Ontario Centre of Innovation Chooses Bizzabo & Klik SmartBadge™ for Events

The Challenge

Elevating DiscoveryX with Top-Shelf Technology

Each year, OCI aims to deliver unforgettable event experiences at DiscoveryX. As an organization laser-focused on innovation, the team always seeks to leverage leading-edge technologies to delight all event participants. 

After taking a break during the pandemic, the OCI team held DiscoveryX 2024, its first in-person event in four years. To ensure attendees have great experiences at their conferences, the OCI team is always looking to roll out innovative event tech solutions that reflect its mission and highlight its commitment to technology.

The Solution

Exceeding Attendee Expectations with Bizzabo & Klik

While attending the Elevate Festival in Toronto, the OCI team experienced Bizzabo, the end-to-end event management solution powering the event. In particular, they were impressed by the company’s Klik SmartBadge™ wearable event tech, a device they believed would help them deliver the high-caliber, truly unique event experience they were aiming for at Discovery X. Klik’s interactive smart badges are designed to boost attendee, sponsor, and exhibitor engagement while delivering an interactive, data-rich onsite experience.

“We were really intrigued to see how the Klik badges worked, and that’s how I got to learn more about Bizzabo,” Pereira continues. “We always want to be able to have bleeding-edge tech, and Klik just felt like a natural fit.” 

In addition to using Klik for networking, the OCI team used several features of Bizzabo’s Event Experience OS, including its website, agenda, registration, email marketing, event app, and sponsor and exhibitor portal capabilities.

The Results

Demonstrating Innovation while Facilitating 15,000+ Contact Exchanges

With Bizzabo and Klik powering the event experience, the OCI team was able to “lead by example,” Pereira says, adding that the solutions helped the organization fulfill its tagline of “where next happens.” 

“It reaffirmed right from the onset what attendees should come to expect from a conference like ours,” she continues. “Klik played a very important role in us being innovative; it seemed like a next-level badging system. Having Klik and Bizzabo as part of our conference was the perfect lead-up to where next is happening. Our executive team used Klik, they were happy with it, and they said we should bring it back next year.”

Thanks to Bizzabo, the OCI team was able to capture reams of data. For example, they learned that the average attendee spent 10 hours and 32 minutes onsite. The average session earned a rating of 4.6 out of 5, and the top attendee connected with over 82 people. On top of this, the team could also easily see which sessions were best attended — data that’s crucial for them as they begin planning their 2025 event.

High-impact networking experiences

Previously, the OCI team wasn’t able to quantify the networking impact at DiscoveryX events. With Klik, they facilitated 15,016 contact exchanges at this year’s event — a figure that “would have smashed whatever number we would have had before,” Pereira explains. 

“With Klik, more than 15,000 contact exchanges were made in a day and a half,” Pereira says. “This proves that people were using the tech the way we wanted them to use it. That number is very important for us because this is a community we are creating for all the tech companies in our area. Klik helped us show how valuable our event is for making connections within that community.” 

In addition to helping attendees meet more like-minded folk, Klik also worked wonders for sponsors and exhibitors. 

“A lot of the exhibitors commented that they benefited from Klik specifically since they didn’t have to use business cards, all contact data stayed in one place automatically, and they could access those contacts easily on their apps.” 

The fact that the contact data is stored in the event app is an added bonus for the OCI team; they encouraged attendees who downloaded the app to keep it on their phones so they could access their new contacts easily and contribute to a vibrant, year-round event community.

Event attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors all sang Klik’s praises during and after the event.

“A lot of people who attended DiscoveryX actually took their badges with them after the event because they wanted to show them to their team,” Pereira says. “They want to implement it at their own events. As an innovation-based organization, we focus on ‘return on innovation.’ If I’m going off that, I think we saw a huge return on innovation from Klik.” 

Seamless registration

With Bizzabo and Klik facilitating a seamless event registration experience, attendees got up close and personal with innovative new technology right from the outset — helping the OCI team deliver memorable first impressions out of the gate.

“The registration experience was completely different,” Pereira continues. “We got a lot of great feedback. People weren’t expecting something like this.” 

Easy-to-use tools  

Whenever anyone deploys new technology for the first time, there’s bound to be a bit of a learning curve. Thankfully, Bizzabo’s intuitive design largely eliminated any implementation headaches. 

“Bizzabo gives you more control over the event website and registration system,” says Palak Verma, lead for the DiscoveryX conference at OCI. “The backend is straightforward and simple; it’s not complicated at all.” 

The few times OCI’s developers encountered issues, the Bizzabo support staff was quick to help find a quick resolution.

“We are seeing huge support from the team,” Verma explains.

The Future

Putting on Bigger and Bigger Events with Bizzabo & Klik

Looking ahead, the OCI team plans to rely on Bizzabo as it continues to scale its event strategy.

As the partnership grows, the OCI team is eager to take Bizzabo’s recommendations about what features they can deploy to strengthen the attendee experience.

“We are looking into using Klik more,” Verma says. “We didn’t use any gamification capabilities last year, and we’re looking to explore that this year.” 

Pereira says she would “definitely recommend Bizzabo” to other event teams; already, the team has encouraged sister organizations to use it. In addition to using Bizzabo for DiscoveryX next year, OCI is also using the technology to power two smaller events with less than 500 attendees each. 

Not only does the OCI team enjoy Bizzabo’s feature-rich OS, but they are also thrilled by the vendor’s responsiveness and support. For example, on the day of their event, the team ran into an issue; Bizzabo staff was standing by to assist swiftly, and the event went off without a hitch.

“We see our relationship heading in a very positive direction,” Pereira says. “Thank you for taking our feedback and implementing it. It shows that you value your customers and are committed to giving them the best experience.” 

Altogether, the OCI event team is more than excited about what the future holds.

“We are thrilled to partner with Bizzabo and look forward to growing our relationship,” Pereira concludes. “Our team is really happy with where we are heading.”