Tools and venue details for conference organisers

Conferences are logistics at scale

A single-room event has one stage, one set of screens and one agenda. A conference might have a plenary hall, six breakouts, an exhibition area and a networking lounge, each with its own capacity, layout, AV and access. Add dozens of speakers, all with their own slides, video and tech requests, and the questions never stop.

How many fit in breakout three in theatre style? Is there a confidence monitor in the plenary? Can the foyer screens show the agenda? Where do speakers enter? Each answer is simple. Finding them all, and keeping them current, is not.

Tools for agendas, speakers and attendees

Our free directory includes tools conference teams use for registration and ticketing, agendas and session management, speaker communication, timing and show running, livestreaming and attendee comms. Each tool has a short write-up so you can see where it fits. No account is needed to browse, and we add tools regularly.

Venue packs built for multi-room events

For participating venues, BES gathers the room-by-room detail conferences depend on: floor plans, capacities and layouts per room, screen locations with resolutions and specs, branding screens and how they're controlled, rigging, power and access.

Open the example room page to see how a single space is presented; the venue is fictional. Venues share packs through a secure link created for a specific request, with an expiry date, so you can pass the right details to your production company, your AV team or a speaker who needs to know what they're presenting on. Real venue coverage is growing as founding venues join.

Suppliers for the build

Conferences usually need a production partner and often an agency. The supplier directory groups them by category so you can start from a curated list rather than a generic search.

A conference planning sequence

1. Check room capacities and layouts in the venue pack before drafting the programme.
2. Shortlist registration, agenda and speaker tools from the directory.
3. Share the venue's screen and power details with your production partner early.
4. Send speakers the facts they need about the room they're presenting in.

Briefing speakers properly

Speakers present better when they know the room. Before the event, it helps to tell them how big the stage is, whether there's a lectern or a lapel mic, where the confidence monitor sits, the screen's aspect ratio, and how they'll get from the speaker room to the stage. That cuts down on last-minute slide reformatting and on nerves.

Where a venue has a BES pack, the screen specs, floor plans and access details give you most of what a speaker briefing needs, and you can pass the venue's link to a speaker who wants the detail.