The challenge
Delivering a Glam Bar at a senior leadership summit sounds like a great idea on paper. Executing it without disrupting the very experience it was meant to elevate? That’s where it gets complicated.
- High demand, limited capacity. A room full of event professionals who know exactly what a great experience looks like means expectations are high and patience for friction is low. The Glam Bar offered hair, makeup, and professional headshots across a three-day schedule with fixed time slots per day, creating real pressure on throughput and flow.
- A schedule too packed for physical waiting. Attendees were there to speak on panels, network with peers, and soak up sessions. Standing in a physical line wasn’t just inconvenient — it meant missing the reason they showed up in the first place. The Glam Bar needed to work around the summit, not compete with it.
- Coordination across a multi-day event. With the Glam Bar operating across Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with different hours each day, and spots refreshing daily on a first-come, first-served basis, managing the queue manually would have created confusion and inconsistency across the entire run of the show.
The solution
NextMe and goMLR built a seamless virtual queue experience that fit the summit’s flow without adding any friction for attendees or staff.
- Integrated directly into the conference app. Rather than pointing attendees to a separate tool or QR code on a sign, NextMe was embedded directly into Informa’s official conference app. Attendees could find the Glam Bar listing, read the hours, and tap to join the virtual waiting room without ever leaving the app. For a summit audience that expects everything to work seamlessly, this integration made all the difference.
- Real-time queue status on their phones. Once in the queue, attendees could check their position and estimated wait from the virtual waiting room on their phones and go about their day. When it was their turn, staff notified them via SMS so they could walk straight over, ready to go. No crowding, no anxiety about missing their slot.
- Daily refresh with clear expectations. The queue reset each day, and the experience made that clear upfront: spots were first-come, first-served and could not be reserved in advance. This kept the process fair, set accurate expectations, and removed any confusion about how the Glam Bar worked across the multi-day event.
- Branded, on-theme experience. The Glam Bar was co-branded by goMLR and NextMe, with the in-app listing and queue experience reflecting the summit’s tone. For attendees and organizers alike, it felt like one cohesive activation, not a bolted-on tool.
The results
The Glam Bar at the BizBash Experiential Leadership Summit delivered exactly what a great summit experience should: something genuinely useful, executed without a hitch.
- A friction-free experience for a discerning audience. Event professionals are the toughest crowd to impress, because they know what good looks like. Embedding the queue inside the conference app meant attendees never had to think twice about how to access the Glam Bar. They found it, joined, and got back to the summit. That simplicity was the experience.
- Staff freed up to focus on the service, not the crowd. With NextMe managing the queue, goMLR’s team of makeup artists, hairstylists, and photographers could focus entirely on delivering a high-quality result for every attendee. No one was managing a crowd at the door or chasing people down for their slot.
- A proven playbook for future events. The activation demonstrated that high-demand, appointment-style services can work beautifully at professional conferences when backed by the right virtual queue infrastructure. BizBash and goMLR now have a proven playbook to bring to future events.
