How do you get exhibitors ready for their trade show participation at one of the largest event venues in the Netherlands? That's quite a complex task, for which the RAI developed its very own exhibitor portal. However, after a few years, the amount of information in the portal started to have a negative impact on the user experience. High time, then, to step into the shoes of the exhibitors and give the portal a thorough redesign!
About RAI Amsterdam
The RAI, which celebrated its 125th anniversary not so long ago, is a well-known exhibition and convention centre on Europaplein in Amsterdam. With more than 110,000 square metres of rentable space split across twelve multi-purpose halls, the RAI welcomes an average of 1.5 million visitors annually.
Whether for small business meetings or large-scale events such as the Horecava and the Huishoudbeurs, the RAI offers a perfect location in combination with professional support for planning, organising and realising the event itself or participating in an event or exhibitio
User experience impaired by information overload
RAI Amsterdam aims to invite as many relevant exhibitors as possible to each event. But there is a huge amount to arrange before the big day dawns and their actual arrival, ranging from stand construction and telecommunications to catering and IT. To streamline this process, an exhibitor portal was built with the best intentions several years ago.
It became a repository for information in the form of PDF files, long check-lists and cumbersome lists of dates. In addition, exhibitors were expected to use different environments, which each required a different login procedure. This caused problems: exhibitors had to contact customer service for assistance, important deadlines in the preparation process were not met, suppliers failed to receive the information they needed and the RAI lost revenue as a result. So it was time for a major makeover and the RAI came to us for help!
The brand new exhibitor portal - designed and built with the objective of making trade show participation as smooth as possible - has been up and running since the end of 2023. In an intensive, four-day Design Sprint, we homed in on the exhibitor experience together with the RAI.
Colleagues from the marketing, communications and IT departments met with our designers. Together they devised and tested a prototype in just one week. Mission accomplished, because after this test, our developers built a front end for the portal with NextJS and Azure.
The portal now acts as the digital front door to the event, allowing users to click through to external portals and suppliers at appropriate times without having to log in again.
Incentro is very strong in User Experience and Design Thinking. They taught me that you sometimes have to take a step back and define in detail what a solution actually needs to do before you throw yourself into the work. That saves a lot of hassle afterwards.
Exhibitor portal in action
The new portal focuses explicitly on the exhibitors. What functionality do they expect the portal to have, irrespective of all the internal processes at the RAI? What do they need and, the opposite, what don't they need? And how do you use those specifications to build a user-friendly portal?
The new portal is now in general use. The benefits it provides for the users include the following:
Important deadlines and submission times are being met again thanks to smart notifications to the exhibitor and a simpler process
The portal clearly informs exhibitors when they need to submit certain things and what needs to be present in an exhibition stand
User friendliness has been enhanced and the portal is linked to other important information systems for the exhibitor
Exhibitors are actively informed about marketing products and promotions, generating greater upselling revenue for the RAI.
In summary: exhibitors know exactly what they need to do and when, resulting in perfect scheduling and smoother preparation of and participation in events!
