IML was proud to be involved in The Great Debate at this year's Exhibiting Show.

IML’s interactive keypads were used to gain the opinions of an audience of exhibition and event organisers at Exhibiting Show 2008’s The Great Debate.

The house proposed a motion that 'This house believes that exhibition catering is difficult to stomach’ and what then ensued was, indeed, a Great Debate!    This hot topic saw an outpouring of views, mainly focussed around the pricing of catering services at exhibitions.

To ensure the debate was democratic and fair, IML’s keypads were used to gather the opinions of everyone in the room and not just those who were prepared to speak in the debate.

Every audience member was given an IML keypad and votes were taken on several issues with results being shown live to audience members immediately, making for a fast-paced and structured debate.

The IML interactive system encouraged everyone to put forward their views and it enabled the Debate Facilitator to get to the heart of the issues surrounding exhibition catering quickly.

Following the almost hour-long discussion, 65% agreed that exhibition hall catering services are difficult to stomach while 30% voted against the motion, with 5% abstaining.

The Great Debate has created awareness around the topic and it attracted a large amount of press coverage in the industry, this has resulted in further meetings between exhibition organisers and catering companies.

Testimonial

" IML’s audience response system made our paper-based debates in previous years look dated. The interactive keypads made the debate a fun and worthwhile debate to be in. Having the results shown live immediately made the debate more structured and issues were raised that may not have been without the system."

Toby Duckworth, Exposure Event Creations