Latest Case Study
How our clients use event registration, badging and attendee management
READ MORE
Award winning event registration and badging
Find out about each of the awards we have won for our event registration and badging services.
Spotlight: ContactScanning
DISCOVER MORE
Partnerships
We partner with brands we know and trust to deliver technology that enhances our own.
Latest from the Blog
From industry insights and expert opinion, to product updates and company news, you'll find the inside track here.
For Hallgarten & Novum Wines, its annual portfolio tasting is far more than a showcase. It plays a central role in the company's sales calendar, bringing together buyers, producers and press in one place to shape purchasing decisions for the months ahead.
Held each February at Old Billingsgate, London, the two-day event operates at significant scale. Around 250 producers are present, pouring close to 1,000 wines, while more than 1,600 attendees move through the space, from major hospitality groups to independent retailers. The format is deliberately simple, with producers pouring wines and speaking directly to customers, creating a highly valuable environment for relationship building and commercial conversations. Behind the energy of the tasting floor, however, sat a growing challenge around how to capture and use the insight generated by those interactions.
As the event expanded, so too did the complexity of managing the attendee data. "We'd always handled things ourselves," explains Sarah Charlwood, Marketing & Event Manager at Hallgarten & Novum Wines. "Badge printing, registration, note-taking, it was all quite manual. Over time, it just became too unwieldy." Producers, often winemakers or export managers, would make handwritten notes about who they had spoken to and what had been discussed. These would sometimes be emailed afterwards or handed over at the end of the event, leaving the Hallgarten team to manually consolidate the information. The process was inefficient, time-consuming and inevitably incomplete. "Not everyone writes things down or sends them in, so you know you're missing data," Charlwood says.
For a business placing increasing importance on becoming more efficient and data-driven, this lack of insight was a clear limitation. The need was not to change how the data was used, but to improve how it was captured, centralised and shared across the business. The structure of the event added another layer of complexity. Unlike a traditional exhibition, where exhibitors capture and retain their own leads, Hallgarten's producers collect information that ultimately needs to sit with Hallgarten itself.
"The data isn't for the producers to keep," Charlwood explains. "It needs to come back to us so our sales team can follow up and drive conversations." This requirement meant that standard lead capture tools were not a natural fit, prompting Hallgarten to look for a more tailored solution.
Working with RefTech, which was already managing registration and badging for the event, the team introduced a customised ContactScanning solution designed to fit this centralised data model. Producers were able to scan attendee badges during tastings, while all captured data flowed directly back to Hallgarten. This made the process more consistent, cut down on manual work and gave the team one clear set of data to work from.
At its simplest, the solution allowed producers to record who had visited their stand, but the real value came from the ability to add notes. "It wasn't just about scanning," Charlwood says. "The notes field was key. Being able to write something like, ‘Loved this wine, please follow up', makes it far more useful." This additional layer of context transformed the data from a simple record of attendance into something far more actionable for the sales team.
"All of that information goes straight to our sales team," she adds. "They can then follow up with customers and say, ‘I can see you tasted this wine; would you like to talk about it?' It gives them a genuine starting point for a conversation." The approach did not fundamentally change how Hallgarten used its event data, but it significantly improved the quality, consistency and speed at which that data became available. Charlwood notes that the business is now likely capturing more interactions simply because the process is easier and more immediate.
Introducing new technology to a large and varied group of producers inevitably brought some initial hesitation. Some suppliers were cautious at first - clear communication and on-the-day guidance were important in ensuring adoption, with a few minor teething issues along the way. Despite this, engagement was strong, driven in part by the clear commercial benefit to producers themselves. "They want us to sell more of their wine, so anything that helps that is in their interest," Charlwood explains. Feedback following the event reflected a high level of interest in both the tool and the data it generated.
The impact of the solution has been felt most clearly in the quality of follow-up activity. Sales teams now have a clearer picture of customer behaviour, allowing for more informed and relevant conversations. Even relatively simple insights, such as which wines a customer has tasted, provide a valuable entry point. "It gives you a great opening," Charlwood says. "It all helps build the bigger picture." The result is a more connected journey from tasting to transaction, benefiting both Hallgarten and its producers.
Looking ahead, the intention is to build on this foundation and embed the approach more fully into future events. Earlier communication with suppliers will help drive even stronger adoption, while the core functionality is already delivering what the business needs. "We'll definitely use it again," Charlwood confirms. "Next time, we'll bring people on the journey sooner, but fundamentally it worked and it's exactly the direction we want to go in."
As events become more complex, the ability to capture meaningful, shareable data is becoming increasingly important. By creating technology to fit Hallgarten's setup, RefTech has shown how a more flexible approach can work where standard solutions do not quite fit. For Hallgarten, the result is simple: better data, better conversations and, ultimately, stronger sales.
BACK
