How to Increase Attendee Engagement at Events

Engaging attendees isn’t just a goal anymore, but a lifeline for any successful event. Smart event management software plays a crucial role in creating memorable, high-energy experiences that keep people coming back. Whether you’re hosting a virtual summit, a hybrid conference, or an in-person trade show, engagement has become the new currency of event success.

But here’s the challenge: audience attention is limited, expectations are higher than ever, and the competition is fierce. If your event doesn’t feel interactive, personal, and rewarding, your attendees will check out, physically or digitally. So, how do you keep them tuned in, involved, and talking about your event long after it’s over?

This blog explores how to increase attendee engagement at events using proven techniques, creative ideas, and the right tech stack. From interactive sessions at events to event engagement tools that drive participation, we’ll break down the most effective ways to boost event engagement, no matter the format or scale of your event.

The Importance of Attendee Engagement

Why is engagement such a big deal? Because it directly impacts your event’s success. Engaged attendees are more likely to participate in sessions, interact with sponsors, give valuable feedback, and return next year. Disengaged attendees? They tune out—and never come back.

With event management software, organizers can access real-time event insights, use event attendee tracking, and monitor engagement levels during every phase of the event lifecycle. Engaged attendees also translate into better conversion rates, stronger community building, and improved ROI for your sponsors and exhibitors.

But engagement doesn’t just happen. It requires planning, technology, creativity, and a strong understanding of your audience.

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Top Attendee Engagement Strategies

While there is no specific formula, there are tried-and-tested attendee engagement strategies that consistently deliver. Let’s look at the best ones for modern events, powered by your event management software.

1. Personalize the Attendee Journey

Start strong by using event registration software with custom fields and logic. Gather data about interests, roles, or goals. Then, with event management software with CRM integration, use this data to personalize content, networking suggestions, and reminders.

Send custom emails before the event, use push notifications during the event, and follow up with personalized content post-event—all using your event management platform with marketing tools.

2. Make the Agenda Interactive

Static PDFs are a thing of the past. Modern attendees want interactive event tools like click-to-book workshops, live session Q&A, and drag-and-drop customizable agendas. Integrate these features into your mobile event management app so attendees can plan on the go.

Allow real-time changes, color-coded tracks, and smart recommendations using AI built into your event management software.

3. Add Networking Moments That Matter

Strategically placed networking activities for events help create deeper connections. Think beyond coffee breaks:

• Speed networking
  
• AI-powered attendee matchmaking
  
• Roundtable breakout rooms
  
• “Meet the Speaker” micro sessions
  

Use event networking tools and in-app scheduling to facilitate these connections. You can even track meeting success with built-in lead capture tools.

4. Encourage Questions and Participation

Audience participation techniques are at the heart of interactive sessions at events. Use in-session apps to let attendees ask questions in real-time or vote on discussion topics. Let the audience choose the direction of a panel or Q&A.

This is where your interactive tools for event engagement software and live polling for events come into play.

5. Surprise and Delight

Think pop-up games, surprise giveaways, celebrity guests, or an unexpected swag drop. These keep people excited and talking. They’re not just gimmicks but a part of your attendee retention strategies.

Use your event planning software to time these interactions perfectly and automate alerts through your event mobile app.

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Digital Tools That Enhance Engagement

The tech you choose plays a huge role in your engagement levels. Let’s break down how a modern event management software suite contributes to a fully interactive experience.

1. Mobile App means Central Control

A mobile event app is no longer optional. It centralizes schedules, notifications, networking, engagement, and feedback into one user-friendly hub. Use your app to:

• Push real-time updates
  
• Send the gamification progress
  
• Collect instant feedback
  
• Trigger meeting invites
  
• Promote sponsor booths
  

Smart mobile app tools to engage event attendees allow real-time personalization and help you deliver consistent value.

2. Engagement Analytics and CRM

Using event management software with CRM integration, track every touchpoint. Who attended what session? Who clicked which email? What content performed best?

This gives you engagement heat maps, helps you refine your attendee engagement strategies, and ensures your next event is even better.

Using event software with analytics to improve engagement means making every action measurable and actionable.

3. Interactive Polls, Quizzes & Surveys

Want to know what your attendees think? Ask them, but make it fun.

Tools like live polling for hybrid events, emoji sliders, and image-based quizzes offer exciting new formats for feedback and interaction. Add these tools inside sessions, between breaks, and even post-event.

Make sure your event software with real-time engagement features can deploy and report on these instantly.

