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The Pitch: Could the Next Billion Dollar Sport Start on Roblox?

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The Pitch: Could the Next Billion Dollar Sport Start on Roblox?

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Today's newsletter expands on The Pitch podcast which dropped on Monday. There was no Drew this time so Jo Redfern stepped in to join me. She brought a fascinating pitch derived from a platform where she spends a lot of her time and energy... Roblox. Over the course of the episode, Jo pitches how the platform could be effectively a Petri dish for testing new sports formats. She even invented one herself and talks through what milestones would need to be hit before moving from a thriving digital game to a live, IRL, ticketed experience. I dive into it in more depth below. Do let me know what you think!
And thanks to , who continue to support this series, as well as our social events in London, Manchester, and around the globe!

Volleyball Legends, a volleyball game built inside Roblox, has reportedly sold for $30 million.

The game has accumulated 2.85 billion visits. Over the past few weeks it has averaged roughly 61,000 concurrent players. Sessions run at around 11 minutes, likely longer in practice given how Roblox matchmaking works.

According to BloxzMedia, Double Black Capital facilitated the deal, and if confirmed, it would rank among the largest sales in Roblox history, with Welcome to Bloxburg at $100 million as the clearest public benchmark.

A $30 million cheque for a volleyball game is a clear illustration that platform-native IP is now being considered as a serious asset class by institutional capital.

And on that basis, it raises a broader question, and idea, which Jo Redfern and I happened to discuss on the most recent episode of The Pitch Podcast.
If digital-native competitive environments can command such business valuations, could the next billion dollar sport actually start inside a platform like Roblox?
For decades, new sports have followed a familiar script. A group identifies a gap in the market, which usually this goes something like " this format is too long" or " the audience too old." And then, on this realisation, capital is raised, venues are secured, athletes signed, production teams hired, and distribution negotiated. Only then does the market reveal whether the demand actually does exist.

However, that has it's issues. First and foremost, going through that sequencing is expensive. Venue hire, staffing, security, broadcast crews, and marketing spend all create a fixed cost base before behavioural proof is visible. Iteration is then constrained by contracts and infrastructure commitments. Furthermore, the idea of adjusting the format mid-season or repositioning the product after launch becomes much more difficult.

This is where Roblox has the opportunity to flip the order.

Instead of building infrastructure first, you build mechanics, design rules, observe behaviour, and track retention curves. You can measure concurrency, session length and clip velocity, and see whether moments spill onto TikTok and YouTube. You can even wait and see if creators begin to build identity around the sport/ format. In other words, you validate culture before you commit (significant) capital.

Software companies have operated this way for years, operating under the thesis of ship early, iterate continuously, and scale what demonstrates traction.

The same is happening with mobile apps on TikTok, too. I recently listened to a podcast about Pushscroll, an app that forces users to do push-ups to unlock social media. It was only developed by Alejandro Sanchez and Mario Ortiz Manero after they had posted a fake demo video to validate demand.

A serious Roblox game can be built and operated for a fraction of what even a modest physical challenger league requires. For under six figures, you can run a meaningful year-long experiment. Compare that with the multi-million commitments required to stage live events at scale and you're looking at an entirely different risk profile.

Distribution changes, too. Roblox already offers embedded global reach with gameplay moments organically migrating to social platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Some of these moments accumulate millions of views. In that sense, you are testing two variables at once.

That's not say that Jo's idea of 'Drophoop' (think: basketball x tag x parkour) is entirely a slam dunk (pun intended).

It's important to recognise that there are still constraints. Retention inside Roblox requires constant updates and community management. This is a multi-year build. Platform economics sit within Roblox's ecosystem, creating concentration risk and digital traction does not automatically convert into physical fandom. If a format moves offline, the bridge must be designed deliberately.

Yet the broader signal around using a digital environment as a validation layer remains. Instead of building an arena and hoping an audience materialises, perhaps the more rational sequence is to build the audience first and allow them to demand the arena.

When institutional capital is willing to pay $30 million for a sports game born inside a digital platform, it suggests that competitive environments native to those platforms are being valued as standalone assets. This would only compound further if the digital asset has been purposefully designed in a way to scale into a physical environment down the line.

Roblox may never replace traditional sport and that is not the point, either. The question is whether it could become the laboratory where the next formats are rehearsed, refined and validated before they ever touch a physical space.

If that is true, the more interesting question is who in sport is prepared to treat platforms like Roblox as a proving ground rather than a marketing channel.

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THE PITCH

On today's episode of The Pitch, Andy is joined by Jo Redfern (stepping in for Drew) to trade sports media ideas sparked by Roblox, Netflix-style "shared universes," and the BBC's Celebrity Traitors.

Jo opens with a pitch for DropHoop, a new hybrid sport incubated on Roblox first (parkour x tag x basketball), designed to scale through gameplay, UGC distribution, and monetisation before ever being commissioned IRL.

The pair unpack why Roblox is effectively a Petri dish for sports formats, how brands could "own" emerging sports rather than sponsor existing ones, and what milestones would need to be hit before moving from a digital game to a live, ticketed experience.

Andy flips the lens to traditional broadcast and proposes a new kind of rights add-on: sports should negotiate entertainment crossover as part of the deal, giving athletes access to audition for (or appear in) major reality formats to reach audiences who'd never click a sports doc.

From The Traitors to Netflix's Perfect Match flywheel, they explore how "character as referral" could become a repeatable growth lever for tier-two sports, without needing fans to already care about the sport in the first place.
Timestamps

02:00 - Jo's Pitch: Roblox as a signal engine for the next generation of sports formats

06:30 - DropHoop explained

26:00 - The economics + milestones

30:00 - Andy's Pitch: Reality TV as a rights negotiation lever for athlete-driven

discovery

40:00 - Influencer-led fandom and why "character is the referral engine"

45:00 - Why this is under-leveraged?

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso.

It's a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what's really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

is a digital and youth media specialist who has spent the last five years at the forefront of platforms such as YouTube, Roblox, and TikTok. With a background in traditional broadcast and kids media, Jo is known for turning generational media behaviours into commercial opportunities. Through her consultancy firm, Futrhood, she helps IP owners and rights holders scale engagement and monetisation by leveraging content, platforms, community, and emerging tech.

Andy Marstonis the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.
Produced by OH SIX
The Sports Pundit Podcast is proudly produced by , a content marketing agency specialising in producing digital and social-first content that connects. Trusted by Premier League clubs, F1 teams, and top brands, OH SIX deliver premium content end-to-end, from ideation, working with talent during production and platform specific content to reach audiences on screen.

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The Pitch: Could the Next Billion Dollar Sport Start on Roblox?

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Instead of building infrastructure first, you build mechanics. You design rules, observe behaviour and track retention curves. You measure concurrency, session length and clip velocity...

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Leonardo.ai: Generative AI Tool - Video and Image Creation

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Leonardo.ai: Generative AI Tool - Video and Image Creation

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How to Make a Marketing Video Using Stock Footage

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How to Make a Marketing Video Using Stock Footage

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How to Make a Marketing Video Using Stock Footage

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Follow these steps on how to make a marketing video that will engage your customers using stock footage.

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GiveVision to enhance matchday experience for visually impaired fans

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GiveVision to enhance matchday experience for visually impaired fans

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Welsh Rugby Union - Principality Stadium introduces GiveVision to enhance matchday experience for visually impaired fans

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Principality Stadium has confirmed the introduction of GiveVision technology, following a successful trial period across major 2025 events. This move sees the Welsh Rugby Union become the first international rugby union in the world to implement GiveVision technology, further reinforcing its commitment to leading the way in accessible live sports and events. Developed by GiveVision, […]

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“Notch* hasn’t just built a game. He’s tricked 40million people into learning to use a CAD program.” – Cody Sumter, MIT MediaLab

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Want to learn computer-aided design (CAD)? Play Minecraft

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Minecraft players construct elaborate virtual structures; MIT has created a program that allows users to bring these into the real world using 3D printers

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What does Fortnite's Travis Scott event reveal about the future of entertainment?

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What does Fortnite's Travis Scott event reveal about the future of entertainment?

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Fortnite: Scott performed concert within game

Fortnite, one of the world's most popular games, is no stranger to in-game events, having hosted Marshmello last year and an exclusive tie-in with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. But the online platform by Epic Games moved up a notch, breaking its previous streaming records last weekend when 12.3 million concurrent players logged in to watch Travis Scott's "Astronomical" event.

According to stats released by Epic, in addition to the 12.3 million watching live on 23 April, more than 27.7 million viewed the concert across the five events that ran until 27 April. The new milestone represented Fortnite's largest in-game gathering, but what does it tell us about the blended world of entertainment and the future opportunities for brand partnerships? Campaign spoke to tech and entertainment creators to assess the significance of this new form of entertainment.

Christophe Brumby

Strategy director, Amplify

The most exciting prospect for us lies in the fact that both the Travis Scott and the Marshmello gigs on Fortnite are completely redefining what a live experience can be today and will be in a post Covid-19 world - from the design of the performance to the physical and digital swag that helps keep the story going for the audience.

Not only do virtual gigs allow millions to enjoy an experience beyond borders, enabling artists and brands to reach new audiences at scale, they also offer endless, out-of-this-world creative possibilities for audience engagement and participation.

While the Travis Scott was packed with incredible audiovisual effects, it still played off some of the accepted codes of a real-life concert, with a classic stage design and passive viewer experience. But what happens when you are liberated from the technical, logistical, safety and security constraints of physical experiences? What does the virtual space look like when you no longer need a stage and everyone can get as close to the artist as they want? Better yet - what happens when you are liberated from the natural laws of physics, when you can fly around, when you can be in multiple places at the same time etc?

Ultimately, I believe the future of entertainment lies in greater interaction with the performance, where the audience and the artist can co-create the experience - think Fortnite meets Bandersnatch. How can Fortnite players actually play with the performance? What can their individual - or collective - actions trigger in the show?

Nnamdi David

Head of media strategy, Mediahub

For years, gaming had been lambasted by advertisers as the dingy basement of online advertising. They knew young audiences were transitioning over in numbers, but brands were hesitant to follow them into murky waters. With this latest Travis Scott partnership, Fortnite have added another page to the ever-expanding gaming portfolio.

On the surface, the campaign had all the usual hallmarks of great branded content; thoughtful integration, true consumer value and spoken in the same language as the audience, without ever being patronising. But it stood for much more; it was an experience that could have only worked in a game and hit numbers that TV is increasingly struggling to deliver, and indeed may have felled the final bastion of linear television - the live event.

Sarah Salter

Head of innovation, Wavemaker

The Travis Scott Fortnite gig laid bare the power new media has in replicating how physical experiences and events can appeal to our senses. The gig allowed us to feel like we'd bagged a front-row spot where we could share in the magic with others.

Using Fortnite as the platform no doubt had a greater impact - as gaming features aided the interactive experience and helped bridge human connections between engaged fans. Despite being brought back to reality with the occasional glimpse of your living room, it was a powerfully unique experience which has opened the door to the revolution of the entertainment industry.

All of the world is now a stage and the increasingly blurred lines between the online and offline world present an opportunity to create powerful entertainment that could have only been imagined.

Chris Weil

Chief executive and chairman, Momentum Worldwide

Around 12 million of us tuned in to the epic Travis Scott gig on Fortnite where, unlike Marshmello's virtual debut, happened in a locked-down world.

The rise of esports and online gaming sees brands and celebrities awakening to the land of opportunity online. For decades, platforms allowed people to engage, remix and create in virtual worlds. Today, there are approximately 2.5 billion gamers among us. They've spent years building ecosystems, environments and worlds that the rest of us had largely left alone.

Now that we're only coming together in a virtual world, can the entertainment industry catch up? With nowhere else to go, we gatecrashed the Fortnite party, streaming on Twitch and YouTube. Will the next step be brands and entertainment building their own virtual arenas and communities?

We're excited to imagine and innovate with creative technology that evolves the reasons people attend physical events and help our clients transition to become architects of this new world.

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What does Fortnite's Travis Scott event reveal about the future of entertainment?

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Fortnite, one of the world's most popular games, is no stranger to in-game events, having hosted Marshmello last year and an exclusive tie-in with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. But the online platform by Epic Games moved up a notch, breaking its previous streaming records last weekend when 12.3 million concurrent players logged in to watch Travis Scott's "Astronomical" event.

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Manchester City launch StickerBook Challenge on Roblox

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Manchester City launch StickerBook Challenge on Roblox

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The future of the events industry? Gaming advances into AR and VR paving the way for project ‘Metaverse’.

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The future of the events industry? Gaming advances into AR and VR paving the way for project ‘Metaverse’.

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The world of gaming has developed vastly in years gone by. As the world improves digitally, it is reflected via new technologies, new controls and recently, new experiences into this market. As shown below, there is a stark contrast between the graphics of the past in relation to modernised gameplay. The visual difference in games between 1993 'FIFA International Soccer' and 2021 'FIFA 20' is clear to see, yet the development further of the gaming industry is something to keep an eye on. Will the technology used become integrated more closely into societal norms?

Studies on the gaming industry following the 'Covid-19 pandemic' and subsequents lockdowns have displayed increasing engagement throughout. With many people stuck at home and experiencing increased boredom, love for gaming soared. In G2A.com's (the worlds largest online marketiplace for gamers) interview with Forbes: data concluded a '200% increase in the number of people aged over 60 searching for games on our platform'. This is inconjunction to the current ' 93% of under-18s' of regular users. Gaming as an end user experience accelerated due to the Covid Pandemic, with rapid increase in gaming consumption related to heightened social interaction, with gaming interatction their main form of outer home social contact.

Technology increases have resulted in the need for immersive gameplay. The younger, upcoming consumers are stating preference for unique gaming experiences, following the use of virtual worlds. The industry is advancing into immersive game play to offer realistic game play; accessibility; but mainly, realistic experiences for end users. The main forerunners in this market include Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite. Exemplified through Roblox with '150 million monthly active users' and majority of 'players under 13 years old'. In these virtual worlds, gameplayers can create, destroy, and live their life in different modes. Yet, technology is rapidly improving, and there is alternative ways to access these worlds.

Technological advancements have developed new ways of gaming. The use of Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) has implemented new ways to interact with different environments. AR according to Investopedia is an ' enhanced version of the real physical world that is achieved through the use of digital elements', and VR is an enhanced version of a simulated and completely virtual environment. They both draw upon senses, such as vision, touch, hearing and smell. One huge example of AR technology in gaming is 'Pokémon Go ' which allows players to explore locations in their city to experience Pokémon in the real world.

Pokemon Go - an example of AR, by Trusted Reviews and an example of Virtual Reality, by Flickr.

In the world of technology, Mark Zuckerberg is a global leader. In the 2020s he has predicted that VR and AR will 'redefine our relationship with technology', explaining that this platform will become the next 'ground-breaking platform'. Zuckerberg, formally the owner of 'Facebook', has opted to commit to the potential of this technology and has subsequently rebranded as ' Meta', in line with the potential of the ' metaverse' which he believes is the next channel for digital media. This channel provides opportunity for AR and VR to be used outside of gaming and it is ' poised to deliver these magical possibilities and take connection to new heights.'

The shift in branding from Facebook to Meta, both images provided by Flickr.

In gaming there is evidence of the 'Metaverse', where the lines between virtual and physical events are blurred. Companies like Meta have made investments of roughly $10 billion in the metaverse in VR labs, to expand the ability to live as an avatar into new experiences. Shown through ' NFTs': these are cryptographic tokens that exist on blockchain and can tokenise real world assets. This can signify buying and selling of real-world items on a digital marketplace. Leading to the creation of digital ranges of items - ie Nike have acquired RTFKT Studios a 'leading brand that leverages cutting edge innovation to deliver next generation collectibles that merge culture and gaming.'

An example of Nike's colloboration with NFT and digital company RTFKT Studios, by cryptoknowmics

Technology has given use of these virtual worlds in games such as 'Fortnite' has allowed new ways for artists, musicians and clothing brands to market and make money. So far there has been hosting of concerts, sporting events, music festivals, luxury fashion shows, promoting the idea of potential expansion outside of gaming to create more events to attend experiences. Famously Travis Scott hosted a concert on Fortnite, allowing game players to witness his 15-minute set whilst playing the game. Experiencing a vast amount of visuals alongside the music, something that is limited during live events.

Other experiences of a crossover between digital and the real world is exemplified through Kings of Leon, who released their album to be bought as an NFT. This token is sold for $50 (£35.70) with access to a digital download of the music and a vinyl. With other examples including artists and a 'Metaverse fashion week' - will technology that makes you feel like you are at an event, surpass actually being at a live event? Valerie Bihet, owner of event production company VIBE Agency, argues that the event industry is " entering a world that is totally digitized, and having a digital entity in your event is a must."

Yet will there be further room for expansion into further marketplaces? The prospect of VR and AR is currently being utilised in additional areas - developing opportunities for expansion into new markets, where consumers can develop skills in ways previously unimaginable. This immersive technological revolution has prompted Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) to delve into VR, investing in future technologies to present futuristic solutions; exemplified by the driven corporate nature to run 'training sessions for up to 1,000 PwC colleagues in a day ', aiming to enhance business processes and increase corporate efficiency.

A study surrounding PwC on soft skill training via VR - by Talespin

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The world of gaming has developed vastly in years gone by. As the world improves digitally, it is reflected via new technologies, new controls and recently, new experiences into this market. As shown below, there is a stark contrast between the graphics of the past in relation to modernised gameplay.

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PowerPoint Animation Tutorial Kinetic Typography

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PowerPoint Animation Tutorial Kinetic Typography

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PowerPoint Animation Tutorial Kinetic Typography Part 01

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Apple unveils immersive concert experience with Metallica for Apple Vision Pro

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Apple unveils immersive concert experience with Metallica for Apple Vision Pro

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Latest Apple Immersive Video launches March 14, featuring iconic songs from one of the world's biggest bands, and customers can enjoy a preview at Apple Store locations

A new Apple Immersive concert experience, , is coming to Apple Vision Pro this Friday, March 14. Filmed in Mexico City during the sold-out second-year finale of the band's M72 World Tour, Metallica features full performances of three longtime staples from the band's stadium-filling live shows - "Whiplash," "One," and "Enter Sandman" - and was captured exclusively in Apple Immersive Video. This remarkable storytelling format is only possible on Apple Vision Pro, with ultra-high-resolution 180-degree video and Spatial Audio to give viewers unprecedented access to James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Robert Trujillo - from vantage points as close up as the famed Snake Pit, to wide-angle views of the band's energetic performance in the round.

Customers can book an Apple Vision Pro demo at their local Apple Store to experience the magic of spatial computing, and enjoy an extended preview of Metallica beginning this Friday. Users can also enjoy the band's performance with a new EP, M72 World Tour: Mexico City, available in Spatial Audio on Apple Music this Friday.

"Game changing is putting it lightly," said Lars Ulrich of Metallica. "Seeing our concert like that, along with the energy of the Mexico City fans - it's very immersive, and it's super fun. We've always been interested in pushing the boundaries, and Metallica on Apple Vision Pro is exactly that."

"Apple Immersive Video transforms the way people experience storytelling, and we're thrilled to collaborate with Metallica on a concert unlike any before it," said Tor Myhren, Apple's vice president of Marketing Communications. "With Metallica on Apple Vision Pro, you feel like you're right there: front row, backstage, and even on stage with one of the biggest bands of all time."

To capture the band's full performance from multiple perspectives, and the energy of over 65,000 passionate Metallica fans, Apple built a custom stage layout featuring 14 Apple Immersive Video cameras using a mix of stabilized cameras, cable-suspended cameras, and remote-controlled camera dolly systems that moved around the stage.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich spoke with Apple Music's Zane Lowe about the Apple Immersive concert experience, the band's enduring commitment to their fans, and the next leg of the band's M72 World Tour at SXSW 2025 this afternoon. "I've been a music fan my whole life, and I've never experienced anything like this," said Lowe. "It's not just the best seat in the house - it's like you're in the only seat on stage." Their full conversation will be available on the SXSW YouTube channel.

More Episodes and Films Available in Apple Immersive Video

Users can enjoy more Apple Immersive Video only on Apple Vision Pro, including new episodes of the Adventure and Boundless series. In the fourth episode of Adventure, " Deep Water Solo," viewers follow world-class climber Kai Lightner as he scales the craggy seaside cliffs of Mallorca, Spain, and makes a risky free-solo ascent on Cova del Diablo. In the second episode of Boundless, " Arctic Surfing," viewers can paddle into the icy waters of Norway as a group of intrepid surfers pursue the rush of its wintry waves.

VIP: Yankee Stadium is a new Apple Immersive sports film that gives viewers an all-access pass to one of the world's most iconic baseball venues. Broadcasting legend Joe Buck takes viewers back to a "Friday Night Baseball" matchup between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, with an all-encompassing look at how elite athletes, die-hard fans, dedicated staff, and epic moments make the Bronx ballpark legendary. VIP: Yankee Stadium will be available for free worldwide on Friday, April 4 - one week after the return of "Friday Night Baseball" on Apple TV+ on Friday, March 28.

A special edition of Bono: Stories of Surrender will debut globally on Apple Vision Pro in Apple Immersive Video alongside its release on Apple TV+ on Friday, May 30. Bono: Stories of Surrender (Immersive) places viewers onstage with Bono, and completely immerses them in his story, as he pulls back the curtain on his remarkable life and the family, friends, and faith that have challenged and sustained him. It's the first feature-length film available in Apple Immersive Video and the latest example of Bono's and U2's commitment to innovation.

Customers can book a demo for free online. Demos are hosted at all Apple Store locations where Apple Vision Pro is available.

