The modern world of event planning looks much different than it did before the pandemic, and it continues to evolve, ever shifting as the industry changes. To keep up with venue needs and enhance the planner experience, we’ve been working on exciting enhancements to our suite of event diagramming tools.
In this post, you’ll learn about the many easy-to-use, intuitive new tools coming soon. We’ll take a quick tour of recent enhancements to some features you may already use before diving into the new features coming soon Cvent Event Diagramming, formerly known as Social Tables. .
New Event Diagramming tools and features improve every stage of an event’s lifecycle!
We built Cvent Event Diagramming with one ultimate goal: to help simplify the event diagramming process—often the event diagramming headache—for venues and planners alike. Cvent Event Diagramming helps hotels and venues convert more event planners, it helps planners find and vet the best venues for their events, and it helps both sides easily and collaboratively manage diagramming. To do that, we have to understand our customers and what they want, so we can develop products that help you succeed.
So, what are the biggest challenges facing our customers?
Working with new planners
There are many new event planners working in the industry, where they might not yet have the ability to visualize their event in your space in their minds. Some might ask for help from supervisors, putting the decision-making process in the hands of multiple people who have never seen your venue.
Later venue sourcing habits
Planners are making their sourcing decisions later in the booking process, working with much shorter booking windows. Because they are taking longer to source a venue, they book quickly when they finally get the green light to move forward. To speed things up, planners are looking for venues that streamline the decision-making and contracting processes.
Meeting changing planner expectations
There are two major areas where planners want to see success in events: return on time invested (ROTI) and attendee experience. Simply put, they want people to attend their events and enjoy themselves, so they return in the future.
So, what’s new with Cvent’ Event Diagramming, and how does it help make the challenges we discussed a bit less stressful?
Let’s find out!
Recent Event Diagramming updates & improvements
To make Event Diagramming even easier for hotels, venues, and event planners to use, we added some new tools and made enhancements to already helpful features, including:
Automated diagramming
Recent diagramming automation enhancements make updating events even more straightforward, with automated attendee count population, layout updates, and other tools. Dragging and dropping items into a diagram was easy enough, but automated diagramming is even better.
Floor plan finder
Thanks to the Floor Plan Finder, locating the best layout for your event is easier than ever. Planners can use this tool to find and save venue floor plans, making them fast and easy to access or update later.
Pre-set event layouts
Optimize the event planning process with pre-set event layout options. Instead of starting the diagramming process from scratch, save time by creating and storing layouts for future use.
3D diagram viewing
When sourcing a venue, planners can view your event diagrams in 3D. Selecting “3D view” will drop them into a three-dimensional photo-realistic recreation of the event space. Items you drag and drop into the diagram will populate in the photo-realistic event rendering in real time, giving even the most remote planners a chance to see their vision come to life.
3D on CSN
3D layout embedding will allow users to add 3D models directly to their hotel website, Wedding Spot listing, or venue profile on the Cvent Supplier Network (CSN). Tell your property’s story where planners source the most. With upcoming 3D tools and features, you can update your property’s media gallery, show off custom layouts, and more, helping your venue capture the attention of more planners in just a few clicks.
Layout Picker
Add Event Diagramming’s new Layout Picker to the CSN, Wedding Spot, or your venue’s website to provide planners with an unmatched online experience wherever they source. Using photo-realistic 3D technology, Layout Picker brings your event space to life online like never before, helping you attract the attention of more planners and capture more business.
Built within our Event Diagramming software, the Layout Picker is attached to the CSN, making it easy for planners to see exactly what your venue can do. Planners can use the tool to toggle back and forth between different layout options, view max capacity options, and more. Instead of wondering whether or not your event space can accommodate their unique setup requirements, planners can view the exact layouts your particular venue has offered in the past.
Automated Walkthroughs
Soon, Diagramming users will be able to create a guided photo-realistic 3D virtual tour of their event space. With Event Diagramming, you can turn your venue’s current 3D model into a personalized, guided tour. Add avatars to the automated walkthrough to simulate staff or attendees, making the event experience seem even more realistic.
By adding a voice over, venues can make their automated 3D walkthroughs even more immersive and engaging. As potential clients and planners move through the virtual space, they’ll hear your voice, pointing out all the features, accents, and hidden gems that make your venue unique.
Dynamic Lighting
Dynamic Lighting is a new feature that allows you to adjust the lighting elements in your event space to show how it will look under various conditions. Using the innovative new tool, venues with multiple light banks can control them separately throughout indoor and outdoor event spaces.
Select from various lighting designs, dim the light levels in one room section while brightening them in another, or adjust the levels of specific light colors. Use Dynamic Lighting to show how your space can accommodate a wide range of functions, from business luncheons to intimate private parties, and how the lighting in the room affects its overall atmosphere.
Custom Objects
Display the variety of unique objects your property has to offer using Event Diagramming’s upcoming Custom Objects tool—think tables, chairs, linens, and more. With the power of the Custom Objects tool, you can create accurate photo-realistic 3D representations of your venue’s available items. All you need are images of the object taken from a smartphone.
Show planners different chair styles and table shapes. Display how minor changes can change the atmosphere of the event space, maybe by adding or removing linens. Help planners feel more confident that they are choosing the best items, objects, and event setup by enabling them to see the space—and everything in it—remotely.
Cvent’s Event Diagramming software is designed for customization at every level. In addition to customizing objects, you can customize the main page of each event to highlight the details you find most important. Add whatever information you find most relevant to the event’s main page by dragging and dropping items, like event menus, timelines, or banquet event orders (BEO). While on the main page, clicking on the preview of your event diagram will drop you into the collaborative cloud-based diagramming solution.
