Ever wish you could update attendees and exhibitors or let them correspond with your staff through a quick text? Check out Convention Data Services’ (CDS) new text messaging service, which uses attendees’ and exhibitors’ cell phones to facilitate instant communication with show management.

The solution consists of two GuestAssist components: Conversations and Community Alerts. Conversations is a live, interactive service that lets attendees text questions or comments to show staff and receive immediate feedback. Users can opt into the service during registration or by texting to a specific number to initiate the service, which works with any cell phone capable of texting, on-site. Staff members respond to the texts using a Web-based dashboard interface that tracks, categorizes and archives all texts from the event. Additionally, all of the show’s onsite signage includes an event-specific text number that participants use to text in a question. The text communications also provide sponsorship opportunities. After each communication is complete, a thank you note, which can include a “sponsored by” line, is delivered to the user along with the sponsor’s booth number.

Exhibitors can also use the service for lead retrieval. Exhibitors pick up lead retrieval devices from the CDS service desk on-site and can text questions or request help to the event number and CDS staff responds immediately.

The Community Alerts component lets show organizers send texts or updates to specific groups, such as attendees (or groups of attendees, such as those who signed up to attend a certain session), exhibitors, staff, press and vendors, notifying them of timesensitive announcements (such as “The general session begins in 30 minutes in the grand ballroom!”), schedule or location changes and safety or weather-related information.

All information remains private and message correspondence is managed from a password-protected Web site. 

COST: A $1,000 per event fee applies for event-specific setup and training. An additional cost of $750/day includes both Conversations and Alerts components and a block of 10,000 texts. Additional text blocks can be purchased in increments of 5,000. To learn more, visit www.cdsreg.com.