Meet Sensedia, an API management platform that used Hopin to 10x the brainstorming factor of its flagship APIX conference with 0 downtime

PLANNING A NEW KIND OF EVENT

Connected virtually, connected globally

API Specialist Sensedia helps enterprise companies get the most out of their digital presence by unlocking data, enabling ecosystem-based innovation and simplifying the journey to a more open, digital and connected world. Events play a major role in this journey, providing a space to give back to the community and uncover new ways of using APIs.

In 2015, Sensedia launched APIX, a 250-person conference hosted in São Paulo, Brazil. Since then, APIX has grown to more than 1,600 attendees and become a key date in the calendar for the API community. It's an annual milestone for Sensedia as well, with the marketing, sales, people, production, and professional services teams all contributing. Customers are invited to speak, share strategies, and attend educational breakout sessions.

In 2021, Sensedia started planning a new virtual edition of APIX to welcome a larger, global audience. The new format aimed to provide a more accessible and engaging experience for APIX attendees worldwide.

"It's not only about moving from a physical event to an online [event]. It's rethinking all the strategy, all the experiences that we'd like to bring to attendees [...] Hopin was the best platform for the experience." –Lucas Tempestini, Global Marketing Manager, Sensedia

Hopin's ability to integrate with a vast ecosystem of other platforms for translation, analytics, and post-event campaigns was a deciding factor for Sensedia when choosing their event platform. For example, Hopin's Stripe integration meant attendees could buy tickets in their local currencies. And the platform's integration with Kudo gave Sensedia the ability to provide live interpretation and translation so attendees could enjoy all the conference's content in their local languages.

Hopin's registration features were also crucial to Sensedia's pre-event communication strategy. The registration page for APIX hosted on Hopin contained all the key information attendees needed, including the event schedule, speakers, sponsors, and booths. This gave Sensedia’s marketing team a single point of focus when looking to drive buzz and registrations.

2 presenters wearing microphone headsets and APIX 2021 T-shirts

"Once we started to deep dive into Hopin, it was clear that the platform was very intuitive. So setting up everything that we needed, the agenda, the sessions, the sponsor booths, the live chatting, the one-on-ones, the round tables, that was really easy to do."

Lucas Tempestini

Global Marketing Manager, Sensedia

IT’S SHOWTIME

30 hours of event content delivered with zero downtime

Sensedia's events team prepared for APIX with an extensive checklist During APIX’s three-day run, everything went smoothly and there were no breaks in event content. Attendees found it easy to navigate from one event area to another and switch from networking to engaging with a speaker or Sensedia expert.

Being able to save sessions to a personal calendar and chat with speakers and Sensedia employees in real-time meant attendees enjoyed a genuinely interactive event experience.

Attendees could also network with one another as well as Sensedia experts via Hopin’s live chat and video networking features. There, they shared tips and discussed solutions. Thanks to Hopin's integration with Kudo, language wasn’t a barrier. Kudo supported live interpretation, ensuring attendees from around the world could enjoy the conference’s content live.

"So we basically explored the maximum that we could from the platform, and it was great to see that the platform delivered actually everything that we expected." –Lucas Tempestini, Global Marketing Manager, Sensedia

Key speakers from APIX included Randy Heffner, a former analyst at Forrester, and Mike Amundsen, a leading authority in the API field. Sangeet Paul Choudary, an author from Platform Revolution and one of Harvard Business Review's most-read contributors, also spoke at the event.

The Sensedia team initially had some concerns about migrating from an in-person event to a virtual experience, but their ability to constantly engage with the audience while the event was happening pushed any prior worries away. Sensedia's events team regularly assessed audience sentiment in the event via the live chat and Hopin's reporting functionality. By analyzing all the moments of connection and engagement, Sensedia could see how attendees responded to APIX's content and tweak their approach accordingly.

To ensure a memorable virtual experience for attendees, Sensedia broke up the conference's core content with fun, highly engaging moments. In between presentations, attendees could listen to live sketches from stand-up comedy groups, music, meditation, or a guide on preparing the perfect coffee from home. This gave attendees a chance to pause and regroup as they were moving between the conference's core educational programming.

Sponsors used Hopin's virtual expo booths to host interactive sessions and chat directly with attendees. The flexibility of these booths allowed sponsors to host a range of content like pre-recorded videos, live discussions, downloadable content and keynote presentations.

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The Hopin features that made APIX a success

Sensedia relied on Hopin's pre-event, in-event, and post-event tools to deliver a memorable virtual experience. Here are some of the key features they used:

Customizability: Sensedia customized the look and feel of the event with its own branding to ensure attendees felt at home.
Stages: Speakers from around the world contributed to APIX, streaming their presentations to more than 1,000 people at a time.
Sessions: Sensedia set up a series of relaxed breakout sessions to make their event engaging, including stand-up comedy performances and a tutorial on how to make the perfect coffee at home.
Chat: Conversation was a key part of the APIX experience, and this feature allowed Sensedia to communicate directly with attendees. Speakers could also answer audience questions in real-time.
Networking: Sponsors and attendees set up one-to-one and one-to-few video meetings during APIX for deeper engagement.
Integrations: Hopin's integrations with Stripe, and Kudo were essential for serving APIX's global audience.
Reporting: Sensedia used Hopin's reporting functionality to benchmark its first virtual APIX conference against previous in-person editions and to track key performance indicators like attendance, engagement, and session-by-session audience metrics.

28

Countries represented

‍

1,600+

Attendees

30+ Hours

of event content

‍

"We added [...] laid back entertaining moments during the event, so people could just relax and clear their minds for the next deep content that they were going to engage with [...] So we can get their full attention during a session and they absorb as much as they want during the conference."

Lucas Tempestini

Global Marketing Manager, Sensedia

HOW IT TURNED OUT

A new hybrid approach for global innovation

The overarching aim for APIX was for attendees to leave inspired and energized, feeling supported by Sensedia and ready to deliver new strategies on the platform. The team succeed, earning an incredible net promoter score of 86% for APIX in 2021. Attendee engagement was high throughout the three-day event, and speakers enjoyed the virtual format, which allowed them to pre-record their talks then engage directly with the audience during the event using Hopin's Q&A functionality.

The conference ran without a single minute of downtime. This was especially impressive given the event was the largest APIX experience to date, with more than 1,600 attendees and an attendance rate of 86%. APIX 2021 also welcomed the largest number of sponsors in the event's history, all of whom reported a positive experience hosting content and networking with attendees.

The direct conversation from the three-day event benefited Sensedia's product team as well. Pulling all of the event's chat interactions provided the team with a wealth of rich feedback that allowed them to better understand challenges the community faces.

With its event partner established, Sensedia is now looking to future editions of APIX, which they intend to host in a hybrid format, with both onsite and virtual touchpoints. The all-in-one nature of Hopin will allow Sensedia to easily get the best of both worlds, combining the in-person energy of a physical conference in Brazil with the global reach and engagement of a virtual event.

After APIX this year, we understand that events for next year, they're always going to have both physical and online touchpoints. They're always going to be hybrid events.” –Lucas Tempestini, Global Marketing Manager, Sensedia

60%

Increase in attendance when shifting from in-person to virtual

86

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

86%

Attendance rate

“For us, events are a key moment for idea exchange, brainstorming, and being able to network with people. And this hybrid format allows us not only to provide a deeper connection between the attendees, but also bring folks from different backgrounds that are connecting. So we are actually multiplying the brainstorming factor by 10.”

Lucas Tempestini

Global Marketing Manager, Sensedia