This Event App Is an Attendee’s Best Friend During Evening Hours

Author: David McMillin       

When more than 170,000 tech enthusiasts took over San Francisco for Dreamforce from Nov. 6–9, their daytime schedules were packed with choices — more than 2,700 breakout sessions, speakers, and hands-on opportunities to discover new innovations from Salesforce. The members of the audience weren’t just looking for new knowledge, though. Like most conference attendees, they wanted a chance to celebrate when the sun set on daytime educational programming. A mobile event app from DoubleDutch made that quest easier.

Called Partyforce, the app is designed to help attendees navigate nightlife opportunities. At an event like Dreamforce with an endless number of tech startups and major players sponsoring happy hours, figuring out where to go can be overwhelming. With more than 100 events in the app, Partyforce provided in-the-pocket guidance where attendees could score free drinks from those names looking to build brand awareness from behind the bar. Since most parties at Dreamforce require an RSVP, the listings included helpful links for attendees to add themselves to the door lists. Jennifer Donegan, product marketing manager at DoubleDutch, told PCMA via email that Partyforce is a “very crowdsourced and fun example of how you can use our app.”

I wasn’t in San Francisco for the event, but I downloaded Partyforce to get a sense of the action, and Donegan’s assessment was correct. In addition to providing a simple, Facebook-like feed of photos and status updates from festivities around the city, Partyforce includes a dare section (“Buy a drink for a new friend” or “Crash an invite-only party,” for example), drink descriptions (“Pisco sour — These will sneak up on you, beware.”), and a daily poll (“Morning! How bad is your hangover?”). The app was an unofficial companion during the event, but the entire experience served as a reminder that event organizers should leverage mobile apps to do more than repackage print programs, deliver calendar reminders, and help attendees swap contact information.

And while it’s obvious that Partyforce users are all about partying, DoubleDutch’s assessment of 2016 activity in the app revealed that the Dreamforce crowd is quite responsible: The top drink was water.

Looking for more examples of innovation from Dreamforce? Check out how the conference expanded its room block in 2015 with an unlikely housing option: a cruise ship.

Related Posts

Become a Member

Get premium access to provocative executive-level education, face-to-face networking and business intelligence.

Join PCMA