New Apple Immersive films and episodes debut in U.S. English with subtitles in additional languages. Title availability varies by country or region. Users in China mainland can access select Apple Immersive titles from the Migu Video and Tencent Video apps, which are available to download for free on the App Store.

Apple TV+ is available for £8.99 (U.K.) per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, eligible customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV+ for free.

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Apple unveils immersive concert experience with Metallica for Apple Vision Pro

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A new Apple Immersive concert experience, "Metallica," is coming to Apple Vision Pro this Friday, March 14.

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Are Minecraft Livestreams the Future of Music Festivals?

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Are Minecraft Livestreams the Future of Music Festivals?

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Simulators, AI commentary and Fortnite… what Wimbledon’s sponsors have planned for the 2023 championships

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Simulators, AI commentary and Fortnite… what Wimbledon’s sponsors have planned for the 2023 championships

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What Wimbledon’s sponsors have planned for the 2023 championships - SportsPro

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As Wimbledon gets underway, SportsPro takes a look at how the likes of Barclays, American Express and IBM are activating their tournament partnerships.

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Next-Gen Sound: Unveiling the Future of Music Experiences!

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Next-Gen Sound: Unveiling the Future of Music Experiences!

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Next-Gen Sound: Unveiling the Future of Music Experiences!

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Why you need mixed reality at your next event...

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Why you need mixed reality at your next event...

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Why You Need Mixed Reality at Your Next Event

With so much vying for the attention of your audience today, it is more important than ever to create an experience at your events that will captivate and engage guests. Depending on the type of event you are at, you may not only have to compete with other vendors and scheduled programming, but you will have to tear your audience away from their phones and the demands of the email or social media, forcing them to focus on you and your products. Mixed reality can help you enhance the guest experience at your event, leaving your audience awe-struck and inspired.

Simply put, mixed reality refers to the scope of technologies currently available to create a variety of virtual experiences and compositions using real-world and digital spaces. The spectrum of mixed reality technology options is known as the Mixed Reality Continuum and contains four primary categories: real environment, augmented reality, augmented virtuality, and virtual reality. Each category integrates physical and virtual objects together to create a unique experience, the difference is in how much of the world created is digitally-generated. In addition to covering the range of experiences available, the phrase mixed reality can also be used in reference to an independent technology or concept that blends virtual and physical elements.

Mixed Reality Events

There are many benefits of mixed reality at a variety of events. Regardless of whether you and your organization are the only benefactors of the event or you are partaking as one of many exhibitors at a trade show, incorporating VR technology to create a new experience for your audience will produce a memorable and unique platform to help you stand out from all others in your space. Just like the technology itself, the advantages of using virtual technologies are continuously expanding. However, there are a few important reasons to consider using virtual reality at events.

Any good marketer or salesperson will be the first to tell you that creating word-of-mouth buzz and excitement around your product or services is one of the best ways to attract new customers. Integrating mixed reality technology into the pitch of your products at an event or trade show will help you connect with attendees and give them something to talk about. Fortunately, mixed reality technologies and the experiences they create are still somewhat of a novelty so many people at the event will be eager to give it a try. Not only will this build your reputation within the event and venue, but if users share their interaction with the technology on social media, you will continue to reach an audience far from and long after the event. In some cases, you may even be able to access and harvest the content that attendees generate and post on social media at a later time to create marketing materials to use in campaigns or at other events.

Once you have compelled people to come to check out what you have to offer, keeping their attention is crucial, especially at large events with multiple vendors such as conferences or trade shows. Without technology, many have been left to ply their audience with silly games or snacks just to keep them in their space long enough to hear a pitch. Mixed reality technologies, however, do all the work for you. Once word gets out about the experience you have developed, people will be lining up to give it a try themselves, and this is where your biggest opportunity lies. Guests will be eager to try your mixed reality environment, but while they wait you can use the time to provide demonstrations of your product and have meaningful conversations with your guests about the problems your product can solve for them.

Trade shows and conferences are still very popular in many industries because they can help organizations to launch new products and initiatives or showcase updates and features of existing ones. In some industries, however, it can be difficult to highlight the benefits of a product or create a meaningful hands-on experience and so companies are left to display a marketing video about it. While it may be effective in communicating the features, two-dimensional content is not an engaging way to interact with your customers, and you will find that they quickly lose interest and move onto the next thing.

In addition to using mixed reality to grab and keep your audience's attention, you can also use it to develop a hands-on product interaction that won't just tell a customer what your product can do but will let them experience it for themselves. In a completely customized virtual environment, your guests will be able to experience the capabilities of your product offerings and give them a new level of understanding about what you can do for them.

Tips for Augmented Reality Events

While leveraging this new immersive technology is an exciting opportunity to engage with your customers in a completely new way, it is important to be careful in how you choose to implement augmented reality technology at your next event. There are a few guidelines to be aware of as you consider how you will integrate mixed reality technology at your events.

Understand the technology. It may seem obvious, but the first step to integrating new and complex technology is to develop a deeper understanding of what it is capable of and how it works. Not only will this help to keep your expectations in check regarding what is feasible for you to create, but it will help you communicate more effectively with vendors, event planners, and other stakeholders about what is needed to make your plans come to fruition. Be sure you have a firm grasp on what mixed reality is and is not, as well as the ways in which it can be delivered including:

Device-based: One of the simplest ways to create and enjoy a mixed reality experience is to deploy is as a device-based scenario. To access it, one would only need a smartphone or tablet equipped with the program or application in order to interact with the environment around them. This technology has become one of the most popular mixed reality experiences in the past few years with apps such as Pokémon GO. As the most accessible form of mixed reality, it is perfect for the events industry.

Wearable: As the name suggests, wearable mixed reality requires the users to wear a piece of technology in order to partake in the virtual experience. An augmented reality wearable will still allow the user to see their immediate real-world environment with virtual elements overlaid, whereas a virtual reality wearable will transport them to an entirely new world. These devices are one of the most immersive ways to experience mixed reality as users are able to move their heads and use their hands.

Mirror: Using a reflective surface to display additional imagery or information, mirror mixed realities is one of the less immersive options available. However, they are able to provide a number of benefits to certain industries. For example, you might be a mirror reality device in a hair salon or clothing store which allows customers to view and "try on" different styles without making any real changes. In an event setting, mirror realities can help draw a crowd, entertain guests, and demonstrate products depending on your offerings.

Transparent: Perhaps the most stunning and advanced of the mixed reality displays are those used for transparent augmented reality. Using transparent LED or OLED displays, the technology is able to create a completely virtual, three-dimensional environment and elements. Guests are able to view the display from all angles without the need to wear a mixed reality headset or use their phones. Not only is it awe-inspiring and attention-grabbing, but in an event space, you would be able to create immersive product demonstrations.

Make Sure it Adds Value. Being without a technology-enabled experience might be better than having one that does not add value to your presentation. During the planning and design phases of your mixed reality environment, be sure that the concept aligns with the rest of your presentation. If it does not, or you are unable to communicate its relation to your offerings clearly, your guests may become confused about what it is you do, or worse, you may create an unforgettable experience that completely excludes you from memory.

Start Simple. Learning how to leverage mixed reality technologies to engage your audience successfully won't happen overnight. Just as with other marketing techniques, you will need to test and adjust a number of iterations before you find what works best. To that end, it is best to start simple and build on the experience from there. This will also help you ensure that the technological aspects of the event work properly and seamlessly before creating more opportunities for complex realities.

Find the Right Partner. Despite your best attempts, you likely won't be able to become an expert in all of the mixed reality technologies available which is why finding a technology partner you can trust is critical to the success of your virtual experience. An experienced vendor will know all of the intricacies of each type of virtual experience and be able to help you ideate, design, and build your creation. This can help you save time, as opposed to create the various elements yourself while keeping you informed of the status of the project.

Working with Vario Reality

At Vario, we work with clients to create unique event experiences that will delight and inspire guests using a variety of tools and technologies. That is why we have developed our newest offerings, Vario Reality. Using cutting edge applications that are completely customizable to your event needs, we can help upgrade your guest experience with rich, enticing, and immersive content while enhancing the sales process to produce your most successful event yet.

Vario Reality allows you to transport your guests to an entirely new environment, whether selected from our pre-built scenes or customized specifically for your event, by simply putting on a mixed reality headset or walking into a designated space. Our virtual reality stations are presented in stunning 4K and equipped with a heart-pounding soundtrack that will fully immerse your guests in a new experience. Our AR 360 technology, on the other hand, is specifically designed for the meetings industry to help differentiate your marketing and branding from those around you in a crowded space by creating a new space with 360-degree videos.

Contact us today to start developing a unique and exciting interactive experience at your next event. Our team is well-versed in all mixed reality and interactive event technologies and will guide you through the process of selecting, designing, and building your next great mixed reality event.

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Why You Need Mixed Reality at Your Next Event | Vario

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In today's day and age, Mixed reality is a must at corporate events. Discover the benefits of mixed reality and why you need it at your event.

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9 reasons why event websites are crucial...

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9 reasons why event websites are crucial...

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Bespoke event websites are not only a great way of making your event accessible to your audience, but also keeping your attendees engaged with your event and its legacy, says First Event.

You've designed your event because there's a specific group out there that you want to share your message with. You might have the information, knowledge and insights that could add bags full of value to their life or career, but if this value isn't made accessible in the right way, you'll miss out on speaking directly to your target attendee.

First Event has created websites for all thousands of events, each one tailored to fit the needs and interests of unique audiences. From our experience, these are the 9 biggest reasons why having an event website is so important.

A hub for sharing up to date information.

An event website is easy to keep up to date with changing information. Has your speaker dropped out at the last minute? Have your travel arrangements been updated? No worries! With an event website you can quickly and efficiently share the most up to date information with your attendees.

Increase sponsorship opportunities.

Your event website creates another sponsored element to your event. Sponsors know that attendees will be accessing your site multiple times to access information, and will want their brand to benefit from this traffic. A website is also a great place to showcase all of your event sponsors and their involvement in your event, further adding to the benefits of your sponsorship agreements.

Produce less waste than an event brochure.

Due to how easy event websites are to update and share, they are a much more environmentally friendly option than printing lots of single use, glossy brochures that will most likely go straight in the bin after your event has ended.

Creates a more immersive brand experience.

Creating a fully branded website that reinforces the values of your event is another way to create an immersive event experience for your attendees. With the right design, copy and interactive elements, attendees can experience the atmosphere and impact of your event legacy through the content on your event website.

When built with the right interactive elements, your guests can network and interact with fellow attendees through your event website. By giving attendees their own log-ins and profiles, they can customise their own corner of your event site, making them feel even more immersed in your brand and adding more value to their event experience.

Gain valuable insights into your audience.

All that attendee interaction through your event website is a valuable resource for gaining insights into what your attendees are interested in. By looking at how your attendees are interacting with your website, you can see which elements they loved the most, which sections maybe didn't receive as much traction as you were hoping, and improve your event format for the future.

Build excitement around your event.

Your event website provides even more opportunities to build excitement around your event. By launching different elements of the site the closer you get to your event date, you can build an even bigger buzz around your event, and keep attendees engaged with new features and releases.

Rather than responding to repetitive emails asking the same questions, you can dedicate a page of your event website to answering those all important attendee FAQs. Given how easy an event website is to update, you can keep adding to your FAQ answers based on what questions you're receiving from your attendees.

An event website is a great place to hold all the content captured during your event, and can serve as your one stop shop to access all the insights generated from your event. Your event website can hold all recorded sessions on demand for your attendees to relive over and over again, making your event impact and attendee engagement last even longer.

Looking for some expert advice when it comes to creating the perfect website to capture the attention of your attendees?

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9 reasons why event websites are crucial

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Bespoke event websites are not only a great way of making your event accessible to your audience, but also keeping your attendees engaged with your event and its legacy, says First Event. You've designed your event because there's a specific group out there that you want to share your message with.

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Is the future of online events in the metaverse?

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Is the future of online events in the metaverse?

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(Image credit: OHishiapply / Shutterstock)

With Covid shutting down almost every physical event last year, we saw a drastic increase in the importance of connecting virtually. With a number of platforms growing rapidly to meet this demand, such as Hopin and Zoom, virtual events have become more and more sophisticated.

Though an unusual change, reducing our dependence on physical meetings has been beneficial in a number of ways. From a sustainability perspective, we have removed the environmental cost of flying people round the world. From an economic perspective, businesses avoid racking up large bills on logistics. For all these reasons, virtual events have certainly changed from a temporary placeholder to a permanent feature in our work and social lives.

But just how exactly have online events changed? The answer truly begins in the 1980s, where SciFi writer Neal Stephenson envisaged a future where our virtual representations eventually merged into one consistent experience, with humans acting through avatars in a digitally reimagined version of our universe. Though virtual, this world crucially shares with our real world the quality of persistence. Digitalization in our society has created multiple individual examples of virtual experience, such as online shopping or social networking. But only recently have these instances begun to merge, creating persistent worlds where running errands, working and socializing happen in the same experience - in a universe in parallel to our own.

Historically, creating virtual experiences has been the central focus of the video game industry, where advancement in engines and graphical rendering have helped create some of the most dazzling and richly detailed digital worlds. Naturally, key engines like Unreal are hugely popular in other industries such as design and engineering when creating virtual representations or digital twins. Historically these separate uses of gaming tech have remained isolated, but this is now changing. In recent years, game worlds have become host to much more than games. Fortnite and Roblox saw people use their worlds as social hangouts, which they began to capitalize on with things like virtual concerts. Rap superstar for example, Travis Scott, performed to 12 million as an avatar on Fortnite.

New activities

As these gameworlds evolved to include these new activities, other industries have flocked to join the metaverse. With any place of social interaction, opportunities for marketing and advertising opened up. One game that became particularly popular during Covid was Animal Crossing, where players gather items and build and visit each other's islands. Companies such as Gucci joined and built their own island, which players could visit to claim a real life reward.

Fashion and art events are becoming increasingly more common in the metaverse, where shows, auctions and artistic projects can be accessed by people globally. While games have adapted to form the metaverse, we are seeing worlds be created exclusively to take advantage of these new opportunities. Decentraland for example, launched publicly in February 2020 and has brands itself on being tailored for metaverse events.

But while virtual events have undoubtedly been expanded and improved through the metaverse, in one way they struggle to match the true scale of the physical events they have replaced. Stadiums of 100,000 people are of course commonplace in our physical world, but in reality this is difficult to replicate digitally. While boasting an audience number of 12 million people, the Travis Scott concert didn't actually host this number in one single world. In order to complete this computational challenge, attendees inhabit multi-sharded worlds that contain only a couple hundred other people. If online events are to continue to develop and improve, this shortfall must be addressed.

Solving this challenge requires computational power as well as a highly sophisticated networking model. Cloud computing offers access to the high compute power that is needed, but a sprawling toolchain and bloated technology stack make distributed simulations a difficult feat. A reimagined underlying infrastructure that simplifies this middleware could allow greater scaling of simulations.

By utilizing multiple machines on the cloud, as events grow in attendance the simulation could scale dynamically across these machines. Thousands of people interacting in a simulation from around the world is also difficult in terms of bandwidth. Determining which actions are relevant to each attendee through a feature like net relevancy can help deliver this as it makes entity interaction much simpler.

In a short space of time, the metaverse has developed rapidly. Gaming platforms hosting social events was merely the beginning, as we are now seeing new platforms emerging to help build it as well as massive companies redirecting their roadmaps towards. Facebook recently joined the fray, with Zuckerberg saying "Creating avatars and digital objects are going to be central to how we express ourselves." Undoubtedly the metaverse will be the location of future online events, but scaling them to represent the size of physical ones is something we must leverage distributed computing to solve.

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Is the future of online events in the metaverse?

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(Image credit: OHishiapply / Shutterstock) With Covid shutting down almost every physical event last year, we saw a drastic increase in the importance of connecting virtually. With a number of platforms growing rapidly to meet this demand, such as Hopin and Zoom, virtual events have become more and more sophisticated.

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Search industry publications via Power of Events news for examples of practice and written content about event technology.

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The event industry's reliance on data to help it plan for the future, increase its resilience, manage risk and justify investment decisions, is growing year on year.

The engagement and access that The Power of Events (UK) has across all 7 sectors of the industry, enables data gathering and in-depth research projects to be delivered confidently and consistently. This will be primarily facilitated through the new insight web app to be launched in Spring 2023.

By bringing the industry and university partners together, research projects will be designed to deliver real benefits to the industry in terms of trend analysis, insights and performance improvements.

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The event industry's reliance on data to help it plan for the future, increase its resilience, manage risk and justify investment decisions, is growing year on year. The engagement and access that The Power of Events (UK) has across all 7 sectors of the industry, enables data gathering and in-depth research projects to be delivered confidently and consistently.

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Police investigate virtual sex assault on girl's avatar

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Police investigate virtual sex assault on girl's avatar

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Police are investigating a virtual sexual assault of a girl's avatar, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has said.

Donna Jones said she had learned that a complaint was made in 2023, triggering a police inquiry.

The virtual incident did not result in physical harm but caused "psychological trauma", the Daily Mail has reported a source as saying.

Police chiefs have called on platforms to do more to protect their users.

Ian Critchley of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) wrote that the metaverse - a collective name given to a range of virtual 3D spaces and technologies - had created a "gateway for predators to commit horrific crimes against children, crimes we know have lifelong impacts both emotionally and mentally".

"We must see much more action from tech companies to do more to make their platforms safe places", he added.

The NPCC was unable to tell the BBC which force had launched the investigation into the attack.

The incident occurred in a virtual reality (VR) game, the Daily Mail reported.

The impact of the attack on the girl's avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.

According to an unnamed senior officer familiar with the matter who spoke to the paper the victim, under 16 at the time, suffered psychological trauma "similar to that of someone who has been physically raped".

But in criminal law, rape and sexual assault require there to have been physical contact.

Some argue that legal changes may be necessary to ensure that those responsible for sexually motivated attacks on avatars in virtual worlds can be prosecuted and punished effectively.

But others suggest there may be existing laws, for example against the creation of synthetic child abuse images, which could be used as the basis of prosecutions in virtual world cases.

Ms Jones told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme on Tuesday: "The police are having to work quickly. They're having to work in conjunction with the government, particularly with the Ministry of Justice, to highlight where there need to be changes in legislation."

It is not the first time that concerns about sexually motivated attacks in the metaverse have been raised.

In 2022, researcher Nina Jane Patel revealed she was abused in a virtual world operated by Meta called Horizon Venues (now part of Horizon Worlds), likening it to sexual assault.

Recalling the experience, Ms Patel told the same programme that she was "surrounded by three to four male-sounding and male-representing avatars, who started sexually harassing me in a verbal sense and then sexually assaulting my avatar".

She said they had used misogynistic language and "continued to touch my avatar in a way that can only be described as a sexual assault of my avatar".

Ms Patel added she was worried that, in the future, technology might allow someone to physically feel such virtual assaults.

The National Crime Agency has previously warned that police will need to be ready to deal with virtual sexual assaults in the future.

The BBC has not yet confirmed on which platform the attack on the young girl's avatar took place but Meta has said in a statement: "The kind of behaviour described has no place on our platform, which is why for all users we have an automatic protection called personal boundary, which keeps people you don't know a few feet away from you.

"Though we weren't given any details about what happened ahead of this story publishing, we will look into it as details become available to us."

Meta also employs a number of technologies specifically designed to limit teenage users' exposure to offensive content and interactions with people they do not know.

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Police investigate virtual sex assault on girl's avatar

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The incident in a virtual world reportedly left the under-16-year-old traumatised.

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Elvis Evolution: Presley to be brought to life using AI for new immersive show

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Elvis Evolution: Presley to be brought to life using AI for new immersive show

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Singer Elvis Presley is set to be brought back to life virtually as part of a new immersive concert experience.

Elvis Evolution will use AI and feature holographic projections of the star, created from thousands of his personal photos and home-video footage.

The show is set to open in London in November before moving to Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo.

It follows the success of Abba Voyage, a virtual concert with avatars of the Swedish pop band.

British immersive entertainment specialists Layered Reality have secured the global rights for Elvis Evolution. The company has previously produced immersive experiences including The Gunpowder Plot and Jeff Wayne's The War of The Worlds.

The company said the Presley show will feature a "jaw-dropping concert experience" where a life-sized digital Elvis "will perform iconic moments in musical history on a UK stage for the first time".

Layered Reality's founder and CEO Andrew McGuinness said the show would be "a next-generation tribute to the musical legend" and allow people to "step into the world of Elvis and walk in his shoes".

The show will feature a life-sized digital Presley and make use of AI, holographic projection, augmented reality, live theatre and multi-sensory effects, Layered Reality said.

McGuinness added that the experience would offer the public a "deeper insight into Elvis's life, transporting fans back through the decades to experience his meteoric rise to fame, larger-than-life persona, and the cultural movement he catalysed in the 1950s and 1960s".

The central London location for the show, which is yet to be confirmed, will also host an Elvis-themed bar and restaurant with live music.

Presley, who would have celebrated his 89th birthday on 8 January, rose to fame in the 1950s and is known for hits including Hound Dog and Suspicious Minds. He died in 1977 aged 42.

In 2018, he was posthumously awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour a sitting president can bestow on a civilian.

A film about Presley's life, directed by Baz Luhrmann, was released in 2022. Actor Austin Butler later won a Bafta Film Award for his portrayal of the singer.

Another movie, Priscilla, released in the UK this week, examines the relationship between the singer and his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley.

Virtual concerts and events have risen in popularity since Abba launched Abba Voyage in London in May 2022.

The concert recreates a 1970s-era digital version of the singers who perform in their very own purpose-built 3,000-capacity arena in east London.