Event Diagramming’s Photo-Realistic 3D viewing features came about during the remoteness of COVID. Although a necessity at the time, 3D viewing proved to be a great asset to venues and planners alike, so we decided to keep it—and enhance it—with real-time 3D diagram viewing.
What makes our 3D diagramming so good?
Cvent’s Event Diagramming uses powerful 3D-modeling software powered by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. The Unreal Engine is an industry leader in simulation 3D and 3D modeling technology, allowing our diagramming tools to render images that photo-based diagramming models just can’t match.
Our event diagramming software offers a dynamic, interactive event planning experience. Enhanced viewing features allow event planners to move around their space and adjust different layout elements using enhanced planning features.From the floors to the ceilings, you can adjust your view to see every corner of your event space. Adjust the lighting plan to see how changes affect the room’s overall atmosphere, toggle 3D airwalls on and off, fill the space with avatars, or watch the clouds roll by as you plan an outdoor event on the terrace.
Do event layouts use 360-degree photo technology?
Unlike 360-degree photo views, Cvent’s 3D layouts are designed by human renderers and intended for human interaction—like a video game of your meeting space. While 360-photorealistic tours allow viewing from every angle, 3D layouts enable users to interact with the room, creating a more engaging, immersive online booking experience.
How can you get 3D renderings of your venue?
Take a handful of photos of your hotel or event space with a smartphone, preferably an iPhone, and email them to your Cvent account manager. They will work with the rendering team to create 3D photo-realistic recreations of your space, allowing clients, guests, and travelers to take a virtual tour of your property and move through it as if they were there.
Improved Interactive Floor Plans
Interactive Floor Plans are powerful tools that help sales and marketing teams in a way that static capacity charts simply can’t. Although they present the facts, charts don’t capture the nuances of your space. Interactive floor plans help planners quickly determine whether your facility can accommodate their event using online filters and interactive search results. Event Diagramming users can now share interactive planning tools with planners in more places than ever.
Where can planners view Interactive Floor Plans?
Your CSN listing,
Your website,
Microsites, or
All of the above.
If you guessed D) all of the above, you’re right! Interactive Floor Plans can now be shared in multiple locations, allowing venues to display them where they see the most value and get the most attention from planners, including CSN listings, venue websites, and microsites.
Wherever your business comes from, embedding makes it easy to advertise your space to planners.
What’s coming next to Event Diagramming?
In addition to making it easier for planners to find a venue, we’re continuously working to simplify the diagramming process for both event planners and their hosts. Keep an eye out for some exciting new diagramming tools and system updates designed to show planners what they’re getting upfront, including:
Dynamic Weather Effects
In addition to indoor and outdoor lighting, diagramming users will soon be able to control the weather. With dynamic weather effects, you can show what setups will look like depending on the:
Time of day
Date
Weather conditions (e.g., sunny, cloudy, rainy, stormy, snowy)
With these new Event Diagramming features, venues can do so much more than simulate different event styles. In addition to showing how a reception setup and banquet seating would look different in your space, you can show planners how an evening banquet would look compared to one at mid-day. Highlight how the sun levels would impact an outdoor event at different times of day, in various weather conditions, and more.
Catalog Management
Avoid wasting time double-checking what inventory you have and whether it’s available for a specific event. From the moment the event planning process starts until an event ends, Catalog Management tracks your used and available inventory. Set your team up for success and give them the tools to execute events quickly, work with clients effectively, and enhance the event planner experience.
With the new Catalog Management tool, venues can keep track of their event inventory and feel confident about what they have and where it is. Whether you maintain one meeting room or multiple event spaces, your team will have the tools to track venue inventory across various events and locations.
Select who can see your venue’s event inventory, how much they can view, and where the information is visible. Venues are in complete control of which items will be visible, including tables, seating, staging and presentation, entertainment, and other items. Toggle the on/off switch below each object to signify whether the item will be visible in your venue catalog, grant custom permissions viewing permissions, and more.
AR Diagram Visualizer Pilot
Bring the power of real-time 3D viewing into your physical event space with AR Diagram Visualizer Pilot—coming soon to select properties!
The Diagram Visualizer Pilot operates on mobile smart devices, like tablets or iPads. Using augmented reality software, the Visualizer Pilot can recognize distinct locations and angles in your event space. Because the software can detect changes and movements around the space, it enables the image on the tablet screen to match the part of the room the tablet faces, recreating what your eyes see right on the screen. If you were to hold a tablet in front of you and spin 360 degrees around the meeting space, the image on the tablet screen would match what your eyes see.
The Visualizer works in partnership with Event Diagramming, helping venues show their setup options to planners in a fresh new way. Instead of hauling tables and chairs in and out of the room to highlight different layout options, you can recreate life-like event setups in virtual 3D while touring them in real life.
As you add tables, swap seating, change lighting, and adjust an event diagram, items will populate on the tablet’s screen, appearing as if they were really in the room. Select reception-style seating for 50 and spin around the room to see how it would look. Add linens, remove them, swap lighting effects, or change layouts to find the best setup option for every planner’s event.
Get ready for Cvent’s new, improved Event Diagramming suite!
With so many easy-to-use tools at your fingertips, Cvent’s Event Diagramming has something for every venue—whatever your size, service style, or software budget. If you’re looking for resources or products not covered in this post, check out our library full of additional event planning and management solutions.
The post Coming Soon: New Event Diagramming Features, Tools, and Updates appeared first on Social Tables.