thousands of open-text survey responses.

Analyzing open-text survey responses is now much, much easier with RainFocus AI Survey Sentiment Analysis, introduced late last year.

The tool was developed to address the cumbersome manual analysis needed for open-text survey data. The burden often meant clients would just skip those types of questions, explains Adam Blaylock, product marketing manager at RainFocus.

“They had to serve another question type instead, such as multiple choices or assigning a rating,” he says. “Many were relegated to more niche or narrowly scoped surveys, just because they needed to avoid the hassle of dealing with text-based questions. This affected the availability and usability of qualitative input.”

Now, AI-powered analysis gives instantaneous scoring and sorting so that teams can zero in on what matters.

“Being able to immediately sort feedback into categories — positive, negative, neutral, and invalid — can be especially useful when teams are using surveys as part of gamification,” Blaylock says. “Some attendees will tear through the survey questions just for the points without providing any real information, which makes their input useless.”

Instant survey data for every stakeholder

Event data has always been especially valuable because it serves so many teams: marketing, sales, executives, and more.

To get all the vital information from attendee surveys to everyone faster, AI Survey Sentiment Analysis generates convenient executive summaries. There’s no need to wait for the survey to close: Teams can run sentiment analysis manually whenever they’d like and easily export the results for interim reports or decision-making for on-the-fly changes.

Analysis can also occur automatically after the survey ends. For earlier surveys, teams can even retroactively run the analysis to glean new information.

Given the strong guardrails needed to always protect user data — especially for events — RainFocus’ product team took steps to ensure the addition of generative AI maintained full digital safety and privacy for both clients and their event attendees.

“Most importantly, we have a closed, private instance of our AI cloud model,” Blaylock notes. “Inputs and other content are never used to train the model. They are also not shared with others, and data is segmented by client for full competitive protection. Of course, all features and tools are fully vetted by our security team.”

Looking ahead

Like many RainFocus features, AI Survey Sentiment Analysis can be flexibly applied to address each event team’s unique challenges. As clients move through their event calendar, they’ll undoubtedly discover new applications.

“One use case is applying filters to reduce legwork,” Blaylock says. “For example, if you wanted to know more about pain points that attendees experienced during check-in, you could filter feedback to show only negative comments and then zero in on the check-in topic without having to sift through as much.”

By now, tasks like analyzing text-based responses and answering questions based on data represent solidly established AI use cases. RainFocus’ product teams have already built on this foundational work to develop more nuanced, advanced uses of the technologies.

Most importantly, every feature will be aligned with client needs and the industry’s most pressing challenges.

“There’s a lot that AI can do, but you don’t want to do everything with AI just because you can,” Blaylock says. “Instead, we want to specifically solve problems that we know event managers face.”

Discover RainFocus’ latest AI-powered innovations — and more product enhancements — with this keynote from RainFocus INSIGHT 2025.

May 19, 2025
What Is Agentic AI, and How Does It Improve Event Engagement?

The events industry can’t stop talking about AI and its potential uses. Many conversations in recent years have centered on generative AI, but a major new focus is agentic AI.

What exactly is agentic AI? In short, agentic AI is an autonomous learning model that proactively addresses users’ needs rather than just reacting to them. In a recent AI Journal article, RainFocus CMO Ashleigh Cook noted, “Agentic AI is reshaping how brands interact with audiences—and those who embrace it stand to gain a significant competitive edge.”

This emerging technology presents event teams with several game-changing possibilities, some of which were briefly introduced during our opening keynote at INSIGHT this year. In this post, we’ll dive into what forward-thinking event teams are already doing with agentic AI and share considerations for getting started.

How Teams Are Currently Using AI Agents

Event teams are always seeking to improve their attendee experience. Many used a “more is more,” approach, planning year-round to ensure attendees had an expansive selection of sessions, networking opportunities, meals, and activities to choose from. However, they often found attendees became overwhelmed by needing to decide where to go and who to meet with.

