Executive Summary

The Kalispel Leadership Academy (KLA) partnered with Whova to host the Kalispel Leadership Conference (KLC) in Washington, joining attendees locally to support leaders of the Kalispel Tribe. Since 2018, they had been talking about coordinating a leadership conference to connect leaders in their many subdivisions, from the government to hotel and enterprise side of the organization. After facilitating their first conference back in 2020 completely on paper, they were looking for a much easier way to coordinate this event.  

Using Whova’s all-in-one event management platform, they easily set up an online agenda, uploaded essential documents, and registered attendees for the event.

About Kalispel Leadership Conference

The Kalispel Leadership Academy is a unique organization that honors the rich heritage of the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. KLA is committed to engaging and developing leaders of the Kalispel Tribe through education to support their role as contributing members of a diverse community.

With support from the Kalispel Tribal Council, an internal organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities, KLA connected leaders from every part of their organization, whether they were in government, enterprise, casino, or hotel divisions. With Whova’s networking tools, almost 400 leaders could meet and chat through online discussions, video meet-ups, and more.

Challenges

• Registering attendees for the event

To save time, the organizers needed an easy way to register attendees and collect their information while also keeping all attendee details secure.

• Creating tickets based on different types of event access

The KLC organizers knew that with some local events going on, attendees needed greater flexibility choosing events dates. They decided to offer two separate events with identical content at the beginning and end of the week, and needed an effective way to separate ticket types between the different conference dates.

• Coordinating in-person logistics

From creating a detailed agenda to distributing valuable session documents, the organizers wanted to find an easy way to manage all this information in one spot.

• Encouraging networking through the app 

With so many leaders across different regions and divisions, some members don’t even have the chance to meet. It was important to everyone they could take this opportunity to connect with fellow leaders, and chat about hardships and values that make a strong leader.

Solutions

• Streamline attendee registration through Whova

Whova’s registration system conveniently integrated attendee question forms right onto the platform. The organizers simply created multiple tickets and assigned different question forms for each ticket type so that they could target questions to the specific attendee groups. Only the event organizers could access this information, ensuring all attendee details remained secure on the platform.

The organizers could also customize the registration page to fit their branding and imagery and embed or link it on their event website. Attendees then had easy and direct access to ticket information and sign-up, and the organizers could effectively market their event online. 

The organizers customized the entire registration page to their event branding

• Assign different tickets to different days or specific sessions

The Ticket Session Mapping feature on Whova lets the organizers assign attendee tickets to different days or sessions. The KLC organizers essentially ran two conferences over four days, with the same content, so more attendees could join and have greater flexibility in choosing dates. They simply created two tickets, and attendees could only access the sessions or event days assigned to their ticket types. 

Attendees were marked on the platform according to their ticket type, so the organizers could easily differentiate between the two and plan accordingly.

Whova’s Ticket Session Mapping let the organizers assign tickets to all or specific sessions

• Quickly generate custom name badges and upload documents to the app

The organizers went completely paperless by providing attendees with an interactive online agenda through Whova, where they could add specific sessions to their personal agendas. 

By uploading session slides or important event documents to the app, attendees could conveniently access everything on their mobile or web apps during a live session. The organizers didn’t even need to worry about name badges; Whova automatically generates customizable forms that the organizers could print on-site and distribute as they checked in attendees through Whova’s comprehensive lists. 

• Inspire engagement through the Leaderboard and Photo Contests

The Community Board, an online forum designed for networking, is an interactive space where attendees can chat in online discussions about workplace information or favorite local restaurants, and set up face-to-face meetings. Through the Leaderboard Contest, attendees earned points when posting discussion topics, participating in meet-ups, sharing articles, and more. It was a fun way to be a part of a friendly competition while networking.

The organizers also utilized the Photo Contest to facilitate interactions during the event. Attendees posted photos on the app, and at the end of the conference, the photo with the most likes was awarded a prize from the organizers. Attendees could also share the photos taken on the app directly to their social media, helping to generate buzz and excitement around the event.

Attendees posted photos and could view the contest winners on the app