Free Rein – Event Management System (EMS)
Case Studies - Final
Jeff Hume
Free Rein
Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road
Hadleigh
Ipswich
IP7 6RJ
01473 810002
jeff.hume@free-rein.net
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
Contents
Event Management System - Case Studies .................................................................................................... 2
C.1
C.2
C.3
C.4
Business Event Finder ......................................................................................................................... 2
BT Major Customers ............................................................................................................................ 4
Inter-Continental Hotel Group .............................................................................................................. 6
Motorola Solutions and Mobility – Virtual Events ................................................................................ 8
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
Event Management System - Case Studies
C.1
Business Event Finder
Business Events Finder is provided and support by Free Rein for BIS and HMRC through a contract with
Government Digital Services (GDS). The system was originally built as part of the Business Link suite of
services and now sits alongside gov.uk as a specialist site for all public and private sector events
management groups providing business to business events open for everyone.
http://www.business-events.org.uk
It is a comprehensive system that is easy to use but allows simple and sophisticated events to be set up with
multiple sessions, venues, breakout groups, personalised emails, capping and reserve lists and take
payments, manage feedback and more.
Free Rein were selected by Thomson Reuters to provide and develop for the Business Link Events Finder
system as part of the programme to replace Business Link offices for HMRC and BIS. GDS have now
awarded the ongoing hosting, development and support to Free Rein alongside a second contract to manage
the marketing, on-boarding and training of new organisers and moderation of content whilst new organisers
become familiar.
Basic Website Information:
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Event Management system provided to BIS and HMRC through contract with GDS
www.business-events.org.uk and www.events.nibusinessinfo.co.uk
Both sites draw on the same core data and present in a localised brand
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
2
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
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Currently supports 350 organisations and 550 event managers
Plans to significantly grow in 2013
Brief:
Business Link regional offices were to be closed at the end of November 2011 as the main SERCO contract
ended. The service was to be brought back into a small number of websites and a call centre. Free Rein was
to provide the events management website for the country as a whole with variants for the devolved authority
with the proviso that it met Impact Level 3 security standards.
With the inception of the new central gov.uk website from GDS, Free Rein was asked to continue with system
given its specialist nature, when the Business Link site was absorbed. Free Rein we also asked to port the
site onto its own secure data centre in Maidenhead.
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Site is for event organisers (EO) to promote relevant business support events
EOs should be self-sufficient with smaller organisations content moderated by Free Rein
System should handle on-line booking and optional payments
Events should support multiple sessions, capable of handling break-out seminars and workshops
System should be capable of email broadcast for invitation, booking confirmations, reminders etc and
under EO control
System must meet government IL3 security standards, pass performance and penetration testing
Free Rein to manage secure IL3 hosting environment ( subsequently relaxed to IL2)
Design:
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Design was from Free Rein but to be within the new Business Link brand guidelines and fit Business
Link's GIS design
Design was to be clean, obvious and uncluttered. Design should provide clear direction on visitor
journey
Content:
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The content is entirely generated and updated by the event organisers
EO apply to join (Free Rein evaluate organisation and train team)
EO can manage complete event, site content, bookings, emails, feedback and archives
Content is presented through different sites for the devolved authorities
Content is delivered out through APIs to other BIS sites
"Under the hood":
The overall project was originally awarded to Thomson Reuters with AdviserPlus for the day to day EO and
moderation management and Free Rein to deliver the technology. Free Rein took on the moderation role as
GDS took on overall responsibility in October 2012. The tender was won against the perceived industry leader
and the current supplier on the basis, amongst other issues, of the flexibility of the Free Rein system to deliver
exactly what was required rather than an adapted, off-the-shelf product.
A retrospective view from SERCO and BIS was to ask Free Rein to deliver 3 weeks early as a reflection of the
confidence in the design and build. Thomson Reuters stepped back during the specification and build stages
to let Free Rein lead. The SERCO project leader since commented on the success of the site, their
confidence and recognition of strong value for money.
The system drew on much of the Free Rein core content management system with a number of bespoke
modules to extend the user control.
Follow up:
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Sites have remained 100% available from launch and delivering pages with an average response
time of just over 200ms
Plans are now advanced for a new API allowing existing public sector event management systems to
add new events, retrieve bookings and share the full event database automatically and in real-time.
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
3
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
C.2
BT Major Customers
BT has made extensive use of the event management system to manage the Major Customer and Global
Services event programmes. At any time up to 50 events can be running concurrently, including software
training events, corporate hospitality and seminars. Over the last three years of use the system has been
extended to offer more and more features, including the ability to set targets and automatically send out
booking reminders and joining instructions.