Enter agentic AI. Now event teams can prescribe the right experience to every attendee and help them efficiently get to where they need to go — even if event schedules shift or other elements change. Here’s how:

Session scheduling: Rather than browsing a catalog, attendees can rely on AI agents to recommend and then schedule sessions for them. AI agents predict which session attendees will enjoy based on their registration responses, session favorites, and other actions. They can optimize attendees’ agendas, avoiding scheduling conflicts and preventing wasted time.

Matchmaking and meeting planning: Attendees don’t always know who they want to meet with. AI agents help by matching like-minded individuals who are interested in the same topics, working in the same role, or attending similar sessions. For scheduling, agents detect which times work for both attendees and book an available room. Likewise, agents can help attendees find and book meetings with subject-matter experts.

Wayfinding: AI agents can guide attendees around events. Using room details, agents can answer common questions such as “Where is lunch being served?” or “Where is my next session?” Furthermore, agentic AI prevents attendees from wasting time in transit by identifying which sessions or activities are nearby. Beyond the event venue, it can answer questions about local attractions and provide travel tips.

Facial authentication: Agentic AI can verify attendees’ identities based on their facial features and then instantly check them in. In addition to registration, facial authentication has several other applications, including session access control, gift redemption, and meeting sign-in.

Event logistics and problem-solving: Because AI agents are always learning, they can provide bespoke solutions for less common attendee problems. For example, if an attendee joins a waitlist for a session but doesn’t make it in, an agent can recommend similar sessions, provide a session summary, or schedule a 1:1 meeting with the speaker.

Post-event analysis and engagement: Using what they’ve learned about your attendees, AI agents can offer personalized event recaps and follow-up reminders to drive engagement post-event. They also provide insights into your attendee behaviors, enabling you to make data-driven decisions for future events.

Considerations for Agentic AI

Agentic or otherwise, all AI relies on accurate, updated data to function properly. Fortunately, modern event technology provides ample amounts of behavioral data for AI to sort through, structure, and repurpose.

This is what makes events ideal for agentic AI. That said, human guidance is still very much needed to instruct AI agents on what data to use. Here are a few things to consider as you implement agentic AI into your events:

Centralized data is a must-have. Although AI is powerful enough to pull data from multiple event management technologies, having a single platform for all of your events ensures that data is collected in a consistent format. This makes it easier for agentic AI to recommend experiences and answer questions based on past attendee behaviors. A single platform also maintains security and privacy with attendees’ personal information.

Integrate events into the customer journey. Attendees’ experiences don’t start and end with your event. Whether they are customers, partners, or prospects, they have likely interacted with your brand several times before the event and will continue their journey afterward. Integrating sales and marketing data into your event management technology gives agentic AI a clearer understanding of the entire customer journey, enabling it to personalize experiences further. In return, marketers can expect greater insights into what drives customer behavior. Agentic AI will help them anticipate customer needs and eliminate redundancy in the buyer’s journey.
Request a demo to learn about RainFocus’ AI capabilities.

April 28, 2025
Seven Keys for Efficient Digital Event Branding
Digital event branding plays a critical role in optimizing your event attendees’ journeys. It helps you build recognition, establish authority, and communicate your organization’s key messages.

However, developing a comprehensive branding strategy for the entire event can be time-consuming and complex. In several presentations during the INSIGHT 2025 conference, RainFocus product experts addressed this challenge with a range for best practices for optimizing event design.

