Resources For Running Information Booths for Events
The goal of this web page is:
To provide materials to support the people managing and working in event info booths.
These materials are based on my experience working in and managing info booths, and on lots of suggestions from staff at the Seattle Hemp Fest and the Oregon Country Fair.
After seeing how important a well-run system of info booths can be to the success of an event, and how little materials were available on this subject, I ended up writing them myself. This has turned out to be so useful, that it has become a major project in itself.
I expect generating these materials will be a work in progress for a long time as I receive more and better suggestions, and existing ideas are refined.
Please send all comments and suggestions to me thru contact information
Why are info booths so important to the success of an event?
The info booths at events are the key interface between the event guests and staff. This interface is one of the main opportunities for direct contact between staff and guests where the staff can assist people having a good experience and turn it into a great experience. The most important role is to help solve little problems before they become crises.
A very successful event happens when all the potential crises are smoothed away when they are minor problems before they escalate into a crisis. When an individual is having a crisis, it is contagious, and starts pulling others into crisis mode. It is very difficult to move a group of people back from crisis mode to an attitude of calm problem solving, and an orderly effort at completing action items to solve the problem.
Solving individual problems prevents this. The way you make it easy for people with potentially critical problems to find the event staff easily is to provide enough information booths that even a distracted person can find an info booth easily. Complete success is when people's individual needs are met so well people can't believe how great a time they had, even if they had some problems along the way.
A good system of info booths will make the jobs of the rest of the event staff easier, while enhancing the overall event experience for the guests. This should be considered a continuous system helping to facilitate not just that event, but future ones as well. The info booth system is a main source of guest feedback to use to improve future events, and key to helping to build event good will.
When launching these links, you might get a popup that hides behind some other windows on your screen, and it will look like your browser is hung because the browser is expecting you to respond to the popup before continuing.
It will be titled: Enter Network Password
And display this text: Please enter your authentication information
Just hit the cancel button on the popup and it should display just fine (if you have an application that can read RFT format installed on your computer).
If you have a slow link, or have problems loading the docs from the web, consider using the right click, and "Save Target As..." option so you can view it from your local drive, rather than through the browser over the internet.
These documents are in RTF format and will display in Microsoft WordPad, which ships with all Microsoft operating systems. However, the formatting will look much better if viewed with Microsoft Word, or some other full featured word processing application.
Please feel free to download these guidelines. As long as you distribute them as-is, without any changes, you are free to make as many copies as you need.
All rights to these guidelines are reserved by Roger Padvorac.
If you are having problems using these guidelines as-is, please contact me with your corrections, suggestions, and ideas so I can improve and repost them so everybody can take advantage of the improvements.
Info Booth Staff Guidelines - 53k in size (in RTF format)
Info Booth Manager Guidelines - 93k in size (in RTF format)
Please feel free to download and adapt these samples as needed.
Note: I created these when I was volunteering at Hempfest because of my interest in hemp fiber, its potential as a general source of fiber, and in particular its ability to replace wood pulp as a source of paper. When they became focused on recreational hemp, I moved on.
Seattle Hempfest 2001 Feedback Form - 5k in size (in RTF format)
1999 Hempfest Info Booth Fact Sheet - 14k in size (in RTF format)
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Last Updated: August 5, 2001