It was created by 1,000 visual effects artists and took one billion computing hours to animate the avatars. It makes an estimated £2m per week and, since 2022, has contributed £322.6m in turnover to the London economy.

In December, rock band Kiss ended their final farewell concert in New York with flying avatars who launched into the hit song God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You.

Gene Simmons credited the characters, which were created with the same technology used in Abba Voyage, with ensuring the band could now be "forever young and forever iconic".

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Elvis Evolution: Presley to be brought to life using AI for new immersive show

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A new show features holographic projections of the rock star as well as thousands of photos and home-videos.

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Esports: How can they keep growing in 2023?

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Esports: How can they keep growing in 2023?

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Esports: How can they keep growing in 2023?

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Industry experts to explore how esports are trying to keep growing their audience in 2023.

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Disney and Epic Games to Create Expansive and Open Games and Entertainment Universe Connected to Fortnite

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Disney and Epic Games to Create Expansive and Open Games and Entertainment Universe Connected to Fortnite

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In addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with Fortnite, the new persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage...

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The Walt Disney Company and Epic Games will collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences. Disney will also invest $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games alongside the multiyear project. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

In addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with Fortnite, the new persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more. Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love. This will all be powered by Unreal Engine.

"Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney's beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe," said Robert A. Iger, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. "This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can't wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways."

"Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio," said Tim Sweeney, CEO and Founder, Epic Games. "Now we're collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities."

"This will enable us to bring together our incredible collection of stories and experiences from across the company for a broad audience in ways we have only dreamed of before," said Josh D'Amaro, Chairman, Disney Experiences. "Epic Games' industry-leading technology and Fortnite's open ecosystem will help us reach consumers where they are so they can engage with Disney in the ways that are most relevant to them."

Deepening the Epic Games & Disney Relationship

Disney and Epic Games have engaged hundreds of millions of players through Fortnite content integrations, season collaborations, in-game activations, and live events, including the Marvel Nexus War with Galactus, which drew more than 15.3 million concurrent players.

Unreal Engine is used to produce assets and content across the Disney portfolio including in the development of video games like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor; in cinematic editing and animation for film and streaming; and in the creation of more than 15 Disney Parks attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

This all builds on Epic Games' participation in the 2017 Disney Accelerator program, which seeks to impact the future of technology and entertainment.

Games Industry Growth & Disney Games Success

The digital world is growing and evolving with more than 3 billion video game players worldwide who want to move safely and seamlessly between the worlds they love, unleash their own creativity, and experience great gameplay.

Disney's games business continues to deliver strong results since it shifted to a licensing business model in 2016. Disney is a leading games licensor working with best-in-class developers and publishers, including on the best-selling superhero game of all-time, Marvel's Spider-Man. Licensed games from Disney garnered more than 150 award nominations, wins and other accolades in 2023, including multiple Game of the Year nominations for Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Disney mobile games have 1.5 billion global installs, and to date, nine Disney games franchises have each grossed more than $1 billion in sales. In the U.S., the world's largest games market, licensed titles from Disney regularly hit the annual top-10 best-sellers list.
About The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international entertainment and media enterprise that includes three core business segments: Entertainment, Sports and Experiences. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $88.9 billion in its Fiscal Year 2023.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS The terms "Company," "we," and "our" are used below to refer collectively to The Walt Disney Company and the subsidiaries through which its various businesses are actually conducted. Certain statements and information in this communication may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the Company's expectations, beliefs, plans, strategies, business or financial prospects or outlook, trends, future growth opportunities and drivers; future products or service offerings (including nature, timing and pricing), consumer sentiment, priorities or demand and drivers; our expected benefits from the collaboration with Epic Games and other statements that are not historical in nature. These statements are made on the basis of the Company's views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance and plans as of the time the statements are made. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update these statements unless required by applicable laws or regulations, and you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Such differences may result from actions taken by the Company, including restructuring or strategic initiatives or other business decisions, as well as from developments beyond the Company's control, including: the occurrence of subsequent events; deterioration in domestic or global economic conditions or failure of conditions to improve as anticipated; deterioration in or pressures from competitive conditions, including competition to create or acquire content; competition for talent and competition for advertising revenue; consumer preferences and acceptance of our content, offerings, pricing model and price increases, and corresponding subscriber additions and churn, and the market for advertising sales on our direct-to-consumer services and linear networks; health concerns and their impact on our businesses and productions; international, political or military developments; regulatory and legal developments; technological developments; labor markets and activities, including work stoppages; adverse weather conditions or natural disasters; and availability of content. Such developments may further affect entertainment, travel and leisure businesses generally and may, among other things, affect (or further affect, as applicable): our operations, business plans or profitability, including direct-to-consumer profitability; our expected benefits from the collaboration with Epic Games; demand for our products and services; performance of the Company's content; our ability to create or obtain desirable content at or under the value we assign the content; the advertising market for programming; income tax expense; and performance of some or all Company businesses either directly or through their impact on those who distribute our products. Additional factors are set forth in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2023, including under the captions "Risk Factors," "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," and "Business," quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, including under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," and subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Disney and Epic Games to Create Expansive and Open Games and Entertainment Universe Connected to Fortnite - The Walt Disney Company

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The Walt Disney Company and Epic Games will collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences.

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Caramuru (2022) - Why The Events Industry Needs Technology To Grow

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Caramuru (2022) - Why The Events Industry Needs Technology To Grow

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According to Event MB 2020, almost 73.6% of event planners have become more skilled in technology usage due to the experiences surrounding the pandemic. Yet, there remains the need for event professionals to make the most of existing and emerging technology to respond to consumer preferences and further boost the industry's growth. Today, traditional functions are gradually being replaced by unusual venues, interactive activities, Virtual Reality (VR), apps, and bespoke food and drink options. ( verdict.co.uk ).

As an event professional, you need to be proactive and stay above the competition. To do so, you first need to know the recent trends in the industry and how to leverage technology to keep abreast and grow your business. Here are some of the industry trends and how tech can help:

Changing demographics

Today, the demographic of the world is different from what it used to be a few years back. Changing demographics inevitably affects how events are planned and organized. Considering the generations that actively use tech in society today, we can say they fall somewhere between 7 and 57 years. These generations can further be grouped into Gen X (45-56 years), GenY/ Millenials (26-44 years), and Gen Z (6-25 years). ( iaee)

The previous generations have widely embraced tech, making this age a digital one. They have a penchant for using innovative technology to make life easier. Today, even kids as young as three years old know how to navigate mobile phones and other technologies. Thus as time passes, people are becoming more innovative and more inclined to technology. Not keeping abreast can drastically reduce employee engagement and satisfaction.

You must note that each of the age groups mentioned has its preferences with regards to technology. Therefore, it's not advisable to plan events or marketing campaigns for all of them using a generic technology or approach. A more targeted approach that considers generational tech preference and how the different ages interact with various technologies is imperative to your success.

Safety and security concerns

Now more than ever, safety and security at events have become a top priority to attendees. Safety continues to be the topmost concern for event planners as well. 55% of planners cited safety concerns as the biggest obstacle to hosting live events. ( Event MB 2020)

With the pandemic's health safety concerns, attendees need to feel safe when they attend live events. If an in-person event is not feasible, event professionals have resorted to virtual and hybrid modes. Every event- be it a live event that strictly maintains Covid-19 preventive protocols to ensure attendee safety or a virtual event- requires the strategic use of appropriate technology to become a success.

Aside from health safety concerns, there are security concerns with live events. These concerns can range from natural disasters to mass shootings and terrorist acts. Virtual events-on the other hand- stand the risk of cyber-attacks and hacker attacks ( iaee). As an event professional, you need to put in place mechanisms that ensure that security at your event is not breached. One single incident can destroy an event and the company's reputation.

Here as well, adopting the right technology can boost your security apparatus. You can install security systems and scanning technology that allows only verified attendees into event venues. You can use metal detection technology to ensure that no attendee possesses guns or other dangerous items around event venues.

Virtual Reality (VR) boosts attendance and increases revenue.

There are instances when people want to attend live events; however, they cannot afford to pay for some of the costs associated with event attendance (i.e., hotel stays, transportation). Soon, Virtual Reality (VR) would likely allow attendees to enjoy events virtually and get an experience similar to what is felt at the main venue. In this case, events can be more affordable for participants, and they and attend special events through VR viewing of events in a designated area. ( inc.com)

Event ticketing goes mobile.

Mobile devices have disrupted the event industry. If you have not yet leveraged mobile to boost event attendance, then you're likely missing out on a huge opportunity. Today, there is no limit to the type of event that you can book online. Both attendees and organizers desire seamless online and cloud-based ticketing on websites or event apps.

Ticketing is now an avenue to generate extra revenue- as it has become a way to offer complete packages to attendees. Mobile ticketing allows you to include rideshare and taxi services, parking services, and other conveniences for your attendees. Selling tickets via mobile can help you generate more sales. ( inc.com). The global mobile ticketing marketing is growing at a Compound Annual Growth rate of 18% from 2020 through 2027. Setting your business up to process mobile tickets gives your business an advantage over those who lag.

The old terminal base system of ticketing is now fast replaced by back-end access. Ticket management has become way more manageable. Research shows that the usage rate of mobile phones in events has gone as high as 94 percent. Shortly, all events are likely to go cashless as it helps reduce venue costs that result from manual cash management. ( entrepreneur.com)

Technology can increase your Return on Investment (ROI)

Reduced cost of production in any industry can help create more excellent value for customers. According to a study by Enterprise Event Marketing, the use of technology can increase event attendance by 20%, increase productivity by 27%, and reduce related costs by up to 30%. Enterprise Event Marketing did this study back in 2016. With the world becoming more digital, we expect the figures to be higher today. ( entrepreneur.com) However, to yield these benefits, you first need to invest in the appropriate technology. Consider getting a technology audit done to see the areas where you could benefit from digitizing your operations.

Tap the unexplored potential of big data

The events industry is yet to tap the big benefits data has to offer. The right technology can help you gather attendee data during events. For instance, you can measure attendee behavior at events using technologies such as scannable QR codes taken at every session your participants attend or exhibitor they visit.

Through mobile apps, Near Field Communication (NFC) devices, and other location-based tracking systems like Google, you can track attendee arrival and consumption behavior at events. The data collected can be used to split-test your live marketing tactics to make data-supported decisions about where to devote more resources to increase your event ROI. ( entrepreneur.com)

Apart from these technologies, you can gather data on the social media platforms of attendees. These platforms contain insights into attendees' private lives. This data allows you to know their preferences so that you can tailor events accordingly to their interests. ( agilitypr.com)

New technology holds promise to boost efficiency.

The following new and emerging technologies have the potential to boost the growth of the event industry.
5G technology
With the world greatly anticipating the advent of 5G technology, we are looking forward to wireless internet service speeds 300-500 % faster than the fastest internet service we have today. This increased speed would allow for the delivery of higher-quality sound and images. 5G has been touted to make it possible to penetrate the walls of convention centers and deliver full wireless service without the need to wire the event center. It would significantly reduce the cost of providing in-wall wireless connectivity and boost wireless attendee services if this works.

As an event professional, faster wireless would enable you to provide higher-quality events. To explore the full benefits of this technology and outdo competitors, you need to be on the lookout and learn as much as you can about it, so you start reaping its benefits as soon as it is released. ( iaee)
5G will empower other technologies
A natural consequence of super-fast internet speed will be the production of smartphones and tablets to process high-speed signals. It would also allow manufacturers to produce cheaper screen technologies and software specifically designed for event applications and programming. There will be software upgrades to catch up with improved mobile devices. Software companies will release more mobile devices into the market, and different generations would most likely have other mobile device preferences. In general, new smartphone technologies would allow for pre-show marketing, on-site tours, on-site Virtual Reality (VR) sessions to handsets, and more. ( iaee)
Internet of Things (IoT)
According to Wikipedia, The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of devices that have been embedded with software, sensors, and other technologies purposely to connect each other and exchange data.

The IoT will seemingly become a game-changer in the events industry. It promises to make life easier for event planners like you by allowing you to manage and assess hazardous environments, provide better customer service, gather distant data, and more. The idea is that it will enable you to control things remotely. For instance, you can connect different locations at an event venue to your mobile device or PC via microcomputers with cameras. Then, turn on the cameras to see what is happening there when urgent action is needed or to quickly relay information to the team members at different locations.

This surveillance allows you to have your eyes everywhere and to coordinate events with the highest efficiency effectively.

IoT allows for collaboration, inter connectivity, and interactivity. You need to follow trends in IoT and fully integrate it into your business- to keep up with changing attendee needs and boost efficiency.

As mentioned throughout this article, many event planners have become more proficient in event technology. We can safely say that they are positively responding to the current demands of the event market, such as changing demographics, health and safety concerns, among others.

To distinguish yourself from the majority, you need to go the extra mile to be abreast with the most current and emerging technology trends. Consider implementing some of the latest technologies that will help you deliver higher quality events, reduce your costs, protect your attendees' health and safety, and make event management more efficient.

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Why The Events Industry Needs Technology To Grow ➡ EventsCase

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According to Event MB 2020, almost 73.6% of event planners have become more skilled in technology usage due to the experiences surrounding the pandemic. Yet, there remains the need for event professionals to make the most of existing and emerging technology to respond to consumer preferences and further boost the industry's growth.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Use Video for Your Event

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5 Reasons Why You Should Use Video for Your Event

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The benefits of using video for events...

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Video is incredibly effective, but it can also be intimidating. You may want your videos to look polished and professional, but you may not have the budget to hire someone to do it right. Ideally, you might hope one day to have the time to learn how to do so yourself.

But waiting for that day could be sabotaging you, as you miss out the opportunity to catch potential attendees' attention. On social media, in particular, video is consumers' favourite type of branded content, according to Animoto's 2018 State of Social Video report .

Let's face it - it's time to start using video. Here are the reasons why you should prioritise video now!
Reason #1: Video can be low cost.
Yes, it would cost a lot of money to hire a videographer to document your entire event and turn that raw footage into polished final videos. But you also don't need to hire a professional to achieve a high calibre of video.

High-quality video production has never been cheaper. The camera quality of iPhones and other smartphones gets better with each new release, so shooting your own footage is a solid option. You can then take your video footage and still shots and place them into event-specific templates available for free from

Today, only a minority of smaller businesses go to agencies or freelancers to produce their videos. Instead, they DIY it, then save their marketing budget for getting those videos in front of the right audience.
Related: How to Engage Consumers with Great Video Promotion Reason #2: Producing video doesn't have to be time-consuming
Producing pro-quality video might seem like a huge undertaking to an event marketing team that's already stretched thin with daily to-dos. But, if you're already at your event, why not get your phone and start recording?

Sally Sargood, Video Production Manager for Animoto, says, "I always encourage people who are scared of video to take quick clips on their iPhone in the moment. Short clips can best capture the energy of your event."

On a busy event day, perhaps this is a task you delegate to an assistant. On platforms like Instagram Stories , this raw footage can be uploaded immediately, no editing needed.
Related: The Complete Guide To Video Marketing for Events
Reason #3: You don't need a pro videographer to create great content
Once you've shot your footage, how do you turn all that disorganised raw footage into a nicely packaged final video? This is the step that mystifies a lot of event marketers, who are under the misconception that pro-quality video needs professionals to produce.

This is where DIY event video templates come in. With free event video templates from Animoto, even the least techy person can compile raw content into a slick finished video. It's a pretty easy process:

1. Pick a template from the list

2. Drag and drop your images or video clips into the Video Builder

3. Customise the text

4. Make your video on brand with your logo and colours

5. Share wherever you want - social media, your website, YouTube, email marketing

If you can use a smartphone, you have the technical chops to produce your own event marketing videos.
Reason #4: Video has tangible ROI
Let's take a look at the numbers. When asked which type of content gets the best ROI (return on investment) on social media, the top response to an Animoto survey was video marketing. What's more, 88% of marketers say they're satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing efforts on social media.

Adding video to your website can increase your chances of landing in the first page of Google search results by a factor of 53 , according to MarTech. And Forbes reports that the majority (51.9%) of marketing experts agree that video has the best return on investment of any type of marketing tactic.
Reason #5: Your competitors are already using video and seeing results.
Your competitors may already be using video for their events, and already seeing an ROI. If you aren't getting in on the action, your event won't stand out online. So start using video for your event today!
Download the Eventbrite Guide to Video for Event Marketing for more information

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5 Reasons Why You Should Use Video for Your Event - Eventbrite UK

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Video is incredibly effective, but it can also be intimidating. You may want your videos to look polished and professional, but you may not have the budget to hire someone to do it right. Ideally, you might hope one day to have the time to learn how to do so yourself.

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CAD (computer-aided design) software is used by architects, engineers, drafters, artists, and others to create precision drawings or technical illustrations. CAD software can be used to create two-dimensional (2-D) drawings or three-dimensional (3-D) models.

CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) is software used to design products such as electronic circuit boards in computers and other devices.

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What is CAD (computer-aided design)? - Definition from WhatIs.com

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CAD (computer-aided design) software is used by architects, engineers, drafters, artists, and others to create precision drawings or technical illustrations. CAD software can be used to create two-dimensional (2-D) drawings or three-dimensional (3-D) models. CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) is software used to design products such as electronic circuit boards in computers and other devices.

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Hybrid events have risen in popularity exponentially over the past couple of years with some of the biggest companies such as Apple and Twitch, getting in on the action.

However, regardless of the size of your meeting, from the dozens to the thousands, it can sometimes be quite tricky to know where to start when you're toying with the idea of hosting your own hybrid event

Here we share the most common forms of hybrid events and examples of the biggest hybrid events of 2021 to help you get into the limitless world of hybrid meetings.

What is a Hybrid Event?

A hybrid event is an event that combines both live in-person and virtual elements, tailored to both audiences to provide a seamless experience. Hybrid events allow attendees to participate from anywhere in the world. This gives attendees more flexibility and more opportunities for collaboration. Hybrid events are a perfect example of how you can make your corporate events more sustainable.

One of the main advantages of hosting a hybrid event is its ability to reach wider audiences while reducing costs associated with travel and accommodation. Participants who are unable to attend physically can still join virtually through live streaming and interactive online calls.

Common Hybrid Event Examples

Hybrid events are perfect for meetings and company events, both internal and external. They can include:

Hybrid events are a popular choice due, in part, to their extended reach and longevity. Virtual content can continually be accessed and viewed which increases the number of people the content can reach.

With online polls, feedback forms and viewer tracking, it is easier than ever to gain feedback and opinions on what was effective and make sure the next event is always an improvement on the last.

Equally importantly though, they also allow flexibility for the delegate and the event organiser. Be it travel restrictions, green travel concerns or just the lack of ability to attend the meeting that day in person, hybrid means live attendees can go digital (and vice versa) at the flick of a switch; reducing the risk on the event and increasing peace of mind for the organiser.

What Does a Hybrid Event Look Like?

A hybrid event is an event that grants attendees the freedom to attend either virtually or in-person. A hybrid approach can easily be applied to a variety of different events such as conferences and meetings.

With hybrid events, it is important to not only keep your in-person attendees engaged but your virtual attendees engaged too.

A typical hybrid event should feature a couple of different aspects to keep its audience engaged, especially with virtual attendees having an assortment of distractions surrounding them at home.

Live content that can be accessed on-demand

Think of live content during a hybrid event like a broadcast on television. You can watch the content live but the content can also be watched on-demand after the broadcast. This is handy in case viewers miss something or want to watch the broadcast again.

Polls and Q&As

Polls and Q&As help remote audiences feel involved and part of the event as if they were there in person.

Contributing to polls and Q&As allow the digital audience to participate effectively and make them feel part of something rather than just someone watching behind a screen.

Networking and engagement tools

With streaming platforms comes networking tools and chat functionalities to keep virtual audiences engaged. Fun networking tools can be things such as chat boxes, avatars, profile creation, video and separate 1-2-1 meetings.

Breakout sessions

Holding separate breakout sessions from the main event allows digital audiences to break off and network in smaller groups as if they were at an in-person event. This gives a more personal feel than just being one of many people watching a live stream behind a screen.

The Best Hybrid Event Examples of 2020s

So far this decade, we have seen some incredible event industry trends , with hybrid events being at the forefront. In no particular order, here are our top picks for the best global hybrid events to start the 2020s.

Now, we're aware that not every event has these budgets or even wants to work on these scales. What is interesting though is how they fuse digital and live to create engaging experiences for everyone.

Regardless of the scale, this is something that great hybrid events can do.

Apple's Special Event

One of the top hybrid events of 2021 was none other than Apple's Special Event.

Apple's events have famously always been ahead of their time with the events consistently being live-streamed yearly to consumers around the world to introduce their latest range of new Apple products.

Demonstrating products to millions of people simultaneously through a hybrid event is an impactful and powerful move from Apple.

Apple truly shows the power of hybrids when it comes to making their product announcements.

TwitchCon is hosted in San Diego and is big on bringing an entertaining hybrid experience for those that are unable to travel to meet their favourite streamers.

TwitchCon features live entertainment, meet-and-greets and gaming tournaments. Twitch recognises its huge online audience and uses its platform to stream this content to its viewers worldwide.

For a company with streaming at the core of its business, it would be a peculiar choice for them to not have any hybrid aspects to their events.

Empower Conference

One of the first major hybrid conferences that took place in 2021 was Empower's 21 conference. Both in-person and virtual attendees were given access to the event.

Virtual attendees could interact with each other, view the itinerary and speaker agenda and more. Attending virtually meant those that were not comfortable enough attending in-person, in relation to the pandemic, had full access at home.

This event proved that hybrid events really can provide the best of both worlds by showing that in-person events can be held safely but with added accessibility of being able to attend virtually.