Whether or not you are currently using RainFocus to design your digital event experience, consider these seven guiding principles for efficient event branding:
1. Understand the purpose of the event. From vision to design, your event’s purpose shapes every element of your event experience, including branding. Different goals, such as establishing thought leadership, building your community, or generating brand awareness, each require different approaches. A good place to begin is aligning with stakeholders to understand their needs, and then designing your event accordingly.
2. Keep your layout consistent across all web pages. As a rule of thumb, elements such as button placement and sidebars should remain uniform from one event page to the next. This consistency makes it easier for attendees to navigate your experience.
3. Build event branding to last. When possible, design elements that can be repeated year after year. Examples include registration forms, thank-you pages, content catalogs, and digital signage. Doing so will create a familiar experience for return attendees.
4. Adopt a “series” mindset rather than focusing on single events. Strengthen your brand presence by creating a recognizable identity across all your events. Ask, “How will this design scale?” Create templates that provide value across different teams. Consider applying consistent branding elements from large events to smaller events to save time across the event portfolio.
5. When using custom code, employ CSS variables and web components. CSS variables are lines of code that, when changed, will apply across your website. These might include primary and secondary colors, fonts, or other brand elements. Applying them can reduce branding complexity and developer overhead.
6. Prioritize simplicity. Just because webpages can be customized to look a certain way, that doesn’t mean they always need to be. Aim to reduce security risks and tech debt by using available tools to build simple, intuitive experiences for attendees. Overly designed websites take more time to create and maintain, and they can confuse attendees.
7. Think of your event as part of a larger customer journey. Beyond events, seek to establish consistent brand standards across all of your marketing platforms. This encourages a unified brand experience for customers and prospects.
We’ve covered seven keys to optimizing your digital event branding, but why is all of this so crucial right now? As our speakers emphasized at INSIGHT, we’re in a digital era in which attendees expect intuitive design. Your event branding should feel like a natural extension of their daily online routine. As you fine-tune your digital event branding, you’ll improve attendees’ experiences, build recognition year after year, and be better equipped to meet your event goals.
April 16, 2025
Attendee Engagement Strategies for Creating Memorable Events
How do you create a memorable event? There’s the quick, obvious answer: Just add high-profile guest speakers, splashy entertainment experiences, and other big-budget offerings designed to dazzle. But experienced events leaders know that attendee engagement requires much more than pricey gimmicks. In an era of busy schedules, tight budgets, and an abundance of content competing for everyone’s attention, there are no shortcuts.

But prioritizing a few best practices for attendee engagement from the start of the planning process — long before the registration desks open at your event — makes all the difference, as an all-star panel of industry leaders shared at RainFocus INSIGHT earlier this year.

The Experts
- Michele Cole: Director, Global Event & Experience Marketing, Esri
- Rocky Citti: Sr. Marketing Technology Manager, Workday
- Sanya Khera: Senior Product Manager, Intuit
- Ashleigh Cook: CMO, RainFocus (panel moderator)
Here are the experts’ top tips from their INSIGHT discussion:

1. Weave personalization into every facet of the event.

Even at massive conferences with hundreds of thousands of attendees, everyone wants to feel that sessions and experiences were crafted specifically with them in mind. By mapping attendee personas and leveraging them from the start, event planners can tailor experiences to meet needs and interests. VIP attendees and key clients, for example, might want opportunities for exclusive one-on-one meetings. Personalized content recommendations and agendas help all personas create their ideal schedule. During the event, segmented notifications for attendees, staff, and sponsors ensure everyone stays informed and engaged.

2. Encourage networking and interactivity.
As RainFocus executives JR Sherman and Doug Baird emphasized during their opening keynote at INSIGHT, events are all about relationships. Make the most of the unique power that comes from gathering in person by creating dynamic human-to-human experiences.

Pre-event surveys and opportunities for starting to build connections with attendees who share interests or business goals (e.g., through browsing attendee lists and chatting in the event’s mobile app) set the foundation. The panelists also recommended interactive elements, such as Braindates and live polls, to boost attendee engagement during the event.

3. Adapt based on signals and preferences.

Surveys, quick polls, and similar elements not only foster engagement by making attendees feel involved, but also provide clues on what they want to see. Ideally, teams can build in opportunities for flexibility to meet their audiences’ needs on the fly and use real-time data to adapt.

By monitoring attendee signals, such as recurrent themes within questions asked during session Q&A programs, app usage patterns, and other data, they can identify topics and approaches that are the most strongly resonating — and potential additions or modifications to offer, even within the same event.

For example, if a particular session draws unexpectedly large demand but cannot accommodate every interested attendee, repeating the session in a previously designated flex slot on the event’s last day demonstrates attentiveness to attendees’ needs and increases satisfaction.

4. Supercharge analysis through technology.

Everyone wants to attend an event to interact with people — not robots or machines. However, data and technology play a pivotal role in creating memorable event experiences.