A number of design and marketing agencies make use of the event management system to ensure that all
data is gathered to a central place. In addition to the reports offered by the system, custom integration has
been implemented to ensure response data is gathered and returned into BT’s main customer contact
database
To prevent inconsistencies, limited control is given to the design of each page; only banners can be uploaded
to alter the look of each event. The result is consistency of design across multiple events, maintaining the BT
brand and presenting a clear style and message to BT’s Major Customers.
BT Billing Analyst Training event site – used by BT Major Customers
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
4
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
BT Major Customers have focussed heavily on the data gathered as a result of the events communications.
As a result the Event System feeds summarised information relating to sent invitations, opened invitations
and event registrations back into the main BT ‘Siebel’ database system. This allows quick access by Account
and Senior Managers inside BT, to monitor and see how their customers are taking advantage of BT’s
comprehensive events calendar.
Reporting for BT Major Customers
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
5
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
C.3
Inter-Continental Hotel Group
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) needed to use video to get the senior management message across to a
wide audience quickly and through that encourage them to register for what was probably the largest EMEA
event they had run
IHG Conference, making use of embedded video
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
6
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
InterContinental Hotel Group utilised a Free Rein Event Management System to accept registration for their
‘Change is Here’ conference.
Restricted access codes, confirmation emails, processing payments and post event emails where all
managed using the Free Rein system, ensuring consistent design and format of communication throughout
the process.
In total some 2000 delegates registered for the events, with online payments for both the conference and
hotel bookings all processed through our secure registration pages.
Managing the cost of hotels, paid for as part of the booking process for the IHG Conference
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
7
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013
C.4
Motorola Solutions and Mobility – Virtual Events
Hart Wilcox is an event management company based in Essex. One of their international clients is Motorola
who regularly run face-to-face events throughout the world to launch new product into a global market.
Many of the products being launched globally by Motorola were related to communication, and in particular to
digital communication. Many of the products used digital communication to help minimise unnecessary
business travel.
Hart Wilcox used Free Rein’s event management system to manage all of Motorola’s face-to-face event –
event promotion, delegate sign-up, session management, during event communication, plus post event
follow-up.
Hart Wilcox approached Free rein to help in the prototyping of a Virtual Event Management Systems which
would initially be used for Motorola event, but would eventually offer Virtual Event to any organisations.
Because of the experimental nature of this project a more formal methodology such as Prince2 would not
have been appropriate. Rather the Rapid Application Development approach was adopted where Hart Wilcox,
Motorola and Free Rein ring fenced the effort of 1 key member of staff for a period of 6 weeks to deliver the
first virtual event.
All of the content for the virtual event is created by the event organiser, and uploaded directly using the
administrations system. Invite and Block lists are also loaded directly into the administrations systems where
they can be used to send out pre-event e-Newsletters. The system support pre-event and post-event content,
which allows Motorola to securely share information with a worldwide audience, while also maintaining control
over time-critical information.
Key feature of the Virtual Events system were as a follows:
Multi level security – including access codes, invitee lists, block lists, user ID and Password, and
session specific controls
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Support for secure pre-event and post event communications
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Multiple Environments – within which product launches occur
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Multiple Theatres within each Environment – where individual presentations occur
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
8
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ
Event Management System – Case Study
February 2013

Extensive user tracking – which sessions, which environments and theatres as well as materials
accessed
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Extensive Digital Media - including Animation, Video, Audio, Virtual Chat, Online Experts, Digital
Downloads
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Scalable Caching – The system uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to cache content and allow
support for very high demand short burst – typically 99% of all visitors access within the first 15
minutes of a launch – dropping off the 50% after 60 minutes
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The system also includes all of the functionality used on the face-to-face events systems, thereby
allowing a mixed face-to-face and virtual events within one product launch.
The first virtual event was launched in October 2011 to 250 personally invited Motorola distributors throughout
the world. This went well with only minor technical issues. The prototype system was subsequently rewritten
to ensure it could cope with 1000’s of concurrent users, and the second launch event was delivered to 2000
delegates in Feb 2012.
This estimate is valid for three months from the date of issue
Additions to the scope of the project/estimate may incur additional charges
All costs are quoted net of VAT and any out of pocket expenses
9
Free Rein Limited - Reg no. 05236270
Reg Off. 7 Hadleigh Enterprise Park
Crockatt Road, Hadleigh, Ipswich, IP7 6RJ