MozCon

A top hybrid event example from the world of B2B is Moz Con. Moz Con is a digital marketing conference that records all of its talks and sessions that were held in person.

Recording all of the event's content means that a wider audience can also access the latest trends across SEO, digital marketing and content writing that was spoken about at the event.

Having all of the content available after the event is useful for both those that attended in person and those who viewed the content online.

Riot Games' League of Legends Tournaments

Riot Games and its annual League of Legends World Championship has a huge reach, so going hybrid was a no brainer for their tournaments.

Riot Games monetises its events through having sponsors such as Bose and Spotify. These sponsors are ideal when it comes to paying for such high tech equipment to make their events hybrid.

For example, in 2019 the final of the tournament took place in Paris in front of 15,000 fans but the tournament's hybrid aspects brought in more than 100 million viewers with a peak of 44 million watching at once.

Why Hosting a Hybrid Event Can Be Beneficial

Adding hybrid elements to your event could be hugely beneficial depending on the goals of your event.

Hybrid aspects boost engagement massively. If your attendees are interacting and engaging, that's all you can ask for. Forms of engagement can include questions, chatting through a chat box, sharing on social media and additional feedback.

Putting your event's content online enables attendees to view your content long after the event has finished, which increases its reach.

As touched on previously, hybrid events are also highly sustainable practices. By cutting out factors like unnecessary travel, you can reduce the total carbon emissions your event is responsible for.

For more information on hybrid events as a whole, check out our handy blog post on how you can achieve virtual success with hybrid events.

Ready to Execute Your Own Hybrid Event Idea?

Organising a hybrid event takes forethought, planning and technology but it all becomes worth it in the end.

Make Venues is an award-winning venue group across Westminster , Leamington Spa and , and has invested time, research and money into building venues with hybrid capacity as standard.

If you'd like to find out more about the equipment used for our hybrid events, check out our hybrid meetings event page for more information .

Alternatively, you can contact our team today on 0808 168 5876, or get in touch via our enquiry form for more information.

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Hybrid events can be beneficial in increasing audience reach and engagement. We go through our top 5 hybrid events so far for the 2020s to give you some ideas.

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The Rise of AI in Events: How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping the Industry

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The Rise of AI in Events: How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping the Industry

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The Rise of AI in Events: How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping the Industry

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In today’s fast-paced world, artificial intelligence (AI) is a game-changer for event professionals. In this article, we will explore many ways to incorporate AI in events.

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Apparently, it's the next big thing. What is the metaverse?

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Apparently, it's the next big thing. What is the metaverse?

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Facebook has just announced it's going to hire 10,000 people in Europe to develop the "metaverse".

This is a concept which is being talked up by some as the future of the internet. But what exactly is it?

What is the metaverse?

To the outsider, it may look like a souped-up version of Virtual Reality (VR) - but some people think the metaverse could be the future of the internet.

In fact, the belief is that it could be to VR what the modern smartphone is to the first clunky mobile phones of the 1980s.

Instead of being on a computer, in the metaverse you might use a headset to enter a virtual world connecting all sorts of digital environments.

Unlike current VR, which is mostly used for gaming, this virtual world could be used for practically anything - work, play, concerts, cinema trips - or just hanging out.

Most people envision that you would have a 3D avatar - a representation of yourself - as you use it.

But because it's still just an idea, there's no single agreed definition of the metaverse.

Hype about digital worlds and augmented reality pops up every few years, but usually dies away.

However, there is a huge amount of excitement about the metaverse among wealthy investors and big tech firms, and no-one wants to be left behind if it turns out to be the future of the internet.

There's also a feeling that for the first time, the technology is nearly there, with advancements in VR gaming and connectivity coming close to what might be needed.

Why is Facebook involved?

It's invested heavily in virtual reality through its Oculus headsets, making them cheaper than rivals - perhaps even at a loss, according to some analysts.

It's also building VR apps for social hangouts and for the workplace, including ones that interact with the real world.

Despite its history of buying up rivals, Facebook claims the metaverse "won't be built overnight by a single company" and has promised to collaborate.

But it thinks the true metaverse idea will take another 10 to 15 years.

Online multiplayer games have had shared interactive worlds going back decades. They are not the metaverse, but have some ideas in common.

In recent years Fortnite expanded its product, hosting concerts, brand events, and more inside its own digital world. That impressed many with what was possible - and thrust Mr Sweeney's vision of the metaverse into the spotlight.

Other games are getting closer to a metaverse idea, too. Roblox, for example, is a platform for thousands of individual games connected to the larger ecosystem.

No. Even though there are so many ideas about what the metaverse might be, most visions see social human interaction as the core.

Facebook, for example, has been experimenting with a VR meetings app called Workplace, and a social space called Horizons, both of which use their virtual avatar systems.

Another VR app, VRChat, is entirely focused around hanging out online and chatting - with no goal or purpose other than exploring environments and meeting people.

Other applications may be waiting out there, ready to be discovered.

Perhaps when you go online shopping, you'll try on digital clothes first, and then order them to arrive in the real world.

Does the technology exist yet?

VR has come a long way in recent years, with high-end headsets which can trick the human eye into seeing in 3D as the player moves around a virtual world. It has become more mainstream, too - the Oculus Quest 2 VR gaming headset was a popular Christmas gift in 2020.

And more advanced digital worlds will need better, more consistent, and more mobile connectivity - something that might be solved with the rollout of 5G.

For now, though, everything is in the early stages. The evolution of the metaverse - if it happens at all - will be fought among tech giants for the next decade, or maybe even longer.

More on this story

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Apparently, it's the next big thing. What is the metaverse?

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Facebook has just announced it's going to hire 10,000 people in Europe to develop the "metaverse". This is a concept which is being talked up by some as the future of the internet. But what exactly is it? What is the metaverse?

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Vodafone 5G gives visually impaired tennis fans world-first experience

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Vodafone 5G gives visually impaired tennis fans world-first experience

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The rise of ‘synthetic humans’ and ‘synthetic resurrection’ continues with holographic Elvis. 

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The rise of ‘synthetic humans’ and ‘synthetic resurrection’ continues with holographic Elvis. 

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Matt Frew on LinkedIn: Return of the king: Elvis hologram show to premiere in London

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The rise of 'synthetic humans' and 'synthetic resurrection' continues with holographic #Elvis. I've been lecturing and writing about, what we now term...

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Olympic Esports | Series and Week 2023, Stories, Performance & Wellbeing

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Follow the Olympic Esports Series and Week 2023. Get performance and wellbeing tips to level up your game. Check out stories of players from around the world.

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WAIDA (2018) - Event Technology: The Ultimate Guide for 2023

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WAIDA (2018) - Event Technology: The Ultimate Guide for 2023

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Welcome to the 2023 event technology guide! Not sure you need event technology? According to Gartner's 2022 Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey , tech and service providers allocate 26.9% of their marketing program budget to hosted and sponsored events.

Like most businesses, you're probably seeing an increased budget allocation for events, so you need event technology that can run all of your events - no matter the format, size, or type - more easily. Here, you'll learn how to choose the right event technology for your next event to support your desired event outcomes, whether you're planning a virtual, in-person, or hybrid event.

What is event technology?

Event technology is any tool, app, or software that helps you plan, execute, and measure an event. Here are some examples of what your event technology stack may include:

Event management tools: ticketing and registration, access management, contact management, and event reporting

Event marketing tools: website builder, email marketing tools, personalized registration flows, promo codes, and UTM links

Event content tools: agenda builder and editor, session registration management, and speaker portals

Event engagement tools: mobile apps, virtual venue, in-session polls, Q&As, chat channels, virtual applause and reactions, cross-device accessibility, social media integrations, and more

Networking tools: 1:1 messaging, community search and navigation, and the ability to book meetings with all attendees

Broadcasting tools: tech to record sessions so attendees can watch on-demand

Onsite tools: self-check-in kiosks, badge printing, and other onsite tech services

Sponsor management tools: sponsor management, lead management, and scoring tools

Wearable tech: such as Bizzabo's SmartBadge™ technology , which enables in-person attendees to exchange contact information by "booping" badges together

Event intelligence tools: registration, networking, engagement, and cross-event analytics

Depending on whether you're hosting an event in-person, are planning a virtual event, or are combining the best of both with a hybrid event, your event tech stack might look slightly different.

And, if you're planning a hybrid event, you might need to combine all of these capabilities into your tech stack to deliver the best experiences possible to both in-person and virtual attendees.

Why Event Technology Matters

Before advances in event technology, event planning was a very manual process.

Event planners used to draft the attendee list contact by contact.

Event promotions were limited to mediums like print, direct mail, cold calling, and word of mouth.

Fast and personalized post-event follow-up was nearly impossible without automation.

Advances in data analytics have allowed event planners to track and measure each component of their events - and use that data to iterate and optimize their event strategies continuously. Similarly, the event technology boom has made it much easier to bring in-person, hybrid, and virtual event ideas to life.

Today, event marketers have an array of technologies to choose from and incorporate into their event tech stack. Each piece of the event technology stack does its part to support the full event lifecycle as it transitions from one phase to the next. Building websites, increasing event registrations, and promoting email are all possible thanks to event technology.

Moreover, event apps allow attendees to maximize their experience with features like chatbots that provide instant answers to their questions and maps to help them navigate massive convention centers. Thanks to live streaming technology, attendees worldwide can tune into sessions in real time, increasing your event's reach.

Ultimately, event technology lets you create unforgettable experiences and extend the life of your event long after the doors have closed and speakers have gone home.

How To Choose the Right Event Tech

When choosing your event technology, use your goals and overall vision to guide you and help you determine which event technology will truly serve you and your attendees.

Consider Your Event Goals

Event technology can help you achieve your event goals regardless of the type of event you're planning and the format it takes. To select the right tech, you need to know your event goals.

Why are you organizing your event in the first place? Look at what you are trying to achieve and find technology that supports your goals. Consider your business goals.

What event KPIs will determine if your event was a success? Think about your event strategy and what you want attendees to take away from your event.

What types of actions do you want attendees to take after the event? Consider what role your event tech will play in your event's extended, 365-day experience. Think about the content you want to provide and how you want attendees to engage post-event.

Not sure what your goals are? Here are the most common ones:

Increasing brand awareness

Improving customer/organization relationships

Educating your audience

Generating qualified leads

Driving more activity in target accounts

Retaining customers

Driving sales opportunities in target accounts

Interested in diving deeper into event goals? Read " How to Set Event Planning Goals To Achieve Success ."

Choose the Right Event Format and Use Case

Start by looking at your budget and exploring what's possible. You may opt for small, in-person satellite events to cut down on travel costs and venue rentals, or you may opt for a hybrid experience with only VIPs attending onsite.

Choosing your format and event type is vital because each will require a different type of event technology - assuming your event tech can't do it all (but Bizzabo does!). With that in mind, let's consider the different considerations you need to keep top of mind as you assemble your tech stack for your next event.

In-person Events

Planning and orchestrating a successful in-person event is no easy feat. The most influential event organizers understand this perfectly, which is why they ensure that their event tech stack is jam-packed with every piece of tech necessary to succeed.

Additionally, the right event technology will integrate with your team's other daily tools, like Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. For the best results, look for an event tech solution that gives developers access to an open API. That way, you can integrate the solution into whatever tools you like.

Virtual Events

This is another area where event technology can be a game-changer. Leading event technologies enable event organizers to launch breakout rooms during sessions, allowing smaller groups of virtual attendees to chat about what they've just learned. Additionally, leading solutions enable virtual attendees to initiate video calls with other attendees with the click of a button - regardless of where they are.

Interested in learning more about virtual event tech tools? Read " 12 Priceless Tools and Software for Hosting Virtual Events ."

Hybrid Events

Of course, when you're hosting a hybrid event, there are many moving parts to consider. Your goal should be to deliver equitable experiences to your in-person and virtual attendees and ensure they can interact seamlessly.

You'll need event tech for budgeting, registration, venue sourcing, in-person attendee engagement, virtual attendee engagement, networking, analytics, and live streaming and production, among other capabilities. Also, don't forget the virtual venue and event app!

Considerations When Evaluating Event Technology

Some event technology is crucial to success, while other tools and features may fall under "nice-to-haves." In this section, we'll explore some things to look for when vetting event technology.

Choose a Company Focused on Innovation

In most cases, event organizers will know the essential functions a tech tool needs to check off. But focusing on the essentials can lead to missing out on innovative new functions that leading vendors provide continuously. Innovation is more critical than ever as the industry fully embraces hybrid events.

Before smartphones became popular, there were flip phones. Cell phone shoppers weren't looking for a device to place calls, send emails, surf the web, and store thousands of music files. Of course, all of this changed once the iPhone was released, and early adopters were the first to have access to a cutting-edge solution years before mainstream customers.

If you want to stay ahead of the competition, find the iPhone of the technology providers.

How can you tell if a provider is committed to innovation? Here are some tips:

Get to know the company and the people behind it by browsing the vendor's social media pages, website, and blog.

Read recent product and official company announcements.

See what company leadership says on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Medium.

Ask the company how they are planning to evolve during the era of hybrid events.

Consider past performance and current events to predict whether each vendor is positioned to innovate.

Don't Overlook Hybrid Readiness

It's no secret that the event landscape is constantly changing. As the world slowly returns to in-person events, organizations are taking the lessons they learned while pivoting to virtual events and using them to create successful hybrid events.

As you search for event technologies, look for future-proof solutions that can evolve with your events as we move further into the hybrid era.

One of the biggest challenges of going hybrid will be designing an outstanding experience for both the in-person and remote audience and ensuring that all experiences are personalized. Event technology will merge these two worlds and deliver a great experience.

You must look for solutions to bridge the virtual and in-person experience for the best results. For example, find an event platform that seamlessly integrates with an in-person event app instead of having to build out an event app and platform separately. This will save you time and ensure a cohesive event experience regardless of where attendees are tuning in.

"Hybrid events will need to bridge the gap between virtual and in-person audiences. They will need to create opportunities for attendees to participate in shared experiences."

Eran Ben-Shushan

CEO and co-founder

Prioritize Ease of Use

Another consideration is how easy tech is for organizers and event attendees to use. A platform that's easy to use means everyone involved should be able to learn the platform easily. As a result, you'll see more significant ROI and increased efficiency throughout your event.

Test the usability of the event technology by asking vendors for a live demo of the product or a free trial to ensure the user interface is intuitive. The last thing you want is to roll out event tech that nobody knows how to use.

Ensure a Seamless Attendee Experience

The event experience you create should accurately reflect your brand. Any disconnect in this experience - from the event platform to the mobile event technology platform to onsite check-in - runs the risk of coming across as unpolished and doing a disservice to your brand.

Ensuring a seamless attendee experience is even more critical when planning a hybrid event. When you choose event technology, be mindful of how much customization is allowed. As you narrow down your options, here are some questions you'll want to ask:

Does the event registration experience require a website visitor to leave the main website?

Can the agenda and homepage be tailored to your brand?

Does the platform come with an event app?

If so, can it be white-labeled?

Zero in on ABM Readiness and Personalization

Choose solutions that will provide you with insights into the entire attendee journey. As you're orchestrating your event, you should be able to determine the following:

Which promo codes bring in which attendees?

What date do attendees register for an event?

How actively are attendees networking?

Which sessions did they register for?

Which sessions did they rate highest?

Other actionable recommendations?

Additionally, this data should be accessible by ticket type, account, and individual contact.

Finding an event solution that allows you to create and track event personas will provide you with another analysis channel. That way, you'll be able to personalize the attendee experience and follow up in line with an account-based marketing (ABM) methodology.

Choose Brandable Event Tech

The event technology you choose is a representation of your brand. Every interaction with attendees is an opportunity to leave an impression.

According to G2, 70% of marketers say consistent branding is one of the most important things to keep in mind when communicating with customers. Additionally, when we surveyed event professionals, 92% agreed to create a consistently branded experience was important.

Here are some tips for making sure that any event tech you choose is highly brandable:

Ask if you can add your logo and where logo placements can be.

Check to see if you can change the background color and add an image or event videos on your event platform, apps, and other tools.

Find out whether you can select your font choices and what other overall customization abilities are offered.

Reliability

Downtime is an event organizer's worst nightmare. If the event live-stream or the event website is down - even for just a few seconds - people will start to leave your event or may not even end up registering in the first place.

Should that happen, your event could result in any of the following:

Selecting reliable event technology is critical to the success of your events. Ask tech providers what their plan is if their systems get knocked offline and what the average downtime would be. Make sure to speak with referral customers and read online reviews about the platform's reliability.

Choose Tech With Top Customer Support

Ideally, the right event technology vendors will offer best-in-class support. They'll be willing to assist immediately if something breaks.

In addition to reliability, you should also ask the tech provider what customer support and customer success tools they offer. For example, if event registration is no longer working correctly, you'll want to contact customer support to resolve the issue. How quickly such an issue is resolved is what matters most.

When researching event tech providers, ask each vendor about the type of support they offer. Some questions to ask:

Is customer support provided 24/7?

Is it available via chat or email, or will I have a direct line to call if I need help?

What is the average time for a support ticket response?

Will you have anyone available onsite to assist if systems go down?

At the same time, you'll want to know whether you'll have access to a dedicated customer success manager who can show you how to use the event tech productively, providing you with helpful and strategic guidance. This person will be your advocate and will help you reach your goals and desired event outcomes.

While most event technology providers offer some form of customer support, not all of them do. At the same time, many still need customer success teams. Both support aspects can make all the difference in helping you reach your event goals.

Make Sure Everything Is in One Place

Event managers have a lot on their plates. They create event websites, build email marketing campaigns, facilitate event registration, develop apps, manage speakers and sponsors, handle check-ins, manage real-time surveys, facilitate networking opportunities, and keep attendees engaged, among countless other tasks.

Unless you're keen on jumping between several different platforms to orchestrate your event, look for a vendor that gives you all the tools to put on unforgettable events through one pane of glass.

By consolidating your tech stack in one place, you can streamline workflows, save time and money, collect more robust data, and otherwise increase the chances you can achieve your event goals.

How To Find the Best Event Technology

Event Technology Reviews Sites

Event tech review sites curate peer-driven testimonials and ratings based on various factors tailored to the purpose of the software itself. They usually offer an analysis of pros, cons, and sometimes unique insights you won't find on the product's main website.

When you're ready to start researching your options, here are some sites to check out:

: G2 Crowd gives out prestigious innovators awards for various SaaS products. Their rubric typically breaks down into four main categories: Leaders, Contenders, Niche, High Performance. Any product found on their award chart deserves a second look.

: Capterra is an excellent example of a user review site. They break categories down into the most popular, most affordable, and most user-friendly.

Software Advice: This professional database allows event organizers to retrieve detailed search results alongside in-depth buyer's guides for further assistance in choosing the event tech that's the best fit for your goals.

Looking for a Cvent alternative? We've got you covered with a comparison from G2: Bizzabo vs. Cvent.

How To Research Event Technology

No matter what review site you choose, there are five key things to keep in mind when researching event technology:

1. Give sales reps a challenge. Don't be afraid to ask them questions about specific product features or the industry. A sales rep who is willing to share information about their competitors in a positive light is looking out for your best interests.

2. Get multiple opinions. Besides reading review sites, cross-check with your network, and ask sales reps to put you in touch with their current customers for references. This will give you better insight into users' experiences. Leave no stone unturned.

3. Read event tech guides. New reports and benchmark comparisons are just as important (if not more so) than reviews because they add some figures to those facts that you otherwise might not have assumed existed.

4. Create an assessment for each event technology. Base it on your specific goals and strategy to make it worthwhile. Event technology assessments help you generate awareness, manage registrations, and measure success.

5. Choose event tech that aligns with your business plan. It's good to keep the big picture in mind. Reference the goals of the company at large to see if the software you choose aligns with what you're all trying to achieve.

Once you've narrowed down your options to a few vendors, your journey's just beginning. Now, it's time to interrogate potential partners to see who can best meet your needs.

Not sure what questions to ask? Read " 20+ Questions To Ask When Choosing the Best Event Management Software "

Wrapping Up: Event Technology Takeaways

Besides providing event planners with data-backed insights, streamlined workflows, and increased attendee engagement, event technology has become a staple for modern productivity.

To wrap up, here are some main ideas to keep in mind:

Choose wisely. There are many types of event software, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Create a tech stack based on your goals and the compatibility of the corresponding technologies you use.

Look for hybrid readiness. We are moving further into the hybrid events era. Make sure that your event technology is future-proof and has plans to evolve to meet future needs.

Focus on experience. Make sure the event technology you choose delivers a great user experience for you, your team, your sponsors, speakers, and attendees.

Innovation is key. Look for companies that innovate. By partnering with the right vendor, you could gain access to cutting-edge solutions years before the competition.

Sort through the noise. Review sites are a great starting point for sifting through the many options available at your fingertips. Be sure to take your time when evaluating and considering the software from every angle before making an official purchase.

The power of event technology gives event organizers the freedom to continue improving their craft through practical tools that take the guesswork out of the equation.

Here's to unlocking the full potential of your events in 2023 and beyond with the help of this guide and the event industry's many transformative technologies!

Ready to start building your next-level event tech stack? Check out our free ebook, Consolidating Your Event Tech Stack: The Benefits of All-in-one Event Management Software , to learn more about the benefits of leading-edge event technologies.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in November 2018 and has been updated for relevance.

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Event Technology: The Ultimate Guide for 2023

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Welcome to the 2023 event technology guide! Not sure you need event technology? According to Gartner's 2022 Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey , tech and service providers allocate 26.9% of their marketing program budget to hosted and sponsored events.

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How To Shoot An Event Video: Shooting + Editing Tips!

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How To Shoot An Event Video: Shooting + Editing Tips!