The panelists emphasized the importance of data integration to connect data from event registration, session attendance, and countless other sources with marketing platforms and the rest of the tech stack. This connection provides a deeper understanding of attendees, powering personalization and optimizing interactions. Likewise, using generative AI to process and analyze volumes of attendee feedback makes this critical evaluation step more efficient.

5. Keep the community flourishing.

Finally, a memorable event should leave every attendee feeling valued, connected, and inspired. To maintain that positive impression long after everyone has flown home and returned to their daily office routine, continue cultivating a sense of community.

Hosting online spaces for attendees to gather, creating an on-demand library of content for replaying a selection of conference sessions, actively responding to post-event feedback, mailing out distinctive event-related items, and, of course, continuing targeted communications can all boost attendee engagement.

Organizations that take the time to foster lasting connections rather than dropping off after the event ends will build a healthy base of loyalty and excitement by the time registration opens for the following year’s event!

Discover more key takeaways from RainFocus INSIGHT by visiting RainFocus On Demand!
April 11, 2025
“The Nexus of Marketing and Sales”: How to Leverage Event Data

At Adobe Summit 2025, RainFocus’ win as the Adobe Digital Digital Experience B2B Technology Partner of the Year marked an exciting milestone. Fittingly, our executives’ popular conference session, “2025: Revolutionizing B2B Buying Journeys With Meeting and Event Data,” highlighted how events are, more than ever, a critical driver of business impact.

During their session, RainFocus’ Brian Gates and Marius Milcher discussed the impact of integrating events and marketing data using tools like Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) and RainFocus. Co-presenter Hannah Macking, director of digital architecture at Red Hat, followed with an inside look at how her organization leverages event data pre-, during, and post-event to drive customer behavior.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways:

Events Far Outshine Other Marketing Channels in ROI

Most enterprise organizations host anywhere from 500 to 2,000 events each year. These events represent a substantial portion of B2B marketing spend, often ranging from 40% to 50%. This is comparable to the investment in digital channels, which account for 50% to 60% of the budget. However, traditional marketing technologies fall short of addressing this significant spend, making dedicated event technology a necessity.

Events offer much higher levels of customer engagement compared to other marketing channels. The amount of time customers spend reading an email or a digital ad is often seconds, whereas at events, they will often spend upwards of 800 minutes fully engaged with marketing content, Gates and Milcher explained.

Therefore, events provide an unparalleled opportunity to capture first and zero-party data. As technologies advance and preferences evolve, the depth of behavioral data gathered through events is even more critical for understanding customer intent and driving personalized experiences.

Events Are the Nexus of Marketing and Sales

Events can streamline marketing and sales efforts. By integrating events, marketing, and sales technologies, organizations can leverage customers’ touchpoints at events to create a seamless customer journey. Research has shown that event attendance contributes to higher campaign conversion rates, increased deal velocity, and, ultimately, more deals closed.

Red Hat’s Cross-Sell Opportunity Success

Red Hat uses event data to drive customer engagement at every stage of their journey. The process begins with cross-functional alignment around objectives and business requirements.

As Macking explained during the Summit presentation, she and her team then reach out to partners like RainFocus to determine what data will be ingested into AEP and Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). Once the data is integrated, they can recommend data-backed actions to stakeholders based on their event data.

Macking shared a simple example of this process: One of the primary goals of Red Hat Summit 2024 was to identify and act on cross-sell opportunities. Red Hat worked with RainFocus to set up registration forms that asked attendees which products they were most interested in learning about during the conference. All attendee responses were captured in RainFocus and then integrated back into CJA. With this information, Red Hat’s marketing team targeted attendees with appropriate cross-sell messaging during post-event nurture experiences. By connecting RainFocus and Adobe, they harnessed their event data to improve business outcomes.

To learn more, check out the slides and audio from the session.

April 2, 2025
Conversations: Rodney Hart on Breaking INSIGHT Records and a Surprise AI-Powered Hit

With RainFocus INSIGHT 2025 wrapped up, it’s once again time for Rodney Hart, VP of events at RainFocus, to jump into a few of the most important post-event activities: Crunch the data to quantify the multifaceted impact of this annual flagship event, (maybe) finally catch up on sleep, and, of course, sit down and talk about his biggest victories, learnings, and new best practices to share with the industry.