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Gamification and Polling Techniques That Work

Gamification in events is one of the most powerful tools to energize attendees, and it’s also a favorite among sponsors looking for visibility.

Best Gamification Strategies for Conferences

• Point systems for attending sessions or visiting booths
  
• Leaderboards with real-time rankings
  
• Trivia contests based on the speaker’s content
  
• Treasure hunts using QR codes
  

The key is integrating these inside your event mobile app using your event management software to track, update, and reward progress in real time.

Pair gamification with live polling for events, and you’ve got an audience that’s not only present but participating enthusiastically.

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Engagement Across Event Formats

Different formats demand different approaches. Modern events are no longer bound to one physical space or a single experience format. With the rise of digital-first strategies, events now span virtual, in-person, and hybrid formats, each bringing unique challenges and opportunities for engagement. The key is understanding that your attendee engagement strategies must adapt based on the type of experience you’re creating. Here’s how to tailor your attendee engagement strategies for every setting.

In-Person Events

Live, in-person events still reign supreme when it comes to organic energy and human connection. But in 2025, attendees expect more than rows of chairs and standard keynotes. They want connection, interactivity, and personalization at every turn.

Here’s how to meet their expectations:

• Offer compelling in-person event engagement ideas: Go beyond coffee breaks. Introduce networking lounges, experiential sponsor booths, silent disco-style listening zones, live art installations, or relaxation areas with massages and mindfulness sessions. These experiences leave lasting impressions.
  
• Enhance onsite operations with event check-in software: A smooth arrival sets the tone for the entire event. Use event check-in software with touchless QR scanning, dynamic welcome screens, and event badge printing to get guests in quickly and safely. Your check-in experience should reflect the professionalism of your entire event.
  
• Use mobile engagement to stay top-of-mind: With a branded mobile event management app, you can push session reminders, send sponsor offers, or alert attendees to surprise happenings (like a flash meet-up or giveaway). Attendees should feel like they have a personal event concierge in their pocket.
  
• Track and adapt with event analytics tools: Your event management software attendee tracking capabilities should show session attendance, app activity, and booth traffic in real time. Use this intel to adapt your engagement tactics on the fly—if a room is half full, send a push notification to promote it.

Virtual Events

Virtual events exploded in popularity out of necessity, but they’ve stayed because of their reach, affordability, and scalability. However, virtual events also come with a major challenge: distraction. Attendees are just one browser tab away from checking out. To boost event engagement, your content and tools must be compelling, interactive, and convenient.

Here’s how you make virtual work:

• Leverage powerful virtual event platform features: Choose an event management software that offers built-in support for breakout rooms, backstage greenrooms, and moderated chats. These spaces allow for small group interactions and help humanize the experience.
  
• Use smart strategies to engage virtual event participants: Think beyond webinars. Include things like virtual photo booths, spin-the-wheel raffles, gamified networking challenges, and live DJ or wellness breaks. These are proven event engagement ideas that keep people logged in and interacting.
  
• Integrate collaborative virtual event engagement tools: Use live whiteboards, co-browsing features, collaborative note-taking, and virtual team-building activities. These elements create a sense of co-creation and participation, even if attendees are thousands of miles apart.
  
• Rely on virtual-native design tools: Avoid duct-taping multiple platforms together. A smart event management software offers all these interactive tools for event engagement software natively, allowing you to craft immersive virtual experiences without juggling separate logins or apps.
  
• Push mobile app engagement: Yes, even in virtual events. A well-built event mobile app complements desktop experiences with personalized schedules, speaker bios, push alerts, and gamified quizzes. This dual-device strategy enhances stickiness and interactivity.

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Hybrid Events

Hybrid events are where things get both exciting and complex. You’re managing two audiences: one physically present and one tuning in remotely. Engagement equity is key here—both groups should feel equally valued and involved. With the right hybrid event software, this balance becomes achievable.

Here’s how to succeed in a hybrid:

• Design mirrored experiences for equity: Your agenda should include experiences that translate well in both formats. For example, run a panel discussion with live questions from the room and chat-based Q&A for virtual attendees. Allow both to vote on outcomes or interact with speakers.
  
• Use live polling for hybrid events: This is a fantastic way to bridge audiences. When you show poll results from both virtual and in-person attendees in real time, it builds a sense of shared presence. Make sure your event software with real-time engagement features can capture and display this data dynamically.
  
