How ICCA Congress 2024 Made Event Learning Last with Snapsight

Even the best events struggle with one persistent problem:

Content doesn’t always stick.

Not because it’s not worth remembering. But because there’s simply too much of it, too fast, in too many rooms.

It’s a familiar challenge. And one ICCA knew well.

For 63 years, ICCA has been the global convener for the international association meetings industry. It’s a space for shaping what’s next – through open conversations, tough questions, and a whole lot of learning across five simultaneous stages.

In 2024, we were invited to support the Congress in Abu Dhabi for the second time. The goal? Simple enough: Make sure none of that content disappeared into thin air.

Over four packed days at ICC Abu Dhabi, from early-morning sessions to post-dinner discussions, the ICCA Congress was a whirlwind of insights.

Multiple content tracks. Dozens of speakers. Hundreds of conversations happening in parallel.

Plenty of depth. But also, plenty of FOMO.

That’s where we came in.

With Snapsight running quietly in the background, we turned real-time dialogue into real-time takeaways. Key messages from every session, ready to read before the room had even emptied.

And because it all happened live, there was no delay, no backlogs, no ‘we’ll send a summary next week.’

Everything unfolded as the event did, and attendees could actually keep up.

This is where things took an unexpected and a subtle transformative turn.

In the middle of all the usual conversations about session recordings, speaker recaps, and content capture, Ksenjia Polla from the ICCA team asked a thoughtful question that nudged things in a new direction:

What if we could show people, in real time, what the entire event was really talking about?

Not based on agendas. But built directly from the words, ideas, and conversations happening across every room.

That simple request sparked an experiment at ICCA 2024, an “Event-wide Idea Cloud” that visualized the most important themes emerging live from the floor. Attendees could see what was resonating most, not from pre-written agendas or keywords, but built entirely from what was actually being said. Attendees could glance at the cloud to see what was trending in real time: Sustainability. Intergenerational engagement. AI.

To make it truly visible, we deployed it on a square four-sided LED display, suspended centrally and shared across the venue. When a session was live, the screen mirrored the key takeaways in real time. In between sessions, it switched to the event-wide Idea Cloud, giving everyone a dynamic, evolving view of what the community was leaning into.

For organisers, it was a backstage view of the event’s true pulse.

For attendees, a shortcut to what mattered most.

It worked so well that this real-time Idea Cloud didn’t just stay an experiment. It’s now one of the core features in Snapsight 2.0, a direct result of Ksenjia’s curiosity and challenge to do things differently.

For ICCA attendees, this was something new.

With more than 60 sessions summarised – and over 60% of attendees engaging with the content through the app, the Idea Cloud became a live artifact. It let people follow threads they might have missed, and gave speakers visibility into how their ideas landed. Even those who couldn’t attend in person could explore the takeaways from wherever they were through ICCA’s mobile app.

And for an event that doesn’t record most of its sessions due to sheer volume, this created something lasting. A full post-event report, built entirely from live dialogue, was sent out to attendees. Without Snapsight, that content might’ve been gone the moment the mics were turned off.

We’ve always known ICCA to be forward-thinking. They don’t just organise events, they actively look for new ways to make the experience better for their community.

As Vamshi, Snapsight’s MD, puts it:

“They’re not afraid to try something new. Every time we work with them, they’re thinking about how to make the event more useful, more meaningful, more lasting for their attendees. That kind of partnership is rare and it makes the work really worth doing.”

– Vamshi

This collaboration didn’t stop in Abu Dhabi. In 2025, we’ll be part of every ICCA event.

Snapsight is now part of how ICCA brings their global community together – not just in person, but in the content they carry home, the conversations they continue, and the ideas that keep building long after the event wraps up.

There’s a quiet shift happening in events right now.

It’s not about making them bigger. It’s about making them last longer in memory, in action, in impact.

At ICCA 2024, we saw what that looks like in motion.

And we’re proud to have been a small part of it.