Customer story – HELish Summit grew to 320 participants with the whole event managed in one place

When a volunteer-run technology conference grows from around 120 to 320 participants, its success can't rely on scattered tools, Excel lists and manual work. At Finland's largest free Microsoft community conference, Lyyti brought registration, waitlists, communication, check-in, feedback and reporting together in one place.

Finland's largest free Microsoft community conference

Every year, HELish Summit brings together Finnish and international experts and customer organisations to share their experiences and learn from each other around Microsoft 365, Copilot and AI, Azure, security and Power Platform. The event is organised by a non-profit community of volunteers. Growth has been fast: in four years, attendance has almost tripled, from around 120 to 320 participants.

That growth brought new challenges for the organising team. In the past, several different tools had been used at different stages of the event. For the 2026 conference, the goal was to bring participant management and communication into one system – from the moment registration opened to the event day and all the way to processing feedback.

Automatic waitlists and active communication kept high demand under control

As a free event, HELish Summit attracted more interest than the venue could hold. That's why automatic waitlisting was one of the most important Lyyti features for the organisers.

Freed-up places could be offered to people on the waitlist without the team having to maintain separate lists or move data by hand. Up-to-date participant status was available in one place, which reduced manual work and gave a clearer overall picture of how full the event was.

Participant communication also played a big role. With Lyyti, organisers can send targeted reminders and info messages, for example to everyone who has registered. In the organisers' experience, regular communication helped keep participants engaged and the number of no-shows low.

"Lyyti made it easy to send targeted messages to the event's different participant groups, and we didn't need to maintain separate mailing lists. It saved us a lot of time and communication ran smoothly."
– Sari Soinoja, Chair of HELish Summit

Smooth registration and check-in

Registering was easy for participants: they could edit their own details and cancel their attendance while registration was open. Because registration, messages and participant data all came from the same system, the experience stayed consistent for participants. The event's visual look could also be built to match HELish Summit's own brand, so all communication felt like a natural part of the same event experience.

On the morning of the event, hundreds of participants need to get in quickly. Thanks to Lyyti's mobile app, the organisers could handle check-in on their own phones, with no separate scanning devices needed. Participants could be checked in either with a QR code or by searching for their name. At the same time, the team could see in real time how many participants had already arrived and how many were still expected.

Data helps make the next event even better

Lyyti's value didn't end on the event day. The organisers used it to collect feedback that gives concrete input for developing next year's programme and participant experience.

Background information collected during registration helped the team understand what kinds of organisations and roles participants came from. This information can be used in event planning and in sponsor partnerships. Sharing participant data with partners in a controlled way, in line with data protection requirements, was also easy.

Fewer tools, more time for the community

For HELish Summit, Lyyti's biggest value came from having everything together. With registration, waitlists, communication, check-in, feedback and reporting in one place, the organising team didn't need to keep parallel Excel files or piece together a status update from several different systems.

"Running all of this through Lyyti made things much easier and saved time compared to previous years. The system was also easy to get started with, especially since I had used it before."
– Sari Soinoja

Technology doesn't run an event on the community's behalf. But it can remove friction and free up volunteers' time for what matters most: building an inspiring programme, creating encounters and taking care of participants.

HELish Summit 2026 showed that a growing community event can be run professionally without the organising becoming a burden. When the whole event is managed in one place, the community has more room to grow too.

Watch the demo of Lyyti to get a sense of the features!