Whether or not you joined us in Salt Lake City or online this year for INSIGHT, our discussion with Hart offered plenty of illuminating takeaways. You’ll also find some honest post-mortem pondering from the leader who planned and executed the INSIGHT program start to finish.

This year marked INSIGHT’s third year as an in-person event (with hybrid and virtual offerings). Intentional, targeted attendance growth was a big story.

“Twenty-seven percent growth is exciting, but seeing 40 percent growth within key demographics for our customers and prospects is even more so,” Hart said. “We’ve built a reputation for a conference that people want to attend.”

All about the content

Attendees packed into sessions in record numbers, too. RainFocus INSIGHT 2025 posted its highest total of concurrent sessions and highest session attendance numbers yet, with strong engagement and many popular presentations quickly attracting standing-room-only crowds. This enthusiasm reflected new heights in session quality and tracks tailored to INSIGHT’s varied attendee personas. For example, differentiated levels of session technicality accommodated attendees’ various roles and experience with the RainFocus platform.

Hart said he and the team have already begun brainstorming areas for additional improvements next year based on survey data. Some attendees, for instance, found the repurposing of the large mainstage space for breakouts made even well-attended sessions feel awkwardly empty. Others wanted to see more rooms more extensively built out with additional equipment for speakers.

“We’re looking to mix around sessions and continue to refine session delivery,” he noted. Based on attendee comments, the team is also exploring ways to add more immersive experiential impact for the most anticipated mainstage sessions, such as the annual keynote from RainFocus executives JR Sherman and Doug Baird.

A surprise breakout hit

One notable success from INSIGHT 2025 nearly didn’t happen: Hart said that the introduction of AI-powered session summaries from Voxo followed a last-minute rush to onboard the vendor and uncertainty over whether attendees would embrace the offering.

“We made it happen,” he recalled. “We gave them the speakers and abstracts, and we produced 62 summaries and had more than 2,000 downloads very quickly. This nearly approached the number of people who scanned in for sessions. We also had 10 clients who wanted to do something similar and followed up with Voxo.”

Human connections

As shown by the success of INSIGHT’s instant session summaries, generative AI continues to play an increasingly important role in events. The technologies also powered and enhanced numerous other processes at INSIGHT, from session recommendations to real-time transcription to rapid sentiment analysis for post-event feedback. Attendees’ conversations and session takeaways, including intriguing early victories for agentic AI, also highlighted the usefulness of practical applications.

Nevertheless, the INSIGHT 2025 theme — Elevating Relationships — serves as a reminder that people attend events to interact with other people. Whether it’s industry titans, familiar longtime peers, or key clients and prospects central to their organization’s revenue goal achievement, human-to-human connections are paramount.

The future of virtual

Given that truth, how are virtual components faring in 2025 within hybrid events like INSIGHT?

“Although we’ve seen lower numbers year-over-year, that really hasn’t diminished the value of virtual,” Hart said. “What it means is that you have to think about how to build and amplify that content you’re producing. ‘If you build it, they will come’ isn’t the case anymore.”

He added that INSIGHT 2025 featured the longest virtual broadcast yet, with significantly elevated quality. As other industry observers have noted, virtual attendees may simply be less willing than in years past to sit and tune in for multiple sessions at an appointed time. Or, as Hart described, they’re “meeting’d out” and may instead prefer to register for the event and then plan on diving into on-demand sessions at their convenience.

INSIGHT’s fully virtual components, such as Premiere and Preparation, have continued to draw high attendance. “This presents more ways of leveraging virtual as we look at the activity around Premiere and Preparation,” Hart explained. “Those are the ‘calendar moments’ where you get to talk to your audience.”

Stay tuned for our continuing post-INSIGHT coverage! We’ve also added sessions for viewing on demand – click here to check out any you missed or revisit your favorites.

March 20, 2025
Recapping RainFocus INSIGHT 2025
Each year, RainFocus INSIGHT provides events and marketing leaders with a place to gather with their peers, learn from subject matter experts, and have fun. Our 2025 conference did not disappoint!