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How To Shoot An Event Video: Shooting + Editing Tips!

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Is 3D or CAD Event Software Best for Your Planning Business?

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Is 3D or CAD Event Software Best for Your Planning Business?

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...students should also include a short description as to why the use of CAD software is beneficial for events management professionals.

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Standing out in the event planning industry takes more than on-demand creativity and top-notch organizational skills. Those are essential, of course, but the ability to share your vision-and fast-with current and potential clients is also critical.

To create shareable event visuals, planners and event designers turn to 3D event design software and CAD (computer-assisted design). But which is right for your planning company or event production team? Here we explore how these design tools overlap, how they differ, and which one you need for your event planning biz.

What's the difference between 3D event design software and CAD event software?

3D event design software and CAD event software both create immersive event visuals. Where they differ most is in their intended users.

3D event design software prioritizes a straightforward user experience for planners. This means beginner planners and long-time planners alike can build a 3D event schematic no matter their tech experience. The best programs also let you layout and design event spaces quickly-bringing the event into focus should take minutes rather than hours. Use 3D event design software when:

You're a planner with minimal experience with technology

You need an event mock-up fast

You design multiple events simultaneously

You plan many events through the year

You typically develop events for existing venues

CAD event design takes a more ground-up approach. CAD originated as a research and development tool for engineers, product designers, graphic designers, and artists using computers to create something that didn't exist before. Often it requires advanced technical skills and experience to achieve a usable and presentable result. The CAD approach can also take more time. Use CAD event software when:

You have technical experience

Your company has a design team

You design events in unusual locations

You often incorporate one-of-a-kind event elements

There's an overlap between many CAD options and 3D software programs. For example, some CAD programs include quick-start options, such as a menu of stock design elements. Similarly, 3D programs-including Social Tables-offer the option of requesting original element designs when needed.

Why you need event design software-no matter which type you choose

People absorb and interpret visuals faster than they interpret words. This is why signs at crosswalks feature hands and people walking rather than words, and why 'stop' signs have a bold, recognizable shape and color.

A 2010 study by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan found that people absorb and recall information more readily when charts have visual embellishments. Over time, people remember less from unadorned pie charts and graphs.

Also, 59 percent of event planners expect to increase their use of technology through 2019 and beyond, according to Event Manager Blog's annual roundup of event industry statistics. While this stat folds in ALL event tech offerings, it highlights the expectation of digital solutions for every stage of planning and execution-including event design.

And though event planning has always been a 'show' more than a 'tell' industry, the 'show' stage starts earlier than ever. Before you've talked with a client, they've explored your website to better understand your experience and your event planning style. Company executives want to envision the conference you're designing today, even though it's three years away and you haven't chosen a venue.

3D or CAD event software helps you meet their curiosity about your style with striking visuals they'll remember.

Here are 7 ways to use event design software to elevate your event planning business and increase ROI:

1. Impress individual and corporate clients online with 3d event designs.

Your event planning website is your calling card. This is where prospective clients first encounter your creativity and your real-world results. Your gallery of photographs is an essential selling point, but including 3D visuals on your website can clarify the event planning process and help clients feel they are in good hands.

Show a step-by-step evolution of the event design process, from an empty 3D venue space through photographs of the events in full swing.

Include CAD designs of unusual furniture you've used for theatrical layouts.

Use 3D visuals to demonstrate how you solved the event design for an unusual venue space.

Wow visitors to your website with a 3D event design video 'walkthrough.' (More on this below.)

2. Bring 3D designs to your client pitch meetings to win event business.

When you're competing for a contract with a business or individual, having 3D designs at the ready helps clients 'envision' the end results of working with you. Gather as much information as you can to build an event design proposal. You're looking for insights into their style and their event goals. If your prospective client is a non-profit organization or a company, research them online and try to find pictures of their previous events. For individual clients, much of your information will come from their initial phone call or website forms.

With this information, build a 3D design of your early brainstorming ideas and share it with them in the meeting. Let them know you will always follow their lead and that the design is fully customizable. But having a design on hand demonstrates that you work quickly, are full of great ideas, and already put thought into their project.

3. Illustrate how a venue falls short of client specifications with 3D event designs.

Clients often have dream locations for their events-and sometimes those venues are NOT ideal. For example, a non-profit client wants a centralized, prestige venue for a small VIP fundraising gala, but the space lacks intimacy. Or, a company wants to organize an annual meeting within a hotel venue, but the conference rooms are too small.

For many of these venues, you can find room dimensions and details or upload the layouts from websites, such as the CVENT Supplier Network. With 3D design software, you can quickly add tables and illustrate how the venue is a mismatch for their goals. Showing your concerns makes this difficult decision easier, and your clients will appreciate your knowledge and willingness to demonstrate problems with the space.

4. Take clients and decision-makers on 3D walkthroughs of event space.

The best 3D event planning software enables venue 'walkthroughs' or 'fly-throughs.' You can send 3D walkthrough links to your clients (even if they are across the country), or lead them through a 3D walkthrough using your laptop or tablet during in-person meetings.

These virtual visits to the space can reveal problems that only the client can catch. For example, they may realize they need more tables in the VIP section because their list has expanded since the initial event brief. For a conference, your client may determine they prefer a more centralized location for the information kiosk. When a corporate client is hesitating about a branded design element, a walkthrough can illustrate why it elevates the event space.

Finally, 3D walkthroughs are impressive and make clients feel they are in good hands-and rightly so! Giving clients these experiences can help drive future engagements and referrals.

5. Push the event planning envelope with better design.

Perhaps you want to push your event planning to another level-adding complex, large-scale conferences or truly one-of-a-kind event design. This is an instance where CAD event software is the best route. Learn the software yourself or have a tech-savvy team member develop their CAD design skills.

Use the CAD software to design original event elements. A bar with internal lighting in an all new configuration? A stepped stage in the round at the center of a ballroom for a string quartet? One-of-a-kind presentation booths for a contemporary furniture expo? The only limitations are your imagination. (Okay, and the budget.)

Designing original elements requires ample lead time and a large budget to cover the time and cost of construction. You'll also have to factor in safety testing for stages and platforms.

6. Get your team on the same page early

Using 3D software, you can mock up event plans within minutes. This can get your team's creative juices flowing and spark brainstorming. 3D event design gets you 'inside' the virtual space so you can make the big decisions, such as where to locate musicians or how many presenter booths can fit within a conference hall.

You can also start to play with event colors, floral arrangements, ice sculptures, podiums, and table layouts. Perhaps your client wants a pink theme for their event, but aren't clearly communicating how pink. Mock up one that goes all-in for pink and another that takes a more subtle approach and show both to your clients. This should help them clarify what they want and ensures you don't go too far down the wrong track.

7. Build a 3D event layout library to make the process even faster in the future.

Sometimes your great event designs are keepers and you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Save your designs for reference down the road. Share a 3D walkthrough from a previous wedding with new clients. They may want to overlay their theme and decor on a similar layout. Or, send the conference design you're most proud of with a company planning a conference for the same space. Chances are they will have different requirements, but the existing 3D design can put you ahead of the planning and layout curve.

You bring unique skills to your event design-3D or CAD event software is an effective way to set your business apart from the competition.

Now you're ready to pick the right 3D or CAD software to help grow your event planning business!

Ready to add photo-realistic 3D event layout design to your planning toolkit? Get started with Social Tables event planning software. Or, get inspired with our guide to creating unforgettable event concepts.

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Is 3D or CAD Software Best for Your Planning Business?

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Standing out in the event planning industry takes more than on-demand creativity and top-notch organizational skills. Those are essential, of course, but the ability to share your vision-and fast-with current and potential clients is also critical. To create shareable event visuals, planners and event designers turn to 3D event design software and CAD (computer-assisted design).

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Event Scotland Resources: Planning & Managing Virtual Events

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Event Scotland Resources: Planning & Managing Virtual Events

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There are so many definitions out there but in simple terms it means an online or digital event.

Should I host a virtual event?

Many events have cancelled or postponed their in-person events due to the impacts of COVID-19. To bridge this gap, some have turned their hand to delivering virtual events to keep their audiences engaged and their brand out in the public eye.

However, creating a digital version of your event may not be right for everyone. It can pose a potential reputational risk, if not delivered well. Some key questions to think about when weighing up whether to take the leap online are:

What are your goals and why?

What type of digital event would it be - think about scale and scope?

Do you have enough time, resources and technical expertise to deliver?

What content would you use and what programme elements would work well online? Your digital event whilst not offering the exact same experience, should look and feel like your physical event and provide value to your audience.

As with physical events, virtual events need careful planning and facilitation in order to make them happen and be a success.

What are the benefits?

There has been a lot of positive noise surrounding digital events, including their ability to engage with stay at home audiences, reach new audiences, heighten brand exposure, provide greater flexibility and be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

Furthermore, as these types of events are hosted on digital platforms it can be easier to measure results. Arguably, there is no better alternative to experiencing a live event in person, however as you can see there are benefits to digital events.

What should I consider when delivering a virtual event?

Shifting from a physical event to a digital event can be a daunting experience for some event organisers. To help you navigate this, possibly, unfamiliar territory, we have provided you with a few points to consider.

Plan your digital event like you would plan your physical event.

Devise a plan that provides a framework for delivering your online event, including objectives, event and programme content overview, your audience, your USP, type of streaming platform, a marketing plan, timeline, budget and evaluation. Central to the planning process is making sure you have the right team with the right expertise in place.

Think about what promotional, technical and design support you may require in addition to your core team, along with whether you need a host and a moderator to help you mediate your digital event. There are many technology platforms and production companies out there who can manage the technical elements for you, while you focus on the programming elements.

'Size up' your event.

Think about the scale of your event - will your event run over one or multiple days and how many session/s will be scheduled over that period?

Date, time, and place.

Most organisers choose to run events over their original dates to give their audiences a digital offering in the absence of their physical event. In terms of timing, think about who your primary audience is and when they would most likely view / virtually attend your online event. Location is also worth considering, is it possible to film or part film your virtual experience from your usual venue or location to help you re-create that event feeling?

Figure out your format.

Virtual events come in various formats from performances, podcasts, film screenings, virtual exhibitions to Q&A's, panel discussions, interviews and many more. Will it be a live stream or pre-recorded? You can also have a blend of the two. Think about what format would work best for your content and audience and how interactive you want them to be.

To make your live stream more engaging encourage your viewers to submit questions or share comments and have a moderator on hand to help manage or moderate questions. Also, consider the event's online life cycle - do you plan to leave it online afterwards for those who couldn't attend the live stream?

Equip yourself.

Some types of equipment you may need: a high-quality camera and microphone, tripod, mixer, encoder, fast WiFi connection and lighting. Find out more on tips on how to virtually communicate.

Choose your platform.

There are lots of streaming platforms to choose from. Think about the type of content you want to deliver and where your audience is - you will want to draw in as big an audience, as possible. If you are just starting out, then you may want to consider using one of your existing channels if suitable. For example, if you have an active Facebook account and followers then this platform may be a good place to start.

Some of the most popular platforms used today are YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Twitch, Twitter Live, Zoom and Vimeo.

Free to attend or pay?

Decide on your pricing point. Is it free, pay to attend, pay what you want or are you collecting donations for charity? Whatever option you choose make sure it is clear and well-advertised in your event communications. If you opt for pay to attend, do some research on what competitors are charging for similar events, along with looking at your own pricing model and what value your event will offer.

Promote your event.

Create a marketing plan that raises awareness of your event and encourages people to attend and engage. Use all channels available to you to increase exposure, including social media, web and e-comms. Your messaging should tell the story of why you have created the digital event, what the event experience will be like, how you can experience it and why it shouldn't be missed.

Draw out your events USP in your messaging. Build a buzz with guest announcements and releasing teasers of programme content. Ask your speakers / artists/ performers to amplify your messaging by further sharing and engaging with your posts through their own online channels.

We have put together a short guide on 'How to best promote your event on social media' aimed at helping you create engaging content and capitalise on the most popular social media platforms for event promotion.

Practice. Do a test run.

Test the technology in advance and make sure participants are briefed and familiar with using key features on the platform. Have a backup plan so if someone or something goes offline, attendees aren't left in the lurch.

Measure its success.

Most platforms have in-built analytics you can use to provide insight and track your event's performance. Here are some measurements that you may want to consider: digital attendees, peak live viewers, total viewers, audience reach, and demographics, along with engagements (likes, comments and shares). If you are charging for your event, then ticket income is also a KPI.

Think long-term.

There has been a flurry of organisers who after venturing into the digital events landscape and are now looking towards creating hybrid events. A hybrid event combines a physical event with online components and have risen in popularity because of their capacity to reach an even wider audience and bring in even more revenue.

While digital events will never exactly replicate that in-person experience, there is no doubt that they will play a hugely important role in some form or another for years to come.

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Planning & Managing Virtual and Hybrid Events | VisitScotland.org

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There are so many definitions out there but in simple terms it means an online or digital event. Many events have cancelled or postponed their in-person events due to the impacts of COVID-19. To bridge this gap, some have turned their hand to delivering virtual events to keep their audiences engaged and their brand out in the public eye.

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How AI Is Transforming The Event Planning Space One Conversation At A Time

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How AI Is Transforming The Event Planning Space One Conversation At A Time

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How AI Is Transforming The Event Planning Space One Conversation At A Time

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There’s no escape from the AI transformations. Companies across different industries are increasingly investing in “smart” tech. By 2020, 80% of businesses plan to use chatbots and the event planning industry is no exception.

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Facebook to hire 10,000 in EU to work on metaverse

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Facebook to hire 10,000 in EU to work on metaverse

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Also See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59083601

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"The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social, and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start," Facebook said in a blog post.

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Facebook to hire 10,000 in EU to work on metaverse

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"The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social, and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start," Facebook said in a blog post.

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The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological 'nuts and bolts' of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (see the top menu ). Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative functions of academic writing (see the menu on the left). The resource should be particularly useful for writers who need to report their research work. The phrases, and the headings under which they are listed, can be used simply to assist you in thinking about the content and organisation of your own writing, or the phrases can be incorporated into your writing where this is appropriate. In most cases, a certain amount of creativity and adaptation will be necessary when a phrase is used. The items in the Academic Phrasebank are mostly content neutral and generic in nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people's ideas and this does not constitute plagiarism. For some of the entries, specific content words have been included for illustrative purposes, and these should be substituted when the phrases are used. The resource was designed primarily for academic and scientific writers who are non-native speakers of English. However, native speaker writers may still find much of the material helpful. In fact, recent data suggest that the majority of users are native speakers of English. More about Academic Phrasebank.

Call for research participants
Are you a postgraduate student with a specific learning difficulty? We are conducting research into how Academic Phrasebank can be useful for postgraduate students who have specific learning difficulties. Would you like to assist with this project by taking part in an online interview? If so, please complete thisshort form. It will only take around one minute of your time.

This site was created by John Morley.

Academic Phrasebank is the Intellectual Property of the University of Manchester.

Copyright © 2023 The University of Manchester

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The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological 'nuts and bolts' of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (see the top menu ).

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Theatres tempt new audiences with virtual reality...

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Theatres tempt new audiences with virtual reality...

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Technology of Business reporter

Roberta Doyle was unnerved when she found herself on the receiving end of a football manager's rant.

Despite just being a member of the audience, the play's delivery - through a virtual reality (VR) headset - made the rant feel alarmingly real.

"You're in the dressing room at half-time and getting his view of your first half performance. It rattled me, there was a lot of swearing and finger pointing. But it was very well done. It was uncomfortable in a good way."

The play, called Smile, was about the life of legendary Dundee United manager Jim McLean.

Ms Doyle had been expecting a conventional performance of a play featuring the blunt-spoken manager when she arrived at the Dundee Repertory earlier this year.

Before the curtain rose she accepted an invite to a section of the foyer where VR headsets were on offer to curious theatre-goers.

The intense preview sequence came from Box Office VR, a firm founded by Kelman and Gemma Greig-Kicks of Box Office VR.

Having spent careers in film-making and touring theatre, the husband and wife team, hope that VR can extend the reach of theatre to untapped audiences.

Anyone who wants to use the service would have to buy their own headset, but Box Office VR is designed to work on cheap systems like Google Cardboard VR Glasses.

To watch a show the customer has to insert their phone into the VR device.

Once the phone is place, the users strap the box, effectively a pair of cardboard goggles, around their head and plug in their own headphones.

The app then streams a recorded performance to the phone, which the VR headset amplifies, taking the viewer into a 180 degree view of the stage and auditorium.

It is aimed at anyone who might not think of visiting the theatre, or who cannot physically reach a venue.

So far that's a small audience. Around a 100 people have downloaded a show through Box Office VR.

Ms Greig-Kicks admits that Box Office VR is "a passion project" for her and her husband.

Yet she says the potential is real. "It means they can host shows that wouldn't otherwise be able to tour due to size or cost."

Box Office VR has filmed other productions, including one for London's Sadler's Wells dance theatre which has a Digital Stage label for its own online repertoire.

Other established names such as the York Theatre Royal have also experimented with making shows available via VR headsets.

While an interesting use case for virtual reality, it's not going to make much of a dent in the billions of dollars invested in VR by technology giants like Meta (the owner of Facebook) and more recently Apple, which launched its VR system in June.

But for cash-strapped regional theatre any exposure or extra revenue is welcome.

The technology is also an exciting way to introduce schoolchildren to theatre.

Lisa Kilbride teaches drama at Monifieth High School in Dundee and has harnessed Box Office VR for her mission to spread a love of theatre.

The school has a large rural catchment area, meaning some pupils have to travel in for nearly an hour by bus. So bolting on a trip to see a play in the evening creates problems for pupils with a far-flung home to return to.

Her drama teaching covers much more than acting. Ms Kilbride's pupils are studying for Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams and picking up skills needed in theatre directing, lighting or sound.

The VR headset sparked excitement in her 12 and 13 year old SQA students. No-one turned down the chance to pull on the simple goggles.

She is sure they're a valuable addition to her teaching toolkit and uses them to lure reluctant theatre-goers into a whole new experience.

"It's easy to pause and rewind the action and all of the kids talked about the lighting, the sound, the set."

Sharing the thrill of theatre means everything to Ms Kilbride. "If one child says 'I want to go to the theatre' after using the headset then I'm happy."

The action on stage unfolds in front of the viewer, but the VR goggles also let them look about the theatre.

Ms Kilbride wanted her students to become familiar with a whole world surrounding the stage, one they had never visited.

When she asked her students why they were tilting their heads up and around they explained they were glancing at the theatre itself. They had never seen anything like the interior of the Dundee Rep before.

Liam Sinclair, business manager at the Dundee Rep, knows about the impact an early encounter with theatre can have. He owes his career to "a brilliant drama teacher at school" who left him intrigued by the whole question of how theatre works.

Mr Sinclair explains how Smile brought a new audience, who loved both football and the Dundee United team, to his venue.

And Box Office VR made a huge impression on the late manager's living relatives.

"We did this film version of it with Box Office VR and created the sample sessions using VR goggles. Jim's family came to the press night of the show and got really involved, putting the googles on. When they watched the VR they teared up. It was really like Jim was present and in the room."

He realised that in this case technology had triggered deeper emotions than a stage performance. "VR is a very personal experience as opposed to theatre, which is communal."

Ms Doyle confirms this take on her memorable night out. "Once you're sworn at by Jim McLean you stay sworn at!"

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Theatres tempt new audiences with virtual reality

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A virtual reality service hopes to attract a new audience to theatre performances.

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Fortnite added to Olympic Esports Week lineup...

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Fortnite added to Olympic Esports Week lineup...

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Fortnite added to Olympic Esports Week lineup

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Fortnite has been added to the lineup of games for the Olympic Esports Week, happening later this year in Singapore.

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After Eminem, Fortnite Should Aim For Another Huge Concert

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After Eminem, Fortnite Should Aim For Another Huge Concert

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Holub (No Date) - Experts Predict EventTrends

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Holub (No Date) - Experts Predict EventTrends

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Utilising CAD (Computer Assisted Design) For Music Festival Sites.

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Utilising CAD (Computer Assisted Design) For Music Festival Sites.

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As music festivals get ever larger and more complex organisers are turning more and more to CAD to help them accurately plan and map a festival site. CAD has been around for many years but what do organisers new to this need to know about the technology and how it can help in their planning process

CAD has been around for 60 years and its sophistication has advanced in line with developments in computer technology. Modern CAD consists of vector-based, very accurate maps and drawings done so everything can be correctly measured and accounted for on a site plan. The most popular program to create CAD's is known as AutoCAD and is perfect for festival site mapping and rigging arrangements for example. Once an accurate site map has been produced it can be distributed to all decision makers involved in the site planning process. This will often be accompanied by recommendations from the CAD contractor on what will and will not work on site. Involving all the right people during the planning will ensure that the CAD festival site mapping becomes an iterative process where changes are made in real time. The finalised site map can also be used as part of any premises license application and demonstrates detailed site planning by the festival organisers. Using CAD to produce a festival site map will improve the accuracy and efficiency of the festival site planning process and lead to fewer on-site build up and infrastructure issues. Most CAD contractors will produce festival site plans that take account of any prevailing health and safety protocols too saving time in the planning process for any safety concerns. The use of CAD is only really going to be justified once a music festival gets to a certain size and for most smaller events a physical site survey and plan may be sufficient. However, once a music festival grows to a certain size the site planning and mapping becomes a key element in maintaining efficiency and accuracy in the site planning process. platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, guestlists, ticketing, cashless payments and contactless ordering.
Festival Site Specific CAD.
Organisers will have to bring in external expertise to implement any CAD designs and there are numerous companies that regularly provide services to festival organisers. Services usually include the design and drawing of site plans using both 2D and 3D design using products like AutoCAD. Contractors often use Satellite GPS Surveying Equipment to carry out on-site surveys which can record the topography and highlight uneven unusable ground as well as identifying the correct locations of tracks, fences, streams, trees and woods. All useful data is uploaded to CAD computer programs and combined with Ordinance Survey map data, if that data is available.

