Whether you’re hosting an in-person conference with thousands of attendees or a small virtual meeting with 30 people, an event rehearsal is always a smart move. This is where Test Mode comes in handy.
Pigeonhole Live’s Test Mode is a valuable feature for rehearsing real-time events as it allows users to see exactly how their Pigeonhole will look before it goes live.
Setting Up Test Mode
Test Mode is a feature that allows you to take your Pigeonhole for a test run before your event begins. As such, it is only available before your event is live.
Turning on Test Mode is very simple. Once your Pigeonhole is set up, go into your Pigeonhole settings and click on the Test Mode switch.
Exploring different panels
The best part of Test Mode is that it helps you rehearse and manage the sessions from all perspectives, and it does so through these panels.
- The Audience Web App shows what the audience sees on their own devices and lets you submit responses in the interactive sessions.
- The Projector Panel shows the main screen that the audience will be looking at and lets you highlight questions during Q&As.
- The Admin Panel shows all the audience responses and allows you to filter and moderate them.
Set up the Projector Panel on your screens and run sessions from the Admin Panel before rehearsing your event.
Test out workflows
Your event team can get used to their roles in managing the Pigeonhole and see how it will all work together. This reduces the number of assumptions and guess-work your team will do, which in turn reduces the number of mistakes during the actual event.
For examples, here are some tasks you could assign to your event team in a virtual conference:
- Moderating questions in Q&As
- Flagging questions for speakers to answer
- Sending announcements to attendees to fill out event surveys
- Ushering attendees into the next session using Session Redirect.
- Track audience engagement in each session on the Active Participants Chart
View your Agenda
Use Test Mode to view your Agenda through your audience’s eyes. You can run through the event details, session order, and speaker profiles to make sure everything looks the way it should.
As you view the event the way the audience will, it will be easier to spot inconsistencies and other areas of improvement, so you can make the necessary changes.
Testing Audience’s Experience
Before your event, you should try out each interactive session. Utilise the Audience Web App on Test Mode and try asking or voting for questions, commenting, or submitting survey responses.
This way, you can ensure that your audience's experience is seamless, and better equip the event team to guide attendees on using the platform.
Handling responses
With Question or Comment moderation, submitted responses will appear on the Admin Panel for your approval before being projected for everyone to see.
With Test Mode, your staff can get used to the moderation and filtering process, and you’ll rest easy knowing you won’t have an unwanted response up on the Projector Panel.
Test your integrations
Last but not least, Test Mode can be used in a full tech run when you rehearse to ensure all your tech tools will work together.
Testing out the workflow with your other integrations will quickly reveal the technical errors that may occur during the event, so you can make adjustments to avoid them. Making sure that technical errors will not detract from the message behind your event will ultimately provide a better experience for your audience.
