Blue Dot QR Wayfinding: The Future of Navigating Large-Scale Events

If you’re organizing a large-scale event, it’s important to ensure visitors can easily find their way around.

Blue Dot QR Wayfinding is the new technology introduced by ExpoFP together with Crowd Connected. This tool is designed to help attendees navigate any size event, anywhere in the world, with no barriers to access.

It was first introduced in February 2023 at the annual international gaming and gambling event ICE London. ICE London 2023 took up the most floor space of any event held at ExCel London, and attracted a record-breaking 40,000 unique visitors.

The Importance of Event Wayfinding

A significant challenge for event organizers can be ensuring that visitors are able to easily find their way around the show. Attendees can struggle to locate their next meeting, the booth they hoped to check out or even essential venue amenities. This can lead to wasted time, missed engagements and dissatisfied participants. As a result, business is lost, and the overall value of the event is impacted.

This can be a particular problem for first-time visitors, who can find themselves lost in an unfamiliar environment. And being able to locate specific exhibitors quickly is crucial for managers and other high-ranking corporate officers with limited time. If these individuals leave without achieving their agenda, everyone loses.

Show organizers always aim to keep attendees and exhibitors coming back. Otherwise, they would need to invest significantly in attracting new customers, which can cost 5–10 times more than retaining existing ones.

Until now, the cost of implementing effective navigation inside indoor venues has been seen as a barrier. Popular digital solutions like Google or Apple Maps cannot be used to guide guests indoors because they are unable to map the event layout.

Clarion Gaming’s ICE London 2023

Clarion Gaming, the organizers of ICE London, recognized that show navigation could be a potential issue for the 2023 show. Previous visitor surveys revealed that the enormous size of the event could make getting from place to place difficult.

Andy Ventris, ICE Event Director, explained: “ICE has the biggest footprint of any exhibition at London’s ExCeL, so navigation can be challenging, especially for first-time visitors who are unfamiliar with the show.”

Clarion Gaming turned to us and our partners Crowd Connected to provide an innovative solution for an event that didn’t have a downloadable mobile app.

Event Navigation Made Simple

Now, any event can have interactive, mobile-optimized wayfinding technology that is easy to implement at a low cost. QR codes are displayed in various places around the show, including entrances and key intersections. Scanning a QR code opens the digital floor plan with the current location highlighted — without the need for an event app.

Rebecca Davis, ICE Operations Manager said:

“ExpoFP and Crowd Connected understand the pressures a show team are under in the immediate build-up to the show. Their collaborative approach and can-do attitude was brilliant — they made it super easy for us.”

The Results

For the three-day duration of ICE London 2023, 40,000 attendees were able to use Blue Dot QR Wayfinding to navigate around the event. Visitors used it enthusiastically, with over 16,300 floorplan views generated and each user typically searching the map 4.5 times. Over 750 points of interest at the venue were mapped out, including booths, show features, meeting points, transportation and food outlets.

Event Director Ventris concluded: “The technology delivered excellent results exactly as I hoped — even without a mobile app. I was delighted with how well it worked and how visitors loved having the ability to locate themselves on the show floor easily and quickly.

“We’re back at ExCeL for ICE 2024, and I’m looking forward to working with ExpoFP and Crowd Connected for visitor navigation and unlocking visitor footfall analytics. This valuable insight can help us continue to deliver a great show for our exhibitors and visitors.”

Operations Manager Rebecca Davis added: “I’d recommend Crowd Connected to any organizer looking to make their show easier to navigate.”

Contact us today to see how simple it is to use QR Wayfinding at your next show.