We run a rapid-deploy pass company that allows for advanced booking of gameplay demos, experiences, and more. It's just one of our tools, but it's a pretty cool one with massive flexibility. We weren't in use at E3 this year, but maybe we should have been.
What went down:
Several booths handed out paper reservation tickets.
Multiple booths had digital reservation systems allowing for one person to reserve one time slot
This included Nintendo's Warp Pipe Pass which was functionally the same as the above, but featured in E3 emails and on the official website
So, our concept and proof that the HypePass product is useful was on display, but the execution was decentralized. This forced attendees to create multiple accounts with various services to do functionally the same thing. Which means, if they booked more than one appointment, they needed to search email to remember where and with who the appointment was made.
How do we do it differently?
HypePass aggregates all available on-site appointments into one single feed. Rather than a dozen different services, you can just view available appointments on one page. Once an appointment is made, all appointments are available for review in the attendee's private Profile page. It's just way simpler for all involved parties and probably faster to set up and deploy as well.
Ok, so what else?
Flexibility was lacking. Once an appointment was made or a paper was distributed, it couldn't be modified or cancelled. You got your one appointment at your rigid time slot by yourself because no one goes to conventions with friends. If you needed to cancel or couldn't show, there wasn't a way to alert the booth staff, so other people could take your time instead.
HypePass allows for party booking that can be cancelled or rescheduled at any time. Rescheduling is only available when there are open appointment times. This enables you to do a demo with your friends and not try to regroup on the crowded show floor afterwards.
Any last thoughts?
Notifications and alerts were generally absent. Except for a booking at Unreal Garden that was added to my calendar, none of my other appointments sent reminders. Not to mention, some portals required opening websites to verify your appointment; everyone knows convention WiFi is a hit-or-miss gamble.
We circumvent potential reception issues by sending out alerts not only in the attendee's account and email, but additionally via SMS. We use QR codes that, once scanned, verify the attendee's appointment. With three means of access, it's difficult for the product to fail. Alongside the codes, we also send out reminders 15-minutes before the appointment time which gives attendees buffer to navigate to their appointment. We make sure we help everyone be as successful as possible.
We love E3 and going to it every year. It's our belief that integrating HypePass into the overall system would make the show experience far better for everyone from the event organizers down to the attendees. And that's just with the HypePass tool alone.