• Host hybrid networking with a purpose: Use event networking tools that allow remote attendees to book 1-on-1 video chats with on-site guests, or set up hybrid roundtables with a mix of live and virtual participants. A solid event management software will sync calendars, reminders, and video links natively.
  
• Gamify across both formats: Deploy shared point systems, scavenger hunts (both digital and physical), or trivia contests accessible via your event mobile app. Ensure the leaderboard reflects contributions from both audiences.
  
• Use mobile and web seamlessly: Let the in-person crowd use their event mobile app to check in, vote in polls, and navigate maps, while virtual attendees use a web interface for sessions and chats. The tech should make the difference invisible—it should feel like one event.
  

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Measuring Engagement Success

How do you know it worked? Use your event analytics tools to measure:

• App opens, clicks, and session dwell times
  
• Poll and quiz participation
  
• Connections made via event networking tools
  
• Survey ratings
  
• Social shares and mentions
  
• Booth visits and leads generated
  

These KPIs feed back into your event feedback system and help improve year-over-year performance.

Your event management software attendee tracking system ensures no detail is lost and everything is measurable.

Conclusion

At the core of all successful events is a simple truth: engagement creates memories, builds communities, and drives ROI. By choosing the right event management software, you gain the tools to personalize experiences, spark interaction, and measure impact.

So, if you’re serious about how to increase attendee engagement at events, make sure you invest in technology built for this exact purpose. From mobile app tools to engage event attendees to event software with a ticketing system, the future of engagement is both digital and human, and the smartest events are using both to their full advantage.

Keeping attendees engaged is the key to a successful event. Eventdex makes it easy to deliver that engagement with powerful tools like personalized agendas, live polls, gamification, smart registration, and real-time analytics. From virtual experiences to in-person gatherings, Eventdex event management solution helps you create events that feel meaningful, interactive, and worth attending.

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At Skift Meetings Forum 2025, we are reimagining what it means to participate in a conference. 

With the debut of Keynote Listeners, we challenge traditional ideas of VIP involvement and creating space for deeper, more purposeful engagement. This new program invites influential voices in the events industry not just to attend, but to actively shape and extend the impact of the conversations happening on stage.

Keynote Listeners will play a central role in listening with intent, identifying emerging themes, and presenting meaningful takeaways that resonate far beyond the forum itself.

Now is your chance to see this concept in action and help set the tone for the future of our industry.

Listening With Purpose

Our Keynote Listeners are not just VIPs in the traditional sense, but leaders in the events industry who are hand-selected to play a transformative role at the forum. 

They’ll enjoy exclusive front-row access to every keynote, panel, and discussion. But their role goes much further: to listen intentionally, critically, and with curiosity, then carry the most important insights forward.

These leaders will reflect on what they’ve heard, distill the key themes and ideas, and in the closing session, they’ll take the stage to share their takeaways with the entire audience. 

Beyond the forum, they bring these conversations into boardrooms, association meetings, and policy discussions, ensuring that the ideas born at Skift Meetings Forum don’t end when the lights go down.

Meet the Skift Meetings Forum 2025 Keynote Listeners

Keynote Listeners embody a fresh vision of leadership: one rooted in responsiveness, diversity, and purpose. They remind us that listening — really listening — is as essential to progress as speaking.

We’re proud to welcome this inaugural group of Keynote Listeners, each representing a different corner of the industry:

• Liz Lathan, Club Ichi
• Amy Calvert, Events Industry Council (EIC)
• Nicola Kastner, Event Leaders Exchange (ELX)
• Steve Bova, Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals (FICP)
• Dr. Senthil Gopinath, International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA)

These leaders will help distill impactful insights from the forum and amplify them within the broader professional community.

Why Attend Skift Meetings Forum 2025?

If you care about the future of meetings and events, this isn’t just about being in the room but being part of the conversation that shapes what comes next.

Attending the Skift Meetings Forum gives you the opportunity to:

• Gain actionable insights from some of the most respected voices in the industry
• Be part of forward-looking conversations that influence real change
• Network with peers, innovators, and decision-makers from across the globe
• Experience the debut of the Keynote Listeners program and see its impact firsthand

Read More: Who Attends Skift Meetings Forum?

Reserve Your Spot Today

Tickets for the Skift Meetings Forum are in high demand, and availability is limited. Secure your place now to ensure you are part of this important moment for the industry.

Let’s shape the future of meetings together.

Learn, connect, and get inspired — with the event industry’s who’s who.

September 15 – NEW YORK CITY