Royal Jaarbeurs Utrecht has won the international Digital Innovation Award 2022 for the launch of the so-called Jaarbeurs Live app. Aletta Kok, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer Jaarbeurs: "With 11 exhibition halls, visitors often have to search endlessly for where to go. From now on, this is a thing of the past. With our new app, we offer visitors a digital map and navigate them accurately through our exhibition halls. This way, they get much more out of their visit to our fairs and events. We also bundle information about ticketing, parking and crowd control via the app." Jaarbeurs receives the award through the global association of event venues and organisers, UFI.Live app for trade shows and events lets you better 'navigate indoors'
Aletta Kok, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer of Jaarbeurs is extremely happy with the award: "With this digital solution, we offer a better customer journey. We all find it very normal that we can navigate outdoors, but why shouldn't this be possible indoors? We had been toying with this thought for quite some time, which is why we developed this indoor navigation app. The app offers numerous advantages for both visitors and exhibitors. It allows visitors to prepare for their visit at home and compile their personal programme. During the visit, they can easily navigate indoors via the app and see where it is busy. Exhibitors can place advertisements in the app and the interactive floor plan in the app makes them easy to find. With this solution, we save more than 300,000 paper floor plans on an annual basis."
Visitors and exhibitors better prepared on the road
Jeroen van Hooff, CEO Jaarbeurs: "With the Jaarbeurs Live app, visitors get much more out of their visit in a smart way and it offers exhibitors interesting commercial opportunities. I am proud that we have won such a great international award again. Earlier this year, we won the UFI Sustainability Award for the innovative way Jaarbeurs manages to reduce its food waste and the vegetarian catering offer. Thus, we are continuously taking steps to fulfil our ambition to become Europe's most smart and sustainable event venue and organiser by 2030." In addition to the Live App, last year Jaarbeurs opened an innovative recording studio for recording webinars, talk shows and podcasts, among other things. In addition, Jaarbeurs offers community and networking platforms where it is possible for both visitors and exhibitors to communicate with each other 365 days a year.
Digital innovation award with focus on return live events
The jury of the UFI Digital Innovation Award selected Jaarbeurs for the development of the entire digital solution. For UFI, the focus this year was on digital innovation that supports the return of live events. From over 30 entries worldwide, three finalists were selected to come to Paris Porte de Versailles last Monday to present their entries live. The other finalists were Messe München (Germany) which presented a standardised API and Expoplatform (UK) with a 365 community platform