With over 200 meetings attended with each other, our attendees truly embraced this year’s theme of “Elevating Relationships.” These meetings, combined with a range of informative keynotes and track sessions, special evening events, and plenty of familiar faces, made for the best INSIGHT experience to date.

The event is always full of exciting announcements from RainFocus. If you couldn’t make it to INSIGHT or just want to review a few big takeaways, here are a few things we revealed in the keynotes:

RainFocus Announcements From INSIGHT
1. RainFocus launches agentic AI to answer attendee questions. In their opening keynote address, RainFocus president Doug Baird and CEO JR Sherman explained that by already combining event data with CRM and MAP insights, RainFocus is uniquely equipped to train AI to personalize experiences throughout the customer journey. This new functionality was later demonstrated by RainFocus CPO Travis Cushing in his Thursday morning keynote.
2. RainFocus’ current AI-powered solutions are rapidly advancing. In 2024, RainFocus launched AI-powered reports, survey analysis, and recommendations. These recent additions, which have won early praise from clients, have been continually improved and promise to further increase efficiency throughout the event planning process.
3. Becoming RainFocus Certified just got a whole lot simpler. RainFocus’ education design team launched RainFocus Configuration, a collection of courses that will allow users to train on relevant modules. They have expanded the courses available and made certifications specific to bundles, enabling teams to become certified in the skills that are most important to them.
4. RainFocus’ branding profiles and templates will streamline event execution for individual planners. During his keynote, Cushing illustrated how easy it now is for planners to select the components they need for an event and set it up from start to finish. These features, which are designed with field marketers in mind, enable RainFocus users to deliver thousands of unified events with a single platform.
5. On-site hardware is now located regionally worldwide. RainFocus has invested in hardware in various countries throughout the world to speed up shipping and reduce costs for clients.
More INSIGHT Highlights

RainFocus clients and partners played a significant role in the success of the event, whether they served as speakers or provided services that enhanced the attendee experience. Our survey results showed that attendees especially liked the following:

Client-Led Breakout Sessions

With 75 sessions, attendees had a variety of topics to choose from. As always, our client case studies were among our top-attended sessions. A few of the products clients highlighted included RainFocus’ AI, Live Tables, integrations, meetings management, and personalization capabilities.

Panel Discussions

The conference featured five panel discussions featuring the world’s most renowned events and marketing leaders. The panels covered what to expect as a new RainFocus user, how to grow your event career, tips for analyzing mass amounts of data, and how to use AI to drive customer journeys. Each of our panels was recorded for those who missed out.

Sponsor Activations

Finally, our sponsors supplied a range of valuable experiences that enhanced INSIGHT:
- ATWM supported the hotel arrangements and supplied snacks and massages throughout the event.
- VDA brought our event design to life and had a sustainability booth where attendees could reuse event supplies to create artwork.
- Wicket partnered with RainFocus to enable facial authentication for quicker check-in.
- Storycraft Labs hosted their signature Experience Profile quiz to help attendees select sessions and find like-minded peers.
- Fill it Forward offered reusable water bottles, which allowed attendees to give every time they filled up.
- Mixhalo facilitated AI-powered audio translations, transcripts, and audio streaming.
- Komo brought trivia, Q&A, and voting to the mainstage.
- Voxo supplied the technology used to record and create AI summaries for all of our session content.
Stay tuned for more highlights from a memorable conference. In the meantime, you can access session summaries and videos by visiting the INSIGHT website.
March 5, 2025
“Our Work Has Meaning Because of Relationships”: RainFocus Executives Kick Off INSIGHT 2025 With Inspiring Keynote

What will define INSIGHT each year? Traditionally, the official event theme and the eagerly anticipated opening keynote delivered by founder Doug Baird and CEO JR Sherman set the tone for the entire event.

Our INSIGHT 2025 theme is ”Elevating Relationships.” As artificial intelligence and related technological advances rapidly transform the events industry — and shape our careers and daily lives — what happens to old-fashioned human-to-human relationships?

If there ever was any doubt that these relationships remain vital, consider how Sherman described INSIGHT as he and Baird took to the stage: “INSIGHT is like a family reunion!” he exclaimed.

