The Great West Truck Show (GWTS) and the Great American Trucking Show (GATS) attract 16,524 and 44,669 attendees respectively, resulting in some pretty long lines at on-site registration. In order to improve the attendee experience and decrease wait times for the truckers and trucking executives who attend the shows, Randall-Reilly Events Group, owner of the Truck Shows, turned to a technology additional attendee communication or education about it. Each easy-to-follow screen prompted attendees for the necessary information, guiding them through the process.

The technology allows preregistered attendees to type in either their name or a badge number, which was mailed to them prior to the show, confirm their identity, and print out their badges. And because pre-registered attendees don’t have to pay to attend the Truck Show, the machines didn’t need to take payments. “We felt that self-serve systems were common enough in everyday places that attendees would be comfortable with the option,” Sims says. “Additionally, the system was very user friendly and we had a representative available to assist any attendee that had a question or experienced a problem.”

While convenience and a smoother attendee experience were the main reasons for implementing self-registration, the technology also offered a slight savings in labor costs. “Where at traditional registration we need one representative per counter, self-registration allows us to only have one assistant for every three or four counters,” Sims says.

This year, the company offered for the first time a self-service registration option in addition to the standard staffed registration. “We knew preregistered attendees in other industries like the convenience of being able to quickly print their own badges,” says Alan Sims,Vice President and Executive Director of the Randall- Reilly Events Group. “We expected self-registration to reduce wait times for show entry and require less manpower than traditional registration, but because this was the first year we implemented self-registration, we weren’t sure if our attendees would take advantage of it.”

That concern never became an issue. At GWTS, held in Las Vegas in June, lines at the two self-serve registration counters were much longer than those at the six staffed registration counters. “Surprisingly, our biggest challenge at times came from having to convince attendees to use the manned registration counters,” Sims says. “The majority of attendees definitely preferred the self-registration concept, to the point where they would choose a significantly longer self-registration line over the traditional registration counters, prompting us to pull attendees from self-registration and move them to on-site registration to keep both lines moving quickly.” After trying out the concept in Las Vegas, organizers realized they needed more self-serve lines at GATS in Dallas in August. “GWTS was our opportunity to test this new process and work out any kinks before taking it to our bigger show,” Sims says.

At GATS, Randall-Reilly doubled the number of self-registration counters to four and had eight staffed registration counters. The self-serve option was again more popular than expected, and Sims expects to use 16 selfregistration counters at GATS next year. “We underestimated how popular this new option would be with our attendees and how efficiently the self-registration process would run,” Sims says.

Randall-Reilly relied on Smart-reg International as its vendor for the selfregistration kiosks, and there were no additional costs involved with setting up self-registration counters compared with traditional registration. The process was so intuitive that there was no need for additional attendee communication or education about it. Each easy-to-follow screen prompted attendees for the necessary information, guiding them through the process. The technology allows preregistered attendees to type in either their name or a badge number, which was mailed to them prior to the show, confirm their identity, and print out their badges.

And because pre-registered attendees don’t have to pay to attend the Truck Show, the machines didn’t need to take payments. “We felt that self-serve systems were common enough in everyday places that attendees would be comfortable with the option,” Sims says. “Additionally, the system was very user friendly and we had a representative available to assist any attendee that had a question or experienced a problem.” While convenience and a smoother attendee experience were the main reasons for implementing self-registration, the technology also offered a slight savings in labor costs. “Where at traditional registration we need one representative per counter, self-registration allows us to only have one assistant for every three or four counters,” Sims says.

The Truck Show’s Strategy

GOAL: To improve the attendee registration experience and decrease wait times for on-site registration.

STRATEGY: Provide self-service registration on site, alongside staffed registration counters.

RESULTS: Self-serve registration lines were much longer than those for staffed registration, and organizers had to pull attendees from self-registration and move them to on-site registration to keep both lines moving quickly.