Photo by energepic.com via Pexels
Advantages of CAD.
For festival organisers planning their events using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their event logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro

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Utilising CAD (Computer Assisted Design) For Music Festival Sites.

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As music festivals get ever larger and more complex organisers are turning more and more to CAD to help them accurately plan and map a festival site.

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Masson and Solaris (2021) - Hybrid is Now

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Masson and Solaris (2021) - Hybrid is Now

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Click explores some of the many ways that AI is changing the world around us and asks where it goes from here

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Click explores the ways that AI is changing the world and asks where it goes from here.

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Facebook's metaverse plans labelled as 'dystopian' and 'a bad idea'

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Facebook's metaverse plans labelled as 'dystopian' and 'a bad idea'

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By Jane Wakefield
Technology reporter

One of Facebook's earliest investors has labelled the social media giant's plans for a metaverse as "dystopian".

Meta, as Facebook is now known, is investing billions in the project.

But Roger McNamee told the BBC: "It's a bad idea and the fact we are all sitting and looking at this like it's normal should be alarming everyone."

Meta's chief product officer Chris Cox told attendees at the Web Summit in Lisbon that the idea would make "the internet less flat".

He said it would be considerably better than video conferencing as a space for meetings.

However, speaking at the same event, Mr McNamee was highly sceptical.

"Facebook should not be allowed to create a dystopian metaverse," he said.

The term metaverse was coined in the 1990s in a science fiction novel Snow Crash, where it served as a virtual reality successor to the internet.

Mr McNamee became a critic of Facebook as he began to see more misinformation on the platform. He said he was not convinced the metaverse would be safe in chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's hands.

"There's no way that a regulator or policymaker should be allowing Facebook to operate there [in the metaverse] or get into cryptocurrencies," he said.

"Facebook should have lost the right to make its own choices. A regulator should be there giving pre-approval for everything they do. The amount of harm they've done is incalculable."

Real life

Mr Cox, speaking for Meta, put forward a different view - that the metaverse idea is the next step for the internet as a whole, not just for his company.

"Technology often starts in lower resolutions versions of what it becomes," he said.

Feedback from Meta's Oculus virtual reality headset users was that the technology, which was improving all the time, could be "incredibly fun".

Mr Cox told Nicholas Carlson, editor-in-chief of news publication Insider, that his own dabbling in the metaverse included hosting meetings and entertainment for staff.

He said he and his wife had watched a comedy show with Facebook employees in which everyone appeared as avatars: "Twenty of us in the room, co-workers, all laughing together."

That same technology was a good alternative to video calls, he argued.

"Everyone is exhausted by video conferencing. You don't know who is looking at who, everyone is constantly interrupting each other."

Meetings in the metaverse would be far better, he said, with Meta working on how to improve "spatial audio and body language" in virtual reality.

When asked why anyone would want to meet in virtual reality, he said: "It will not replace real life - nothing should - and I don't want to design something that does."

Getting Meta

He acknowledged that no one company, such as Meta, would own the metaverse, pointing to Roblox as an example.

Roblox, a user-generated gaming platform valued at $30bn (£22bn) and with 37 million users around the globe, has its own plans for the metaverse.

Chief executive David Baszucki has for several years been outlining his vision of it as a digital place where people play, work or learn with millions of 3D experiences.

At Web Summit, Roblox's head of music Jon Vlassopulos told the BBC: "I think our view of the metaverse is that we've been at it for about 15 years.

"So we're ushering in the metaverse, and we feel it needs to be a place that everyone can access, a place where people can express themselves and connect together.

"We've been building around this vision for a long time. We're excited that more people are coming it to validate that notion."

Mr Cox was asked whether the metaverse - which Mr Carlson described as a "cartoon world" - was something that the tech giant should control.

He said that there would need to be "a set of standards and a set of protocols" along with "public discourse" about how to keep the space safe.

He added that Mr Zuckerberg was committed to safety, something he said the "company had been working on for over a decade".

More on this story

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Facebook's metaverse plans labelled as 'dystopian' and 'a bad idea'

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By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter One of Facebook's earliest investors has labelled the social media giant's plans for a metaverse as "dystopian". Meta, as Facebook is now known, is investing billions in the project. But Roger McNamee told the BBC: "It's a bad idea and the fact we are all sitting and looking at this like it's normal should be alarming everyone."

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The 21st century meeting and event technologies : powerful tools for better planning, marketing and evaluation

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The 21st century meeting and event technologies : powerful tools for better planning, marketing and evaluation

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A key textbook that includes lots of useful information that can be used to create your event technology reflection...

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Here’s what it’s like watching an NBA game courtside

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Here’s what it’s like watching an NBA game courtside

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Whitney to Elvis: Holograms that have brought stars back to life

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Whitney to Elvis: Holograms that have brought stars back to life

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Watching your favourite singer in concert is a highlight for any music fan - but when the artist passes on, a hologram is the next best thing.

And that is exactly what Whitney Houston fans will get to experience as her posthumous UK and Ireland tour kicks off in Sheffield on Tuesday night.

An Evening with Whitney features a digital recreation of the world's most awarded female artist of all time, singing her greatest hits, complete with a live band and audience banter.

Appearing as a hologram is not new, however, with several massive stars making their comebacks well after they have died.
Elvis Presley
The King left the building 37 years before, but in 2008 his hologram performed a duet on American Idol with Celine Dion.

Some fans were mesmerised, others thought it was "creepy".
Tupac
Rapper Tupac Shakur, who was shot dead in 1996, shocked a 2012 festival crowd of 80,000 when he appeared (as a hologram) alongside Dr Dre and Snoop, and yelled: "What the f*** is up, Coachellaaa!"

He then performed several hits, including Hail Mary and his Snoop collaboration, 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.

After disappearing in a burst of fragments, there was a moment of complete silence from the crowd before Eminem came out to cheers.

His short hologram performance kicked off a stream of similar appearances.
Michael Jackson
Nearly five years after his death, the King of Pop returned as a hologram to moonwalk at the Billboard Music Awards in 2014.

Appearing with both real and hologram backing dancers he sang Slave To The Rhythm, a song released after his death.
Hatsune Miku
The 16-year-old Japanese pop star opened for Lady Gaga's 2014 tour and went on her own world tour in 2019.

Unlike most other holograms, that is all she is. She has never been a real person, despite sell-out concerts around the world.
Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly
Inspired by Tupac's reappearance, late 20th Century American rock and roll singer Roy Orbison was brought back to life in 2018.

Orbison died in 1988 but performed full-length concerts during a 2018 tour of the UK, Europe, North America and Australia.

So successful was the tour that they added a hologram of Buddy Holly, who died in a 1959 car crash, to his performances in 2019.
Maria Callas
Also prompted by Tupac's performance, opera legend Maria Callas went on tour as a hologram in 2018 with 90-minute shows.

The irony of her singing "The dead don't rise again from the grave", from Verdi's Macbeth, was not lost on audiences.
Frank Zappa
American musician and singer Frank Zappa appeared as a hologram in 2019, more than 25 years after he died from prostate cancer aged 52.

A few years before he died, he wrote in his autobiography that he would love to take on "Intercontinental Absurdities" - widely presumed to be a hologram tour.

The Bizarre World of Franz Zappa, featuring former members of his bands, was "a hit" with his fans, Rolling Stone magazine wrote at the time.
Amy Winehouse
While the holograms who went before her were widely welcomed by their fans, Amy Winehouse's planned 2019 hologram tour was as controversial as her life.

After announcing it would go ahead with a live band and singers, producers BASE Hologram postponed the show due to "some unique challenges and sensitivies".

Her father, Mitch Winehouse, had given his blessing and proceeds were to go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation for addiction awareness and prevention.

However, others in the arts industry had questioned the ethics of making a hologram of the singer, who died in 2011 aged 27 of alcohol poisoning and struggled with bulimia and addiction.

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Whitney to Elvis: Holograms that have brought stars back to life

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The Whitney Houston hologram tour starts in the UK after the success of several other famous performers appearing posthumously.

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Advice for aspiring esports event managers

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Advice for aspiring esports event managers

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epic.LAN Managing Director Jon Winkle Offers Esports Career Advice

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Roblox targets older audiences with dedicated 17+ experiences

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Roblox targets older audiences with dedicated 17+ experiences

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Social gaming platform is hugely popular with younger users.

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Roblox sporting partners include Fifa, AELTC and NHL

Age restrictions were previously 9+ and 13+

Social gaming platform Roblox will allow users and content partners to create experiences intended for users aged 17 or older as part of efforts to expand its appeal.
Roblox's unique selling point has been its youthful and highly-engaged user base, offering rights holders and brands a completely different audience to other digital platforms. To date, the company has allowed experiences classified as suitable for all ages, those aged nine or older, and those aged 13 or older.

However, with the fastest growing demographic on the service being those aged between 17 and 24, and with 38 per cent of daily active users now 17 or over, it says there is a need to create content targeted specifically at older users.

'We want Roblox to simulate and even go beyond what's possible in the real world,' wrote Manuel Bronstein, Roblox chief product officer, in a blog post. 'For example, when a family attends a sporting event, there's something at the stadium for everyone to do. But some of these areas may be off-limits for young people. As they get older, though, they'll be able to access those areas, and we want to replicate that dynamic on Roblox.'

Specifically 17+ experiences will allow mature themes, crude humour, and violence in line with movies or television shows. Roblox stresses all users will need to be age-verified using a government-issued ID and that its platform is protected by parental controls, conduct policies, and moderation.

Roblox doesn't create content itself, instead working with partners and developers. Fifa, the National Hockey League ( NHL), and Wimbledon are among those to have created Roblox experiences, which include games, competitions, and digital recreations of real life sporting action. All these partners will now be able to curate their environments for older users.

The value of Roblox's core audience has seen others get in on the act. Meta is opening up its Horizon Worlds virtual reality (VR) environment to teenagers in the US and Canada, promising a 'robust' set of age-appropriate protections and safety defaults.

These include privacy settings that give teens control over who they follow and follow back, limitations on interactions between teens and adults who don't know each other, and parental supervision tools.

'Starting today, eligible creators can begin making experiences for people 17 and over,' added Bronstein. 'We want those experiences to be safe and civil, high-quality, engaging, and to fully leverage the potential of aged-up content. In the coming weeks, eligible users will begin to see these new experiences. As always, as we innovate, we're keeping safety top of mind. We can't wait to see what our community builds.'

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Roblox targets older audiences with dedicated 17+ experiences - SportsPro

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Social gaming platform is hugely popular with younger users.

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How Event Technology Will Benefit Your Events

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How Event Technology Will Benefit Your Events

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Event technology has finally become an integral part of our event strategies. It's taken us many years, even though many event profs have been preaching about numerous benefits of event technology for ages.

The pandemic sped up the adoption of technology and software solutions in the events industry. After all, virtual and hybrid events fully depend on technology. And as event planners were somewhat forced into a technological era of event planning, many of them started seeing the benefits of event technology.

Additionally, let's not forget that 73% of millennials are now in decision-making roles . As such, they're the dominant audience at corporate events and conferences. Their generation as well as anybody following theirs has been acquainted with technology early on in their lives. For them, technology is a necessity and not just a nice cherry on top.

It's not just that technology appeals to our attendees. Event technology solves many common event planning pain points. It saves time, optimizes event management, boosts engagement, and thus makes event marketing more profitable.

Event Technology Provides Analytics & Data

Prior to event apps and platforms, event planners relied on pre-event and post-event surveys to measure event ROI. Such calculations rarely gave a realistic picture of an event's success as the open rates rarely reached statistically significant percentages.

The game has since changed. Data insights and analytics reports are one of the most important benefits of event technology. Planners need to find the right piece of technology that spits out the right analytics for them to measure event KPIs that matter for their event. They can track customer behavior, lead generation, profit, and more.

The Benefits Of Event Technology & Effective Communication

Technology has enabled us to communicate with virtually anybody anywhere at any time - both in our personal as well as professional lives. Event technology allows attendees to message each other before, during, and after the event, making it easier than ever for people to network.

Additionally, event planners can inform attendees about any potential schedule changes via event apps much more effortlessly. They can also set up chatbots that answer questions about the event.

Event Technology Supports Sustainability

In-person events have a notoriously big carbon footprint and produce a lot of waste. Planners who strive to plan truly sustainable events can use technology solutions to curb the effect that the events industry has on the environment.

Virtual events are far more environmentally-friendly than in-person events. They require no travel and do not produce as much waste. But face-to-face events, too, can be more sustainable thanks to the benefits of event technology. With all communication hosted on platforms or apps, there is no need for excessive amounts of paper schedules and printed event signage. Planners can even plan on going completely paperless.

The Security Benefits Of Event Technology

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit us and the importance of safety and security went through the roof, we turned to event technology to make our events safer. RFID wristbands or RFID masks make contact tracing ea sier. Additionally, attendees can use the RFID technology to signal to other attendees how comfortable they are with social distancing. RFID can also be used to ensure the optimal show flow and prevent any bottlenecks.

But it doesn't take a worldwide pandemic to know the benefits of event technology for security reasons. Badges, for example, have made security checks better and more pleasant. On the more futuristic side, events can implement facial recognition at the check-in process.

Planners can also dedicate a page to security and safety on event apps. For example, they can leave safety instructions and provide a list of important contacts.

The Benefits Of Event Technology For Audience Engagement

Audience engagement is one of the most talked-about pain points for event planners, especially when planning hybrid and virtual events. Event technology can increase audience engagement in various ways, the most common ones being:

Event gamification: incentivizing attendees to participate in the event by rewarding them;

Audience response technology: polling, Q&A, receiving feedback, etc.;

Meeting attendees on the platform and making connections as they would on LinkedIn or other social media platforms;

On-demand content: attendees can watch sessions and panels after the event and thus gain more autonomy about the experience;

Take your event to the next level by incorporating VR or AR into your events;

Bringing attendees up on a virtual stage, ie. .

Event Platforms Are Turning Into Community Platforms

As event platforms took over the event tech market, community marketing has become the next big thing in the event space. Communities offer year-round audience engagement. In a sense, certain aspects of the event never end. People can communicate, watch content at their leisure, and attend webinars.

But what brings the entire community together is the big in-person event. Hosting a community on an event platform is an investment, but it can definitely pay off as it offers value to attendees and sponsors alike.

Event Tech Assists Event Professionals

The final benefit of event technology is that it saves event planners a lot of stress, time, and energy. According to Bizzabo's 2020 study , 89% of businesses that use event tech save 200 hours (= five work weeks) per year. Additionally, 20% save more than 360 hours per year.

Event technology automates many processes, from registration, catering, and measuring event ROI. It makes event management easier, but only if you know how to leverage technology for your particular event. Technology for technology's sake, on the other hand, will likely not yield great results.

Event Technology Is Your Best Friend

The benefits of event technology far outweigh the inconvenience of learning how to use them. The events industry is growing increasingly digitalized and it's our responsibility to keep up with trends should we want to see great event marketing success. Event technology is not something that only concerns virtual and hybrid events. It's the very foundation of a modern multi-event strategy and a sure way to measure and prove ROI to decision-makers and stakeholders.

As a comprehensive event management company, the Endless Events team helps event marketers reach their event goals by offering services in event technology, production, strategy, and creative design. If you're looking for a bespoke partner in the events industry, reach out to us. The Endless team is here to help.

If you're interested in the vast world of event technology, make sure to subscribe to Endless Events' Event Tech Podcast. We keep our listeners informed about all the trends in the ever-evolving space of digital innovation.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in 2013 and has been completely updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

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How Event Technology Will Benefit Your Events

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Event technology has finally become an integral part of our event strategies. It's taken us many years, even though many event profs have been preaching about numerous benefits of event technology for ages. The pandemic sped up the adoption of technology and software solutions in the events industry.

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Some clients simply cannot see the vision for their event. 

This is why using renderings are important because it sets the right expectations and clients aren't disappointed when they see the finished product.

Here is a concept to execution example for our clients.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Some clients simply cannot see the vision for their event. 

This is why using renderings are important because it sets the right expectations and clients aren't disappointed when they see the finished product.

Here is a concept to execution example for our clients. https://t.co/2WLk4ZG9rR

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Some clients simply cannot see the vision for their event.

This is why using renderings are important because it sets the right expectations and clients aren't disappointed when they see the finished product.

Here is a concept to execution example for our clients. pic.twitter.com/2WLk4ZG9rR
— Andrew Roby (@MrAndrewRoby) August 23, 2022

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Some clients simply cannot see the vision for their event. 

This is why using renderings are important because it sets the right expectations and clients aren't disappointed when they see the finished product.

Here is a concept to execution example for our clients. https://t.co/2WLk4ZG9rR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Some clients simply cannot see the vision for their event. 

This is why using renderings are important because it sets the right expectations and clients aren't disappointed when they see the finished product.

Here is a concept to execution example for our clients. https://t.co/2WLk4ZG9rR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Some clients simply cannot see the vision for their event. 

This is why using renderings are important because it sets the right expectations and clients aren't disappointed when they see the finished product.

Here is a concept to execution example for our clients.

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Free Stock Photos/Images that can bet used within your website!

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Free Stock Photos/Images that can bet used within your website!

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Free Stock Photos, PNGs, Templates & Mockups | rawpixel

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rawpixel is the professional all-in-one graphic design tool. Easily create stunning Social Content, Templates, Mockups, Remix Designs and more.

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Half of future B2B events will be completely virtual and “pandemic-proof”, finds LinkedIn research

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Half of future B2B events will be completely virtual and “pandemic-proof”, finds LinkedIn research

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Parry (2021)

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45% of future B2B events will be completely virtual, according to new research from LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network.
The study of 200 B2B event organisers in UKI finds 72% of businesses will maintain virtual events in the long term and 77% are interested in organising hybrids. In fact, businesses' future event mix will be 32% physical, 45% virtual and 23% hybrid. Given £31bn a year was spent on UK B2B events pre-pandemic, this suggests the virtual events industry in the UK could be worth £14bn a year.

Budgets are expected to reflect this change immediately as investment in virtual events will be three-times more than physical ones in the next 12 months. The research also finds that a third of event budgets (29%) will be spent on virtual platforms in 2021.

When asked why they plan to continue organising virtual events, the top responses included that they're pandemic-proof, cost effective and they give global access to content without travel. This is not surprising given UKI B2B event organisers described 2020 as "challenging" (63%), "a learning experience" (62%) and "frustrating" (40%).

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The majority of event organisers (88%) arranged a virtual event, webinar or online talk last year. Data from Linkedin's own platform shows that LinkedIn Live streams increased over 400% year-on-year and LinkedIn Live broadcaster increased nearly 500%. In fact, in December, 12,000 events were hosted a week with a combined half a million attendees. By pivoting this way, 81% of organisers say virtual events provided opportunities that would not have had otherwise.

One brand which successfully moved an event online is the Nudgestock behavioural science festival. When the Covid-19 pandemic ruled out hosting the festival in its traditional seaside setting, Ogilvy Consulting saw an opportunity to transform its reach and role. The festival became a marathon online video event, bringing together experts across time zones for 15 hours of free viewing. Streaming sessions on LinkedIn Live enabled Nudgestock to generate over 120,000 views and register over 35,000 sign-ups.

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy said: "We didn't want to settle for a compromised version of the festival we would have had before Covid-19. We made a conscious decision to go huge on speakers, scale and geography and we're ecstatic with the results. It shows the potential of LinkedIn Live for delivering quality business TV - it's given us the equivalent audience of a San Siro stadium or a Melbourne Cricket Ground and it will change the way we conceive of Nudgestock going forward."

However there have been challenges as 50% of event organisers have experienced budget cuts meaning 44% believe they are now running their events more cost effectively​. 71% believe virtual events offer a greater return on investment than physical events.

With cuts, event organisers are faced with a dilemma of where to invest. The data shows the proportion of their budget will go towards the following expenditures: virtual event platforms (29%); advertising using digital tactics (19%); advertising using traditional marketing tactics (11.5%); hiring speakers (11%) and professional expos or trade shows (11%).

83% of event organisers are planning to upskill to match their virtual event ambitions: 43% would like more technical knowledge and 41% want to add better networking and socialising capabilities.

Tom Pepper, Head of Marketing Solutions UK, Ireland & Israel, said: "The B2B events industry will not return the way we know it. Businesses are reflecting what their employees are demanding and that is less time travelling and spending time away from home. This means more virtual and hybrid events. And this research shows budgets are following suit."

"The big question for event organisers is what does a successful hybrid event look like? As a new concept, there will be a period of trial and error as businesses find what works for them and participants."

To help people who are looking to find new opportunities in events and upskill, LinkedIn has launched free LinkedIn Learning courses to develop in-demand skills by accessing nearly 1,000 hours of free learning courses from Microsoft and LinkedIn at opportunity.linkedin.com.

Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe's only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.

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Half of future B2B events will be completely virtual and "pandemic-proof", finds LinkedIn research - Event Industry News

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45% of future B2B events will be completely virtual, according to new research from LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network. The study of 200 B2B event organisers in UKI finds 72% of businesses will maintain virtual events in the long term and 77% are interested in organising hybrids.

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Navigating Venue and Event Management in the AI Era

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Navigating Venue and Event Management in the AI Era

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The venue and event management industry continues to face growing demands both internally and externally. Internally, many venues are still struggling to attract and retain event management professionals. Externally, guests are expecting more, ranging from personalized experiences to better flexibility in event options.