In fact, as the seasoned executives’ presentation made clear, building and strengthening relationships will be even more central to any event. They’re not in competition with technology and automation; at events, each enhances the other.

“RainFocus captures behavioral data to stream and drive personalization and recommendations. That’s the journey, and it evolves into relationships,” Sherman explained. “Events represent trust and understanding. Clicks, opens, and downloads are pieces of data about an individual. But experiences are where relationships are formed. You have face-to-face interaction and can truly understand people.”

Enter agentic AI

On the AI front specifically, Baird highlighted the exciting shift in the events industry from discussion to widespread adoption and expansion. Thoughtfully deployed AI applications free up team members to focus on the relationship-driven work at events.

“AI is becoming agentic,” he said, citing Salesforce’s Agentforce offering at its Dreamforce event as an example. “It’s less about just collecting information and more about taking actions with content. Agents are purpose-built with a specific set of content, user profiles, and actions.”

These applications become even more powerful once agents can talk to other agents, pull centralized data, and understand attendees’ event preferences, he added. Integrations might even allow them to book event travel and purchase needed items for the trip, making the pre-event experience quick and seamless.

“It will have a massive impact on the events world,” Baird predicted. “These agents need to be trained, and people will need to get the data right. This phase is the actions we want the machines to take for us.”

Getting the data right also means everything should be centralized, clean, and easily accessible. “If your data is sitting in multiple places, your AI is less effective,” Sherman pointed out.

De-siloing event data and ensuring all teams — within events and across the organization — can use it to refine their strategies will sound familiar to anyone who’s discovered the benefits of RainFocus over the years. Now, this priority takes on additional importance with the rise of generative AI.

ROI, sales, and your customers

INSIGHT attendees already know how effective events are. In recent years, RainFocus’ increasingly powerful integrations with tech stalwarts like Adobe and Salesforce have helped ensure that value resonates across the organization.

“We believe you are the relationship catalysts, and you can prove it through the data you are collecting,” Sherman said. “We are seeing our customers measure events not just by metrics like the number of attendees, but by the real impact on the pipeline. That’s fully integrated data.”

As event ROI is redefined and amplified, sales engagement will rank as a continued RainFocus priority this year. The RainFocus for Salesforce app and dashboard — providing convenient capabilities for sales reps right in their mainstay application — is continuing to gain momentum.

Finally, both sales engagement and customer-centric relationship-building also got another boost last year, when RainFocus acquired WebEvents Global (WEG), led by founder and principal architect Karis Takiya.

“WEG built a unique process for building event data into the sales process,” Baird said. “They were a pioneer, and Karis is one of the best thinkers in this area.” Takiya, whose extensive career accomplishments show that customer-centricity and data integration are far more than passing industry trends, now continues to innovate within RainFocus as principal integrations architect.

A packed INSIGHT agenda

The executives’ keynote marked the official start of a busy conference schedule. From technical-minded platform updates to peer panel conversations about the biggest industry challenges, every session offered a chance to learn, grow, and — most importantly — connect.

Stay tuned for more recaps of the hottest INSIGHT happenings. We’ll also add selected sessions available in RainFocus On Demand so you can revisit your favorites!

February 21, 2025
Know Before You Go: A Guide to INSIGHT 2025

Our annual INSIGHT conference is just a few short weeks away! With more than 75 sessions, meeting programs, evening activities, and games, there is so much to look forward to this year. To help you prepare for your visit, here’s a guide to what you can do now to prepare, as well as answers to some of the top questions from attendees.

How to Make the Most of Your INSIGHT Experience

1. Build Your Agenda

Our sessions are catching attendees’ attention. Make sure to secure your spot in the ones you are most interested in before space runs out. Log in to your attendee portal to view our catalog and build your agenda.

2. Start Earning Points

Why wait to earn points in the INSIGHT game? Get in the game now by completing our pre-event survey, submitting fun event stories, leaving a RainFocus review, or adding sessions to your agenda. You can be among the first to play our live game at the event and win prizes.

