One of the largest voting events we have executed was the Emaar AGM in 2006 with 3000 keypads. Other notable events recently were a 2000 Keypad event in Saudi for a Ladies conference and 2500 Keypads for a telecom AGM where we received 1840 votes in 22 secs. Now that is a lot of votes in a quick time!
Turning Technologies TurningPoint software and response keypads are an ideal way to manage large numbers of concurrent voters. As each receiver is capable of 999 keypads it’s easy to add up to 5 Long Range Receivers on tripods (to add to the pickup range) to the voting laptop via a powered USB hub (so no voltage drop) and so long as the keypads/receivers are assigned a unique channel it will work fine.
SO here are our 5 Tips when running such an event:
- Location: We placed ourselves centre of the venue (note to AV company for long VGA run and talkback) within 300meters from the farthest voter and raised all receivers to 3meters in height using camera tripods. (note outdoor events is something completely different as the signal does not reflect)
- Laptop: The Voting laptop should be the latest model with a solid state hardrive ie SSD (to minimise disk errors). And obviously have a backup laptop and plan B.
- Logistics: The main issue is distribution and collection and this is done using plastic boxes each holding 250 keypads (without lanyards) and distributed by a team of two hired labour. It’s important to segregate the venue into an area of coverage for each team so they don’t overlap and they should be well branded (we use body warmers branded VOTING CREW – Please return)
- Labour: We used tech/event students and paid them approx US$100 each for the event.
- Losses: We set aside a 5% loss contingency with the client prior to the event and resolved the issue from that amount afterwards.
click here to learn more about voting keypads