UBBA Summit & Plugfest: How a Three-Person Team Runs a 700-Person Industry Event with Expo Pass

UBBA Summit & Plugfest:

How a Three-Person Team Runs a 700-Person Industry Event with Expo Pass

"You take so much of the pressure off me. I don't have to wonder, is it going to be done right? It's done right. We're three people, and you make us look like I've got a team of 30."

Bobbi Harris, Executive Director, Utility Broadband Alliance

The Utility Broadband Alliance (UBBA) brings utilities and solution providers together to advance private broadband networks for critical infrastructure. Incorporated in 2021, the alliance has grown to more than 115 member organizations, and its one annual event has grown right along with it. The UBBA Summit & Plugfest is three days of keynotes, three to five content tracks, an exhibit floor, and something no other event offers: live testing of devices over private LTE networks built for utilities. The 2026 Summit welcomed more than 700 registrants in Fort Worth, Texas.

Behind all of that is a core team of three, led by Executive Director Bobbi Harris. We sat down with Bobbi to talk about what it takes to run an event of this scale with a team this small, and how Expo Pass handles registration, check-in, badging, lead retrieval, and the event app so her team can focus on the event itself.

The Challenge

UBBA's first Summit came together in 2021, just as events were returning after COVID, and everything was manual. Badges were printed on an office printer and slipped into plastic holders, and the team's main goal was simply to pull the event off.

As membership grew, so did the event, and the do-it-yourself approach stopped scaling. Harris priced Cvent and other platforms before choosing Expo Pass, but the real worry wasn't cost. It was experience. A three-person team running one event a year doesn't get many reps, and they needed a partner who would walk them through it.

"We were still worried, because we didn't know what we were doing, frankly. But the team was so supportive. We could ask what felt like silly questions and get all the help we needed."

As the Summit matured, so did what the team asked of its event platform. Members wanted more ways to engage on site, and Expo Pass kept raising the bar to meet them, adding push notifications, attendee-to-attendee chat, floor plans, and exhibitor profiles in the event app. At the same time, the team needed all of it to work for a growing association event with tiered pricing, member and non-member rates, exhibitor comp passes, and a check-in desk that could keep badges out of the wrong hands.

The Solution

For the 2026 Summit & Plugfest, UBBA used Expo Pass as its end-to-end event platform, pairing event registration with on-site check-in and badge printing, lead retrieval for exhibitors, and the event app for attendee engagement.

For the 2026 Summit & Plugfest, UBBA implemented:

• Online registration with early bird, regular, and late/on-site pricing that switches automatically on set dates, embedded directly in the UBBA website
• Member and non-member pricing tiers, plus promo codes for exhibitor comp passes
• Staffed check-in with ID verification and on-demand thermal badge printing
• Lead retrieval purchased by more than half of exhibitors, running on their own devices
• Event app with push notifications, attendee-to-attendee chat, floor plan maps, and self-managed exhibitor profiles
• Equipment shipped to the venue and picked up afterward, with no third-party vendors in the chain

Because the team sets up registration once a year, it has to be simple enough to pick back up cold. Harris and her registration lead walk through it together, the early bird, regular, and late pricing switch automatically on the dates they set, and the registration link is embedded straight into the UBBA website.

On site, UBBA made a deliberate change to check-in this year. In past years, a few people had walked up to a self-service station, typed in a name, and walked off with a badge they hadn't paid for. So the team moved to a staffed desk: attendees show ID, staff type the name, and the badge prints in seconds.

"We made them walk up, show us their driver's license, our people typed in their name, printed out the badge, and life was good. On the busiest day we might have had a small line, but people stood there and talked to each other and it moved really fast. We're going to do that again."

The event app rounded out the experience. Harris sent more than 20 push notifications over the course of the week, attendees could find and message each other, floor plans lived in the app, and exhibitors uploaded their own profiles for a virtual presence alongside their physical booth.

The Results

With Expo Pass handling the moving parts, a three-person team runs a three-day, multi-track summit for more than 700 attendees and looks like a much larger operation. Harris says the platform makes UBBA look more professional and bigger than it is, and that every piece, from online registration to badge pickup to getting the equipment cases shipped and picked up, is one more thing she doesn't have to think about.

Badge quality was a noticeable upgrade this year. In earlier years, badges would occasionally tear when they caught on something. In 2026, Harris can think of only one reprint for that reason all week. Expo Pass now manufactures its badge stock in-house at its facility outside Chicago, with a laminate backing earlier badges didn't have, and Harris noticed the difference right away.

Lead retrieval was a win for exhibitors, too. A little more than half of UBBA's exhibiting companies purchased it, and Harris reports they were pleased with the results. The usual hurdle, that the marketing person who books lead retrieval is rarely the salesperson working the booth, was handled with signage and a staff member stationed at registration to get on-site teams up and running.

Just as valuable is the relationship. Several Expo Pass enhancements UBBA relies on today came directly from feedback Harris gave on renewal and post-event calls: the laminated badge stock, the ability to pass credit card processing fees through to the registrant inside the platform, and attendee-to-attendee chat in the event app.

"That makes me feel like y'all are part of my team, that you really are my extension there. It's a three-day event with three to five tracks of content, keynotes, speakers, and exhibitors. It's really nice to have one thing I don't have to worry about. And that's you guys."

Harris has also offered to serve as a reference for any organizer considering Expo Pass.

What's Next

UBBA has already renewed for 2027, when the Summit & Plugfest moves to the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina, with the alliance taking over the entire property. The team is adding a new piece to the workflow: connecting registration to the hotel room block through Group Hotel Bookings, so attendees register first and then receive their link to book a room. For Harris, that solves a problem every association planner will recognize, companies that block rooms before they know who is coming and release most of them late.

After years of partnership, Expo Pass has become part of how UBBA runs its most important week of the year. Expo Pass is proud to power the UBBA Summit & Plugfest and to help a small team deliver a big, professional experience for the utilities and solution providers who show up every year to build the future of the grid.

Running an annual event with a lean team? See how registration, on-site check-in and badge printing, and lead retrieval from Expo Pass can take the moving parts off your plate. Get a demo.

This article was written with the help of AI and edited by humans. Graphics were generated with the assistance of AI.