3. Schedule Meetings

INSIGHT is your opportunity to meet with some of the events industry’s leading innovators. Log into Braindate now to schedule meetings, or set up meetings from the Networking page of your attendee portal.

Not registered for INSIGHT yet? There’s still time to join us virtually or in person. Visit rainfocusinsight.com to register or upgrade your pass.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What time does event check-in begin?

A. Our registration and check-in desks will open on Tuesday, Feb. 18, at 1:00 p.m. If you haven’t already, opt into RainFocus Facial Authentication provided by Wicket for a rapid check-in experience.

Q. Which meals will be provided during the event?

A. On Tuesday, we will provide dinner to all those who join us for our opening reception. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will serve breakfast and lunch on-site at the Hyatt Regency. Wednesday night, we will meet up at the Church and State Marketplace for dinner and entertainment. On Thursday, Eventbase will be sponsoring our closing event at Lake Effect across the street from the hotel.

Q. Is there a dress code for the event?

A. Business casual attire is recommended for all event activities.

Q. Are there any nearby attractions I can visit while I am in Salt Lake City?

A. Salt Lake City is full of things to discover. You could go shopping at the nearby City Creek Center, get drinks at The Vault, dine at the Capital Grill, visit the Natural History Museum, uncover family history at the FamilySearch library, or catch a comedy show at the WiseGuys Comedy Club — just to name a few options.

Q. What is the weather forecast for the event?

A. Salt Lake City tends to be cold at this time of year (between 30°F and 40°F). Pack warm clothing if you plan to spend time outdoors.

Q. Who do I contact if I need to change my registration or hotel booking?

A. You can email our team at events@rainfocus.com.

We can’t wait to see you!

February 4, 2025
How to Win Industry Awards for Your Events
The new year is the perfect time to begin thinking about event recognition. Winning an industry award for your successful event not only showcases your hard work, but also builds your profile as an event professional and generates publicity for your organization.

Nominating your event for an award (or multiple awards) is easy when you plan ahead and know what the requirements are for a winning entry. In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to qualify for event awards and submit a great application.

Planning An Award-Winning Event

The best award entries begin with intentional event planning, whether the goal is to win for the most innovative event, most engaging event, or anything else. Here are some considerations for planning an award-winning event:
1. Define your goals with concrete data. Award providers often ask for goals and key metrics to support your entry. Of course, because results are often weighted the heaviest of all entry evaluation criteria, make sure to document all of the most important KPIs early on.
2. Identify ways to differentiate your event. Many award applications ask, “What made your event unique or original?” Rather than repeating what others have done, evaluate new ways to take your content, activations, and networking to the next level.
3. Plan for broad impact. Your goals will determine your event’s impact on your business, your attendees, and your industry. Think about the tactics you will use and the data you will capture to create an influential and memorable experience. Demonstrating your ability to attribute your event to growth and positive changes will make your award entry stand out.
4. Create an immersive experience. As you’re planning the overall event design, consider ways to make the event more visually engaging. These will enhance the event itself as well as photos and videos documenting the event and submitted with award applications.
Preparing Your Award Entry

Once your event is complete, you’ll be ready to submit your award application. Although each award is different, some core guidelines generally apply:
1. Address questions and prompts directly. Read all questions carefully to ensure you’ve supplied all the requested information. If you are applying for several awards with similar questions, it can be tempting to copy and paste previous answers, but make sure to avoid accidentally omitting important evaluation criteria specific to a particular application.
2. Be concise. For long answers, include bullet points, subheads, and line breaks whenever possible for ease of reading. Award judges may have a high volume of entries to read through. Making your submission scannable will make evaluation easier and leave a positive impression.
3. Respond to feedback. Occasionally, you may receive questions or suggestions in response to your entry. Be sure to implement all recommendations promptly for a strong application.
There are many awards programs that recognize outstanding events and other achievements in the events industry. Some notable awards include the following:
RainFocus also presents awards to top-performing event teams. Our annual Innovation Awards recognize customers and partners that demonstrate forward thinking and excellence in their use of the RainFocus platform. These awards are announced during our INSIGHT conference. To learn more or to nominate your team, visit our event website.
January 9, 2025