As a result, industry players must accelerate their technological advancement to stay current and maximize revenue opportunities in the long run.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a transformative force in venue and event management in recent years. According to AI Business, 95% of all customer interactions will be powered by AI by 2025. This technology has the potential to revolutionize how events are planned, executed and managed to meet guests' ever-evolving demands.

But how exactly will AI benefit the event and venue management landscape and what are its implementation challenges? Here, we explore the rising trend of AI, its effects on the industry and what this means for the future of venue and event management.

The Rise of AI in Venue and Event Management
The biggest key factor driving AI adoption in venue and event management is finding innovative ways to meet growing challenges, from satisfying attendee demands and combatting operational inefficiencies to better security and risk solutions.

According to the 2024 Global Meetings and Events Forecast, 42% of respondents plan on using AI in 2024 to automate their events and tackle these challenges. Already, event planners are utilizing AI platforms like ChatGPT to streamline processes in creating event invitations, agendas and event scheduling, helping organizers save time and resources while creating more engaging events.

4 Benefits of AI in Venue and Event Management
From enhancing attendee experience to elevating sustainability practices, AI has the potential to transform how events are planned and executed. Here we highlight some key benefits AI can provide:

Operational Efficiency

Traditionally, event planning has been a taxing process that relies heavily on manual work. AI can easily overcome these common challenges like logistics management, staff scheduling and attendee engagement tracking with its ability to rapidly and accurately assess large amounts of data.

According to McKinsey, current generative AI can automate almost 70% of employee tasks, granting them freedom to prioritize higher-value work. As a result, planners can effectively leverage AI to increase operational efficiency, predict optimal venue layout and make data-driven decisions to save time and resources in the long run.

Enhancing Attendee Experience

One of the growing demands from attendees in recent years is for personalized event experiences. To meet these expectations, AI-powered event analytics can be used to understand attendee behaviors, preferences and interactions. This allows event organizers to deliver customized events tailored to their audience's needs.

AI chatbots and virtual assistants have become valuable tools for engaging attendees in real-time and gathering responses for post-event analysis while reducing manual work in attending to customers. Chatbots can automate 30% of tasks typically performed by customer service teams, leading to a potential savings of $23 billion in the United States. By utilizing AI technology, event professionals can increase attendee engagement, optimize resources and enhance the overall event experience.

Seamless Risk Management

Risk management is a crucial aspect of event planning but can be daunting with many components like budget constraints, unexpected disruption and more that can often slip through even the most experienced risk managers.

With AI, risk managers can leverage their predictive analysis and utilization of historical data to forecast potential risks and make informed decisions quickly. This leads to enhanced safety and security for attendees, gaining stakeholders' trust and seamless regulation compliance.

Elevating Sustainability Practices

Events face unavoidable environmental impacts. While there have been concentrated efforts to reduce consumption and impact through sustainability tracking and optimization, AI technology can further enhance these best practices to overcome these challenges.

For example, building automation systems (BAS) combined with AI algorithms can track and optimize energy consumption, providing recommendations for more sustainable options.

Additionally, the use of AI-powered solutions such as classification robots can help monitor waste management and provide attendees with information on reducing waste at events. These technologies can greatly reduce the environmental impact of venues and events, making them more sustainable.

Challenges in Implementing AI

Ethical Considerations

One of the main challenges in AI implementation is the issue of data privacy and security, especially concerning collecting and analyzing attendee data which can raise important ethical and legal issues. Event professionals can address this challenge by providing transparency to attendees and stakeholders on what data is being collected and how it will be used.

This not only creates a sense of trust but also ensures compliance with regulations and avoids potential legal repercussions. In the long run, ethical AI implementation fosters positive relationships between all parties involved, leading to long-term business sustainability.

Automation Replacing Human Interaction

The effects of the pandemic have seen an emergence of automation in every sector of the job industry - and venue and event management are no exception. With powerful platforms that can automate events and analyze data, there are valid concerns about AI rendering certain jobs obsolete. To circumvent these potential risks, industry leaders and event professionals must redefine the role of AI as a tool instead of a threat.

AI's larger impact will serve to complement human work in the long run. According to SEO.ai, AI is poised to create opportunities for 120 million workers to undergo retraining by 2030 to meet demand. This will pave new paths to elevate rather than diminish the capabilities of event professionals and open doors to the possibilities of human-AI collaboration.

The event management landscape still relies heavily on face-to-face interactions and human experiences, and AI can serve to aid event staff in simplifying tasks so they can prioritize high-value, strategic tasks. So, with proper training to utilize AI, event planners and staff can leverage opportunities to deliver better and more memorable event results.

The Future of Venues and Events With AI

As AI technology advances, it becomes an essential venue and event management tool. In future, expect to see hyper-personalization, real-time event analytics and seamless hybrid and virtual events with AI. This underscores the importance of embracing these technologies to stay competitive, making it crucial for industry leaders to stay updated on navigating these advancements.

The future of venues and events with AI holds endless possibilities, and its role is set to grow exponentially in the future. With proper adaptation and implementation, AI has the potential to elevate the industry and provide attendees with unforgettable event experiences. The future is here, and it's time for venue and event professionals to embrace AI and shape a more efficient, personalized, and sustainable future for the industry.

Future-Proof Your Events with Momentus

In the ever-evolving venue and event management landscape, it is crucial to stay on top of emerging technologies to remain competitive. This is where Momentus comes in. With over 35 years of experience and more than 60,000 users across the globe, we understand the need to keep the lead on evolving technology and other advancements in the industry. Our all-in-one solution empowers event and venue managers to achieve extraordinary events that leave a lasting impression on attendees.

Plus: when it comes to AI, Momentus is getting competitive. Custom AI integrations are on the horizon that aim to streamline quality testing and make it easier than ever for event and venue managers to do more, faster.

Ready to embrace the future and revolutionize your event management? Contact us today to learn more about how we can help future-proof your events. With Momentus, you're not just navigating the future, you're mastering it.

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Navigating Venue and Event Management in the AI Era

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The venue and event management industry continues to face growing demands both internally and externally. Internally, many venues are still struggling to attract and retain event management professionals. Externally, guests are expecting more, ranging from personalized experiences to better flexibility in event options.

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Keep kids off Roblox if you're worried, its CEO tells parents

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Keep kids off Roblox if you're worried, its CEO tells parents

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Zoe Kleinman & Georgina HayesTechnology editor & reporter

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Keep kids off Roblox if worried, CEO Dave Baszucki tells parents

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The gaming platform is wildly popular, but has been rocked by allegations it exposes children to harmful content.

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Podscast: #1086: Anne McKinnon on the Ristband Music Platform going into Alpha, Pixel Streaming, & the Future of Musical Experiences

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Podscast: #1086: Anne McKinnon on the Ristband Music Platform going into Alpha, Pixel Streaming, & the Future of Musical Experiences

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The Ristband music platform (formerly known as Overview Ark) launched an alpha version at SXSW during co-founder Roman Rappak's mixed reality show with his band Miro Shot that I previously covered in episode #1082. Ristband is described as "your portal to the metaverse" in order to "perform shows, discover music, play games, and hang out with friends."

I spoke with the other co-founder of Ristband Anne McKinnon to hear more about her journey into VR, how she started collaborating with Miro Shot in 2017, her XR blogging at The Boolean, getting an Epic Megagrant and implementing Pixel Streaming to get AAA-quality graphics, Ristband's Report on Diversity in the Metaverse [PDF], their evolving business model and how web3, NFTs, or cryptocurrency may be explored through third-party integrations.

I'm currently bit skeptical for how web3 will integrate into the Metaverse that I started to detail here in this Twitter thread, but here are some resources that have influenced my thinking on the topic:

Marlinspike, Moxie (2022, January 07). My first impressions of web3. Moxie Marlinspike Blog. Retrieved on May 15, 2022 from https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Dániel Kondor, Nikola Bulatovic, József Stéger, István Csabai, and Gábor Vattay. (2021, 23 August). The Rich Still Get Richer: Empirical Comparison of Preferential Attachment via Linking Statistics in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Frontiers in Blockchain.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2021.668510/full

Olson, Dan (2022, January 21). Line Go Up - The Problem with NFTs. YouTube. Retrieved on May 15, 2022 from https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g

münecat (2022, March 19). Web3.0: A Libertarian Dystopia. YouTube. Retrieved on May 15, 2022 from https://youtu.be/u-sNSjS8cq0

Zhang, Alice Yuan (2022, April 28). Unpacking the Myth of Web3: Decentralization of What? Alice Yuan Zhang. Retrieved on May 15, 2022 from https://aliceyuanzhang.com/decentralization

Bauwens, M. & Pazaitis, A (2019, June) P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival: Towards a P2P Infrastructure for a Socially Just Circular Society. Joint publication between the P2P Foundation, Guerrilla Foundation, and Schoepflin Foundation. Retrieved from https://p2pfoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AccountingForPlanetarySurvival_def.pdf

McKinnon said that the exact business models of the Metaverse are still evolving, and they'll be exploring whatever emerging tech platforms best serve the needs of independent musicians to be able to hold compelling music experiences on an immersive platform, to enable fans to discover new artists and facilitate the connection to other fans, provide VIP experiences, provide monetization opportunities for digital merch (whether 1st-party implementations or 3rd-party integrations). Right now they're using cloud rendering and pixel streaming technology, and so it's not a fully immersive VR experience just yet.

Ristband is an event-based platform that's still in an alpha phase, and so be sure to join their Discord to hear more about upcoming events to check out their platform.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
https://d1icj85yqthyoq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Voices-of-VR-1086-Anne-McKinnon.mp3

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

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The Ristband music platform (formerly known as Overview Ark) launched an alpha version at SXSW during co-founder Roman Rappak's mixed reality show with his band Miro Shot that I previously covered in episode #1082. Ristband is described as "your portal to the metaverse" in order to "perform shows, discover music, play games, and hang out with friends."

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Impact of ICTs on Event Management and Marketing

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Impact of ICTs on Event Management and Marketing

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A brand new book which includes some useful insights that could support aspects of the blog!

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Impact of ICTs on Event Management and Marketing | MMU Library

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WorldCat Discovery helps people navigate their research journeys to find and get resources from MMU Library and libraries worldwide.

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Future Vision: Peering Into Apple’s AI And AR Game Plan For The Vision Pro In The Era Of Spatial Computing

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Future Vision: Peering Into Apple’s AI And AR Game Plan For The Vision Pro In The Era Of Spatial Computing

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Future Vision: Peering Into Apple’s AI And AR Game Plan For The Vision Pro In The Era Of Spatial Computing

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In order to explore the game-changing potential of the Vision Pro we need to first look at Apple’s strategic vision for the convergence of AI, AR, and spatial computing.

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Abba and Tupac in the metaverse: how digital avatars could be the bankable future of band touring...

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Abba and Tupac in the metaverse: how digital avatars could be the bankable future of band touring...

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Abba and Tupac in the metaverse: how digital avatars could be the bankable future of band touring

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It was a technological feat that made history, wowed audiences and brought a dead rapper back to life. In April 2012 at the Coachella festival in California, Tupac Shakur took to the stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. He'd been dead for 16 years, killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

But this was Tupac the hologram, foul-mouthed and lifelike, performing before a " shocked and then amazed " crowd.

Since humans first delighted in the sound of music, advancements in technology have managed to make musical expression immortal. Throughout history, innovators have strived to create original, accessible and eternal performances.

As engineering knowledge developed, musical instrument design advanced. Many classical composers introduced pioneering instrumentations into their scores, adding depth and colour that broadened the listening experience.

Accurate systems for notation matured, offering music an essence of immortality through printed manuscript. In 1853 Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville's phonautograph pioneered an audio recording technique.

In 1912 WC Handy composed Memphis Blues, a song that took the US by storm and influenced the development of popular music. Published on paper, it was wildly popular in the dance halls and soon every band in America was asked to play it. This public demand was recognised by an fledgling recording industry, which soon flourished.

Technology = creativity

A breakthrough in the quality of music capture came with the advent of hi-fi and stereo introduced by Yamaha. Those who embraced the technology artistically could transport a lifelike performance experience into the homes of the masses. One of the biggest bands of the 1970s and 1980s, Swedish supergroup Abba, embraced this technology pioneering recording techniques, which is still used as standard today.

Behind this technology was the creative genius that produced millions of record sales and performances dominating the 1970s and beyond. After the apparent demise of the group, Benny and Björn expanded into the theatrical genre, composing musicals. Along with their interest in emerging technology, this sowed the seeds to recapture and reinvent the Abba machine 40 years later.

May 2022 sees the latest technological advances in musical immortality when Abba return to the live stage after a 40-year absence. But this time they return as humanoids - the digital holgram "twins" of the original global phenomenon.

George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic has created holographic lookalikes that interact with a live band in a specially designed purpose-built theatre in east London. Benny, Björn, Frida and Agnetha have provided the pre-recorded vocals and motion-captured movement which will then be reproduced by the digital avatars.

The dopplegangers are more youthful in their appearance - around their 30s, when they were at the peak of their fame - raising an interesting conundrum concerning Abba's human mortality against their new immortality in the metaverse.

Abba's music is undoubtedly timeless; the simple tunes with incredibly complicated structures appeal to millions. The "Abbatars" are a reinvention for a new audience, but will they continue beyond the lives of their originals, with new creators pulling the strings?

Besides Abba and Tupac, there are other instances where "digital twinning" has been identified as a key money-making strategy. The digital band Gorillaz' 2006 Grammy performance blended flawlessly with Madonna's. And Richard Burton's hologram performed on a global tour of War of the Worlds in another 2006 performance.

Music in the metaverse

Customising 3D avatars has become a unique way for artists to create virtual brands across several digital platforms. They can connect virtually with fans and increase loyalty and engagement, while fans can interact, express themselves and experience new things.

This is now achievable using AI software to make holograms, as researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrated in an experiment that created holograms fairly instantaneously.

Ziva Dynamics a pioneer in simulation and real-time character creation, employs synthetic AI-powered avatars to create autonomous and complex movement simulations based on real muscle, fat, soft tissue and skin contact.

In April 2021, in a project called Lost Tapes Of The 27 Club, Google's Magenta AI was even used to compose songs in the styles of musicians who notoriously died at the age of 27, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse.

These technologies have the potential to create realistic synthetic and AI holographic representations of departed artists, allowing them to continue creating, influencing and performing for future audiences.

Epic Games, creators of the phenomenally successful Fortnite, predicts that digital twins will combine with the metaverse, an emerging network of fully immersive digital worlds.

Disrupting the music business

Whereas live tours are time-intensive and costly for new artists, a low-cost metaverse "tour" might be a new way for music lovers to see live performances. Virtual performances by Justin Bieber, DeadMau5 and The Weeknd have already become popular recently.

In this emerging branch of the music industry, record labels and marketing firms could be replaced by decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). DAOs are online organisations that operate like cooperatives, making all decisions jointly.

DAOs are already disrupting the music business - along with NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which are a way of transferring property between people online. In October 2021, PleasrDAO - a collective of decentralised finance (DeFi) leaders, early NFT collectors and digital artists - paid US$4 million (£3 million) for Once Upon a Time in Shaolin an album by New York hip-hop legends Wu-Tang Clan.

While the release of the album predates the rise of NFTs, PleasrDAO now owns the rights and has imposed strict restrictions on duplication, distribution or public exhibition. A music-focused DAO like Pleasr may acquire bulk concert tickets, finance and organise events and manage fan-owned record labels and marketing agencies to secure investable commodities like first-edition LPs, artwork and instruments. This has the potential to benefit fans, new music genres and artists alike.

This creates a new, decentralised route to the market for artists free of corporate interests or interests of individual producers, developing a fairer landscape for the future. With digital avatars likely to be at the centre of this new vanguard, it will be fascinating to see how it develops in the months and years to come - and whether it will be enough for music audiences.

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Abba and Tupac in the metaverse: how digital avatars could be the bankable future of band touring

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Creating holographic 'digital twins' will significantly reduce the stress, cost and logistical issues of touring - and means artists can live forever onstage.

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Meet the gamers competing in the UK's first live Fortnite tournament...

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Spencer Kelly meets the gamers competing in the UK's first live Fortnite tournament.

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Virtual Reality And Gaming—The Future Of Events

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Virtual Reality And Gaming—The Future Of Events

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HTC holds a conference in virtual reality amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Whilst the situation is grave for many in the events industry, it also offers opportunities as people become liberated from the constraints of physical experiences. Brands, celebrities, and agencies are awakening to the possibilities of technology and imagining and innovating to evolve and re-define events.

Virtual Reality

HTC was one of the first companies to react to the situation and hosted the Vive Ecosystem Conference in virtual reality. It was the first time an official physical industry event was fully replaced by VR. Whilst it makes sense for a company that operates in the immersive industry to use the medium, other companies can also benefit from the advantages virtual reality offers.

One of the biggest benefits of the medium is its ability to make people feel like they are in the same space together, without the need for travel - a clear win for the environment and better use of time and budgets. These virtual environments can be designed for optimal comfort, productivity, and creativity.

Other benefits include the possible removal of attendance limits on keynote talks, the option to replay sessions that may have been missed, and the removal of all distractions. Importantly right now, VR can connect people in a meaningful way, without risk.

Events in VR are nothing new. Back in November 2018, High Fidelity, the real-time social VR platform founded by Second Life creator, Philip Rosedale, hosted the world's first virtual reality festival called FUTVRE LANDS. Available on all High Fidelity platforms, up to 500 people could experience interactive games, giveaways, and one of the first live music shows in VR.

More recently, we've seen Glastonbury's Shangri-La team launch Lost Horizon, an event billed as "the world's largest independent music festival in virtual reality' with a line-up including Fatboy Slim, Carl Cox, Pete Tong and many more.

From 3rd-4th July, Shangri-La will team up with VRJAM and Sansar to pull off the feat. VR users can download the Sansar app and join the immersive and interactive experience. All interactivity available in VR will be available on a desktop, so PC users (Windows 7 and higher) can dance, chat, interact, and party with other festival-goers using a mouse and keyboard. The event will also stream live and direct via Beatport and Twitch and broadcast on partner and artist Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch accounts.

Shangri-La's creative director Kaye Dunnings said of Lost Horizon: "By creating a digital platform to experience art and music in a new way, we are at the forefront of defining the next generation of live entertainment and creative communities as we know them."

Another platform that is offering virtual reality performances is Wave. This entertainment technology company is the creator of the world's first multi-channel virtual entertainment platform for live concerts. Wave puts artists in its software as digital avatars so fans can interact with them and one another throughout the stream. Wave streams its shows through Facebook and YouTube, but also through its own app on Steam and Oculus, for those who want to try a virtual-reality experience.

The platform has recently launched One Wave, a live stream virtual concert series featuring avatar performances by John Legend, Tinashe, Galantis, and Lindsey Stirling. "We are now living in a digital avatar culture. Through our proprietary technology and core gaming capabilities, Wave can go beyond the traditional live streaming concerts and create artist avatars, virtual environments, and interactive experiences that truly immerse audiences at the nexus of gaming and entertainment," Wave CEO Adam Arrigo said in a statement.

Gaming

Epic Games recently hosted a Travis Scott concert in Fornite. The show, called Astronomical, garnered more than 27.7 million views across the five events that ran until 27th April and achieved 12.3 million concurrent viewers.

A skyscraper-sized Scott teleported as he performed his most popular songs, as well as debuting a new song "The Scotts" with Kid Cudi. The track racked up 7.45 million plays in its first 24 hours on Spotify and reviewers have called the virtual concert "stunning" and "spectacular". After the success of Astronomical, labels, and managers the world over will be reaching out to Epic Games for the next opportunity.

However, this wasn't the first in-game show - DJ Marshmello performed in February 2019 to over 10 million - and more recently a live event dubbed, The Device, attracted 12 million in-game players and a further 8.4 million watching via Twitch or YouTube, causing servers to hit capacity. The event marked the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3 for the game. Large events like this are already becoming more frequent and are likely to become the norm in the not too distant future.

Fornite's new experimental mode called Party Royale is designed for chilling, rather than fighting, and has a main stage venue. Epic has already screened the new Tenet movie trailer in Party Royale, plus a movie night, with Christopher Nolan films. you can expect more, smaller music and film events to come.

When you don't need to worry about the technical, logistical, safety, and security elements of IRL events, more attention can be paid to the actual performance and making that as stand out as possible for those viewing or interacting with it. New media has the power to supersede what can be achieved in the real world.

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Virtual Reality And Gaming-The Future Of Events

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Whilst the situation is grave for many in the events industry, it also offers opportunities as people become liberated from the constraints of physical experiences. Brands, celebrities, and agencies are awakening to the possibilities of technology and imagining and innovating to evolve and re-define events.

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Fletcher (2021) - Trend watch 2022: The Virtual Experience Economy

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Fletcher (2021) - Trend watch 2022: The Virtual Experience Economy

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Trend watch 2022: The Virtual Experience Economy | Cvent Blog

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The digitalisation of experience will continue to challenge traditional event design as part of the Virtual Experience Economy.

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8 Reasons To Use Video Marketing for Your Event.

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8 Reasons To Use Video Marketing for Your Event.

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"Nowadays, one of the best ways to attract customers and sell tickets online is by using video marketing for your event"

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Nowadays, one of the best ways to attract customers and sell tickets online is by using video marketing for your event. Unfortunately, the usual content such as pictures and text simply may not be enough anymore for successful online ticket promotions. That's because the use of videos in online marketing has quickly become the new thing that many consumers find more engaging. Which is why, in order to keep up with the times (and the competition) you should really be using video marketing for your event!

