The Key to Successful Event Management
WHub’s collaboration with Accupass, Asia’s largest EventTech Platform
When you’re holding an event, the attendees are arguably the most important factor — how do you interest them? How do you get them to come? How do you keep them engaged? How do you make them come back to the next one? In this day and age, coming up with fresh ways to inspire surprise and excitement is not a simple task.
As Hong Kong’s largest startup ecosystem builder, WHub is thrilled to have signed an MoU with ACCUPASS in November 2018, and to officially have Accupass on board as the Event Platform Sponsor for Startup Impact Summit on 25 January 2019.
WHub is passionate about showcasing and collaborating with the startup community, and integrating technology and innovation into all our events. We’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Accupass to showcase all the cool and novel features that will be happening at Startup Impact Summit.
Haven’t got your ticket yet? You can get them here with “HALFOFF” for 50% off your ticket!
Watch Karena Belin, co-founder & CEO of WHub, interviewing Jack Chan, the Hong Kong representative of Taiwanese-born Accupass, on their drive to support and come up with solutions for event hosts. If you’re on the go and don’t want to use up all your data, we’ve also made a 6 question summary.
About Accupass
Accupass, together with its sister company Huodongxing, is the largest event and Event Tech platform in Asia, supplying event hosts with the necessary technology for them to organize their events efficiently.
Being the pioneer in this field, Accupass has developed numerous innovative event tech as Facepass (Facial Recognition AI for event Check-in), Accupai (Cloud Photography Service), Event Chatbot, Real-time Event Data Analysis Dashboard, bespoke event application and many more.
Accupass has partnered with 100,000+ hosts to organize events as small as a 50-attendee seminar to a 50,000 attendee tech exhibition.
EventTech at Startup Impact Summit
Accupai
Accupai is a real-time cloud photography solution.
Traditionally, it may take days to weeks for event host to collect photos taken by their photographer. With Accupai, quality photos taken by professional photographers will be uploaded to the Accupai cloud drive and the photo editing team will edit those pictures.
Edited photos will be shared to attendee of the events right away. Unforgettable moments are then shared instantly.
Facepass
Facepass is an innovative event check-in solution that is highly efficient and interactive.
Attendees register for events with their selfies. The Facepass system will recognize the attendee on the day of the event to facilitate a smooth and efficient check-in process. Check for emails / eDMs from Accupass and you can upload your picture and streamline the check-in process on the day!
*The transcription has been slightly adapted to be more text-friendly and reader-friendly.
Question 1: How did Accupass come to life?
At the beginning, we were only an online ticket platform. We facilitated event organizers, by doing ticketing when they post the event on our website. But slowly, our partners wanted more. They’d ask us, “do you have any solutions for, let’s say, photography services”, “can I send emails to attendees directly”, “can I send SMS to everyone”, “do you have venues to suggest”… We realized we want to be more than a ticketing platform. So, we now provide a comprehensive toolbox for event hosts to do their online marketing, and on the day of the event, we also provide them with comprehensive full support.
Question 2: What are the main factors for success in Taiwan?
There are 3 things. The first one will be innovation. At the beginning, we are simply an online ticketing platform, but later on, we realized we can develop much more. For example, facial recognition check-in support, or chatbot for event, or even bespoke mobile applications for events. We’re more like event tech provider.
The second one is that we’re always trying to tackle problems from an event host’s point of view. For example, in Taiwan, when the hosts of a 50-people event asked us, “can we send SMSs to attendees?” We would still provide a solution. Or another example is the largest computer expo in the world, they want a bespoke mobile app that can do everything for them. We did that as well. You always have to think from the perspective of the event hosts.
And finally, which is the most important part is with a great and very, very coherent team. So, thanks to the culture of startups, even though we do have a certain position or a hierarchy in a company, we do have a very flat structure. So just at the end of 2018, we had an annual meeting discussing what is the way forward for Accupass, and everyone’s opinion and thoughts are put into account and planning for 2019. So it’s the reason why we’re so successful in Taiwan.
Question 3: Would you argue that the main differentiation Accupass has to other ticketing platforms is the fact that you understand your event organizers better and you react faster?
Exactly. The journey of an event organizer to go through for that would first be online marketing, so obviously, our platform is the best place to post their events and do marketing on. When it’s on the day of the event, let’s say for a 50,000 people exhibition, they may ask— “how do we handle the guest?” We can do cloud check-in process, we can do a badge check-in for them.
I would say the thing about our company is that we grow together with our event hosts. If they ask something, we come up with a solution for it.
Question 4: After Taiwan, you replicated your success in China, which also explains the huge user base. When and why did you decide to come to Hong Kong?
Accupass came to Hong Kong last year. First, geographically, Hong Kong is located at the center of APAC and also with really good connections with the greater bay area - it’s also an international city facing the world. As Accupass is looking to expand its market — Hong Kong is the first place to go.
Secondly, Hong Kong you could say is a busy city — there’s a lot of amazing events, seminars, exhibitions going on, and obviously, we have great solutions to provide these event hosts.
And lastly, we realize there’s a lot of cultural differences in terms of how event hosts organize events. Hong Kongers are more professional and business-related, but then in Taiwan, we have some amazing cultural, art, interesting events that are very creative. So we want to bring that atmosphere to Hong Kong.
Question 5: Why did you decide to partner up with WHub?
For us to discuss a partnership, we need to find a partner with a similar vision. For Accupass, our vision is to assist event organizers to create more value for them, so that an event can make a positive social impact on society. Whereas we know WHub is the largest startup community in Hong Kong and your vision is to empower every startup to achieve their success, which is very similar.
Also, we want to make a presence in Hong Kong. The best way to start would be to partner with WHub.
Question 6: Because we all know entrepreneurship is hard, what keeps you going, what’s your startup passion?
My startup passion, and also Accupass’s, is always create positive social impact. So one example is that last year, Accupass organized a charity month using our platform. We lined up 10 or 20 Taiwanese NGOs, and had them post events on our platform so we help them to do the marketing, ticketing — full support, so that all earnings can go directly to their cause, to their mission. And that is our “why”.
We’d like to thank Jack Chan, Hong Kong Representative, Accupass, to have this interview with us.
Startup Impact Summit
Startup Impact Summit connects world-class investors, startups, and influencers to discuss innovative solutions that are changing the world we live in.
It’s only 5 days away! Startup Impact Summit is going to help you kickstart your 2019 with a powerful BAM! We’re going to have 30+ speakers & 100 exhibitors from all continents! You’re not going to want to miss our local unicorn panel with TinkLabs, WeLab, Lalamove and TNG Wallet!
If you think this is just a conference, think again! We will also have an Innovation Challenge with Explorium HK & Investor Workshop with Jason Calacanis — the angel investor of Uber, a Startup Services Market Place with Zegal, and so much more!
Learn from our Unicorn Panel, find out how to nap properly, network with investors, there are so many unexpected surprises at our conference!
Grab a friend and get tickets 50% off with code “HALFOFF” now: https://whub.io/s/SIS50OFF