Video is virtually everywhere you look online for several reasons, but basically because it can be extremely engaging. In fact, you probably couldn't surf the Internet for 3 minutes without seeing a video clip of some sort. Furthermore, YouTube is now the second largest search engine on the web, which says a lot about what people are looking for. Therefore, while video marketing may be something you are thinking of doing eventually, you should consider making it part of the plan sooner rather than later.

The data doesn't lie! Consumers are around 64 percent more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it. Additionally, B2B and B2C marketers everywhere agree that video can be the most effective social media marketing method. So, considering this info, below you will find 8 of the main reasons why you should be using video marketing for your event. Take a good look and ensure that you don't get left behind in the ticket promotion game!

1. Grab Consumers' Attention.

Videos have actually been proven to demand more consumer attention than any other medium. However, online consumers are currently dealing with contentoverload, therefore capturing AND holding their attention is the real trick. Visual content is the key to engagement and video tops that category. Statistics show that audiences are almost 10 times more likely to engage with and share video content over blogs or other social posts.

2. Increase Customer Conversions and Higher Retention Rates.

This may be the number one reason for using video in your content marketing plan. Video converts more customers, plain and simple. Recent research shows that 71% of marketers say video conversion rates outperform other marketing content. Plus, 65% of viewers watch more than ¾ of a video, which is more engagement than textbased content can conjure up. So if you have a message to get across, video just might be the way to go.

3. Provide Previews of an Event or Product.

Showing footage from an event that you're selling tickets for should certainly help to entice potential customers. A clip from a similar event or the same one from a previous year or different place is one possibility. Being able to see video of what they can experience firsthand if they attend is of course a big motivator for potential ticket buyers.

4. Videofavoring Technology.

With the increased consumption of video and the resulting rise in production, technologies are starting accommodate and lean more towards favoring the videomarketer. Take Facebook's addition of the autoplay for instance, a status update or link to an article does not demand nearly as much attention as a video in your newsfeed. In addition, the use of video in emails can actually double clickthrough rates.

5. Better Optimization Opportunities.

It can be difficult to determine actual engagement with textbased content. How much of your recent blog post did readers really read? Did they share it with their friends? These are questions that may not be answered with textbased content. Yet video has a feedback loop builtin that allows you to measure things like clickthrough rate, dropoff, or the number of times it was fully viewed. Depending on the platform, you can even get more indepth with analytics.

6. It's Easier Than It Used To Be.

While creating a video used to require technical skills and a big budget, you can now produce something professional at a fraction of what it cost before without extensive knowledge of filming. From shooting to editing, video content has become much more attainable and affordable in the last few years. You won't even need an expensive camera
anymore, as simply using your smartphone could suffice. Plus, with the help of certain websites and easytouse software, advanced editing skills are no longer necessary.

7. Stronger Emotional Connections.

Video is undoubtedly the most powerful way to evoke people's emotions. This is true because it can feature things that traditional content does not, kind of like a minimovie. While you may not feel the urge to run out and buy a product from an emotionfilled video, the clip may be at play in a more subtle way, inspiring you to make a purchase another day. Remember, triggering emotion in marketing has been proven to positively impact consumer decision making.

8. Improved SEO.

Last but not least, utilizing video in your ticket marketing efforts will probably also improve your Search Engine Optimization. In fact, adding a video to your website can supposedly increase the chance of a front page position in Google search results by up to 53 times.

There you have it 8 great reasons why you may want to consider video marketing for your event. Video has found its permanent place on the Internet and now it's up to you to incorporate it into your strategy. You now know some of the benefits and how effective video marketing can be, so what are you waiting for? Don't let a less than ideal budget or lack of 'professional' production skills stop your business from experimenting with this proven method of online promotion, and perhaps selling out all the tickets to your next event!

Keep on top of event marketing for your next event.

Sign up to our Event Marketing Series.

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8 Reasons To Use Video Marketing for Your Event.

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Nowadays, one of the best ways to attract customers and sell tickets online is by using video marketing for your event. Unfortunately, the usual content such as pictures and text simply may not be enough anymore for successful online ticket promotions.

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The interactive 3D digital twin of your venue.

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The interactive 3D digital twin of your venue | Venue Twin

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Venue Twin is the hyper-realistic 3D digital twin to plan events and manage venues, providing operational and commercial benefits for your venue

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Images from this site could be used on your website...

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Freepik: Download Free Videos, Vectors, Photos, and PSD

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Millions of Free Graphic Resources. ✓ Videos ✓Vectors ✓ Photos ✓ PSD ✓ Icons. All that you need for your Creative Projects. #freepik

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AI facial recognition: Campaigners and MPs call for ban

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AI facial recognition: Campaigners and MPs call for ban

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Imran Rahman-Jones & Liv McMahonTechnology reporters, BBC News

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AI facial recognition: Campaigners and MPs call for ban

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AI-powered facial recognition has been used in real time by police forces and private companies.

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The Metaverse: What it might be and who's going to make it

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The Metaverse: What it might be and who's going to make it

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The world wide web is our first metaverse. While the internet was developed in the 1960s- long before the term metaverse was coined by science fiction writer Neil Stephenson in his book Snow Crash in 1992- it acts as the original metaverse, albeit a 2D one.

The internet, and all the game stores, worlds and social platforms that we already have, are just a microcosm of the metaverse that will one day be persistent digital destinations, with interchangeable currencies, varying privacy and data regulations, payment systems, digital goods- even if just text, videos, audio files, and images at the moment- and the ability to jump between one site and another with a single verifiable ID.

A lot of these infrastructures and principles that exist in the 2D metaverse will take up residency in the 3D metaverse that is already developing too. Let's take a look at how this next generation metaverse may emerge and what it might look like.

During VentureBeat's 2021 Summit on the Metaverse, run by Dean Takahashi, the popular vision of the metaverse presented was an interconnected spatial web of mixed reality and fully digital worlds that are persistent, hosting limitless numbers of people simultaneously.

This vision also hints to a level of underlying infrastructure that will be necessary to support such a metaverse with ubiquitous technological, economic, and social pillars.

Here are just a few of the factors up for consideration in this context :

Interchangeable, transferable and interoperable digital goods

Convertible currencies

Digital ownership

Verifiable identity

Ethical code of conduct

Standardization of privacy protocols and protections

Environmental considerations- powering the metaverse

User sovereignty

The convergence of 5G, cloud computing, blockchain and NFT gaming technology, among developments in computer processing power, graphics cards, code-free creation suites, AI, and computer vision, are blending the perfect storm for this to happen. Let's take a look at some of these points in more detail.

The Challenge of Hosting Limitless Users on a Single Server

A major obstacle of an open metaverse is the capacity to hold unlimited users in any single online destination. When too many people join a single destination at once, the server crashes.

By distributing the data among multiple machines, these multiple databases can store larger amounts of data, and additional requests from joining users.

However, when one dataset is too large to be stored in a single database, sharding occurs. This means that suddenly, another version of the destination is created, and the latest user to join the server will arrive in a newly cloned destination.

In most cases, like Fortnite, VRChat, AltspaceVR and a number of other multiplayer games or social worlds, sharding occurs after around 40-90 users join a server. Some open worlds such as Sinespace (which you may better recognize for their product Breakroom) have hosted up to 500 avatars simultaneously, but this means the level of graphics and interactions must be carefully considered so as not to sacrifice quality of the experience.

Games like Fortnite and Roblox handle this by enabling players to drop randomly into a server, or, players can have private or pre-arranged servers where specific users meet or invite others by username to a unique server.

Image credit: bug report from RuizuKun_Dev on Roblox developer forum

As we work our way towards a metaverse where limitless users can engage in one server, or a collective server, this type of highly organised user interface for collaborating and community organization will be key.

We might be just a few years away from having tens of thousands of users in a single server. Until then, the 3D metaverse will continue to exist in independent city states of sorts, w ith NFT's (Non-Fungible Tokens) making the first border crossings between platforms.
The Augmented Reality Metaverse
While the internet created the world wide web as a metaverse apart from our real world, augmented reality is turning the real world into the metaverse. It's bringing the digital into the tangible world, and it's quite likely that this augmented reality metaverse will be the next to develop.

There are many companies already underway here. Niantic with the widely popular Pokémon GO leveraged maps and physical world locations to bring their users around the world outdoors to play. While most players didn't actually ever use the AR version of the game, it was still a great success in terms of scale and potential.

Mojang Studios also played a large role in demonstrating the scale of an open AR world. Sadly, in January 2021 they announced the shutdown of their augmented reality mobile game Minecraft Earth, which let players interact with Minecraft superimposed on the real-world. The pandemic was cited as a part of its decision to end the program as free movement and collaborative play became near impossible, but the actual use of AR amongst Pokémon GO players may be another indicator that consumers aren't yet convinced that AR offers a compelling experience beyond selfie filters.

Google maps is also in a good position to develop an open AR metaverse, combining computer vision with digital maps of the real world to provide real-time information and wayfinding. The ability for consumers to engage with Google Maps, and customize it with pins and preferences is another indication of how a ubiquitous, interactive AR metaverse may emerge.

Charlie Fink, who in 2019 published Convergence, How the World Will be Painted with Data, is also bullish on AR at scale. In the book he outlines how AR is seeping into every smartphone and workplace, and merging with 5G and AI technologies to unleash a wave of innovation that will enable wearable, invisible, latency-free and ubiquitous computing.

As Apple's AR headset launch draws inevitably closer, Google acquires AR glasses maker North, and Facebook's Aria R&D project is sleuthing our behaviors for its next platform upgrade, AR will move from mobile devices and onto our faces as lightweight AR glasses.

With lens makers like Mojo Vision hard at work, AR glasses could also be a passing fad as the technology rapidly minaturaizes.

More intuitive user interfaces moving towards a Zero-UI, and multimodal interfaces with full-body tracking, hand tracking and gesture recognition, eye tracking, conversational voice control interfaces in addition to touch interfaces and better hardware such as eye glasses will make the augmented reality metaverse more plausible in the near future.
The Virtual Reality Metaverse
Where augmented reality brings the digital into the real world, virtual reality brings us into the digital world. In order to become viable as the next metaverse, virtual reality must present a better (or at the very least equivalent) experience than 2D alternatives.

Mixed Reality headsets that make use of a pass-through camera will be the way forward as ease of use means blending the digital and physical worlds and easily transitioning between the two.

Above: Sales of virtual reality head-mounted displays worldwide in 2016 and 2020(in million units)

While there are already over 3 billion compatible AR devices in the market, VR headsets are still too expensive and too bulky for the VR metaverse to scale. There are some amazing experiences out there, but not nearly enough. Even on the festival track we see the same experiences and creatives on the global circuit year after year.

This means that the tools, accessibility and audience is still in development. It makes a lot more sense for the metaverse to start as a PC/Mac experience first, then AR, then VR.

Even with user adoption on the rise, primarily driven by Facebook selling their VR headsets at a loss to reduce consumer cost and throttle competition, VR has a long way to go as we continue to learn how to make good content in this new medium, and also undergo infrastructure growing pains for the metaverse.
Blockchain and NFTs
In the physical world, we can bring a car out of one parking garage and put it in another parking garage, sometimes with fees, sometimes for free. It's likely we'll see a similar model in the metaverse when transitioning our goods from one ecosystem to another.

Ideally, virtual borders will be open and tariff free, but in order to maintain ecosystems and track the flow of goods and services, the metaverse will likely develop regulations for a fully functioning economy.

Blockchain and NFTs are presenting a foundation to establish virtual economies, mirroring the functions of real world currency, but with decentralized monitoring that brings greater security and authenticity to transactions, goods, and services.

Unique identifiers tracked on the blockchain can be used to transport digital goods in and out of virtual ecosystems, but it also raises the question of privacy for companies, and individuals. As every movement is tracked and verified, protocols for privacy and security will either become governed by physical world regulatory bodies, nuanced by each platform, or a combination of the two as we see today.

As an example of this, Epic Games has taken up Apple and Google, questioning whether a revenue cut of 30% is necessary to run a digital storefront when 8% is really all that is required. In a similar manner, walled gardens are likely to evolve in the metaverse where companies will want to benefit from goods and services in their ecosystem, imposing transaction fees or tariffs.

Users will flock to worlds with good content, fair ecosystems, strong community, tools and resources. The social platform ecosystem will get a whole lot more competitive than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitch.

In the same way that users gravitate towards experiences they feel comfortable in, it's likely they will also develop a sense of citizenship in virtual worlds, as new age netizens who have a much greater stake in their digital footprint.

Today, the majority of the items we buy or create online and in virtual words don't really belong to us, but this will change.

As discussed, blockchain is a great solution, but it is not without its challenges too.

Blockchain needs to be implemented locally to be optimized for real-time efficiency. This is a very unexplored space and, at the moment, the blockchain is simply not fast enough to handle the quantity and speed of transactions that happen moment to moment within our 2D and 3D emergent metaverses.

IMAGE: How Foundational Technologies Take Hold

It's unlikely that any one stakeholder will develop the metaverse single-handedly, but let's look at a few parties who are developing the infrastructure for a VARverse (virtual and augmented reality metaverse).
Big companies
Roblox, Epic Games with Fortnite, just to name a couple contenders, have the reach and scope that already makes them significant players in the metaverse race.

On the upside, these companies have massive teams and resources, however, these companies will likely require major system overhauls to integrate or transform into a VARverse ecosystem.

While over half of kids under age 16 in America play Roblox, it's not quite what I imagine for the future metaverse. When asking for advice on how the game works... (see convo top left)... this type of conversation is predominant in Roblox.

Startups
Startups that are agile, in touch with their user base, and developed by younger, diverse teams and founders are just as likely to succeed as big companies.

There are also startups that believe that no one company will create the metaverse.

These startups are intentionally creating segments of the metaverse that are open-sourced, compatible, and intended to function alongside other companies and their technologies. For example, identity verification, transaction technology, avatar technology and much more.

Startups will also drive new business and interaction models that are more in line with a digital first economy and societal needs.
User Generated Content
Platforms like VRChat, AltspaceVR, Sansar, and Dreams draw some of the most talented creatives to build worlds, games and social spaces, but this doesn't mean that they will create the next metaverse.

For example, Dreams, Playstation's creator platform, is greatly loved by creators, however there are very few audiences within the ecosystem to play their games. This trend is true for other platforms that focus on user generated content, but generally lack a specific overall purpose and ways for users to monetize their work.

Rampant content creation comes with additional problems for the vision of an open metaverse that would require a consistent foundational design module. Open-world compatibility standards will need to be met for full integration.

On the other hand, as we've seen with SideQuest, user driven innovation drives bigger companies to remain flexble(ish) and listen to their users. These trends in UGC will create healthy competition as users develop their own solutions.

Automated content filtering systems could be a solution to enable UGC contribution, as it remains difficult to solely rely on individuals to build in a cohesive way.

Until UGC standards are created, it's more likely that highly curated worlds with specific purposes and in-built monetization models for users will be far more successful.

Currently, many platforms based on user generated content are having a bit of an identity crisis that make them a jack of all trades but master of none. This is unappealing to users who encounter the same frustrations as when scrolling through Netflix- too much content (and a lot of crap).

The Gamification of Real Life

When talking with TechStars Music Managing Director Bob Moczydlowsky, it was established that social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, are really just well designed games. Users collect points (likes), XP (followers), develop content, receive rewards (recognition), and experience additional elements of addictive game design.

If we can say that the internet is already the first metaverse, can we also take a step back and say that life is already gamified too?

Games like The Sims, Second Life, Civilization, and even FPS games to some extent, mimic our real lives, but with hyper accelerated timelines.

In real life for example, we develop our skills, rack up currency (hopefully), get jobs or 'roles', take care of our partners or provide for families, have companions, customize our look... just like in games.

The digital word enables all this but with massive time dilation and hyper-accelerated reward cycles. Instead of waiting 4 years to graduate, a couple years for a promotion, weeks for a level-up, these can be accomplished within seconds or minutes, triggering a dopamine release- the chemical that stimulates pleasure- and our enjoyment of certain activities.

As more and more of our lives and commerce ( see CBC Massey Lecture # 2: The Market for Our Minds go digital, how will this affect our psychological development and behaviors?

It will depend on the type of metaverse that emerges, and how people partake in it. This can range from any extreme we see today, but it could also be an opportunity to explore a new, commercially backed, socially supportive, perhaps even universal basic income on a global scale- which raises another question: sovereignty.

While digital platforms are leaning towards open and compatible ecosystems, physical borders and operations are likely to continue to exist for centuries to come.

In the meantime, there's a lot we can learn from studying user behavior in games and the emerging 3D Metaverse.

Adopting Standard Principles

As identified with the Roblox image above with troll behavior (or perhaps in this case just a childish interaction on a platform for teens and pre-teens), adopting a set of principles will be integral to the evolution of a positive, progressive and fair metaverse.

In early prototype events with my startup Ristband, we found that having a host to moderate events created an incredibly positive environment. This type of simple and effective method of positive reinforcement will continue to play an integral role in the development of the metaverse.

This type of positive reinforcement is no new theory either. Psychologist Albert Bandura's famous Bobo doll experiment in the early 60s established the social learning theory, that people learn largely by observing, imitating, and modeling.

It's for this reason that I included the Roblox image where a kid (or maybe adult) advises me to take a piss- because for anyone who takes the time to explore some of these worlds and games, there's a lot of this type of behavior. Again, half of kids in America under 16 are playing Roblox, watching and learning from one another. Is this the type of environment that contributes to positive growth?

As a 3D metaverse develops, users and independent groups will likely have far more leverage in creating standard principles that are adopted by the governing bodies or companies. This is because we are beginning to understand the effects of digital and social tools and interactions.

By the time kids crawling around now are grown up, they will have had their entire lives tracked, traced, analyzed, processed, shared, filtered... and hopefully our interest in privacy and social impact will grow just as quickly.

IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Extended Reality is one of these movements that is making steps to build an ethical foundation for the metaverse as the technological infrastructure continues to evolve.

Otherwise, as we see today, ethical and privacy regulations are more of a predictable business expensive than a genuine concern in our current state of surveillance capitalism.

After more than a year of a global pandemic, everyone has suddenly become digital natives, forming new habits that bring the destinations of decades away a decimal point closer in time.

As we've already witnessed with the first metaverse, the 2D internet, the evolution of the metaverse will be a continuous progression, arriving even before we realise it is here.

This metaverse imagined by industry professionals, as persistent, unshareded, with simultaneous users, infinite scale and hyper real graphics, may be over a decade away but analysing the technology and societal effects we see in digital behaviors and trends today will enable us to create a better future tomorrow.

It's unlikely that my generation (millennial) will define the first fully-functioning metaverse, but younger, digital first natives who will exponentially develop the technology and communication models for a Metaverse that will be far greater than we have ever imagined.

Bonus material: virtual concerts, what they are, the state of the industry, and the opportunity. All in 5min:

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The Metaverse: What it Might be and Who's Going to Make it

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The world wide web is our first metaverse. While the internet was developed in the 1960s- long before the term metaverse was coined by science fiction writer Neil Stephenson in his book Snow Crash in 1992- it acts as the original metaverse, albeit a 2D one.

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How do I access Mintel via the MMU Library Website? 

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How do I access Mintel via the MMU Library Website? 

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Link to Mintel from the library Website Database A-Z

OR use this link to access Mintel.

Mintel is only available to fully enrolled Manchester Metropolitan University students and full members of staff.

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MMU Library Electronic Services Development Team

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Link to Mintel from the library Website Database A-Z OR use this link to access Mintel. Mintel is only available to fully enrolled Manchester Metropolitan University students and full members of staff. Mintel does not allow guest users and there is no walk-in access available If you are off campus you may be asked to sign in.

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Snapchat Is Bringing AR To Live Nation Concerts

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Snapchat Is Bringing AR To Live Nation Concerts

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Snap and Live Nation Entertainment are teaming up for a multiyear deal that will bring Snapchat AR (augmented reality) experiences to select Live Nation concerts that you can use to find your friends in the crowd, bring the stage and festival grounds to life with AR content, and of course share content on social media.

The first Live Nation concerts to debut Snapchat's interactive AR lenses will be on May 20-22 during the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. EDC is the largest electronic dance music (EDM) festival in North America, and this year's Las Vegas lineup will feature popular EDM artists such as Ac Slater B2B Chris Lorenzo, Deorro, DJ Snake, Kream, Lp Giobbi, Nostalgix B2B Wenzday, and many more.

The Electric Daisy Carnival will feature eight different stages that the artists perform on. The rest of the festival grounds are designed to immerse you into these fantastical worlds. This year organizers are bringing a ninth stage to the festival called Bionic Jungle.

Both Snap and Live Nation envision AR becoming a normal part of any concert experience in the same way we see large video screens being used during shows, and with live music fans already bringing their smartphones with them to take photos and videos-or to use as a light to sway over our heads-why not leverage their own perspective as part of the concert experience and use AR to make the experience even more memorable?

Snapchat currently has an average of 600 million daily users, so there's a pretty good chance that many of those EDM fans in attendance at the Electric Daisy Carnival will have a Snapchat account.

Ben Schwerin, Snap's senior VP of content and partnerships is counting on that. During a recent Snap Partner Summit, Schwerin said, "We can leverage this huge user base we have in a way that will make augmented reality the next phase of visual expression for artists."

Music fans will not only be able to use AR to bring their surroundings to life, but Snap and Live Nation also plan on letting you try on concert merch using AR to see how you look in a t-shirt, hat, or sunglasses.

This idea isn't to keep people on their phones during the entire concert. Schwerin explains how they plan on having AR Lenses being used to strategically enhance moments of the performance. "Each video that gets shared is a really powerful promotion for people who see that to go buy tickets to a concert or festival themselves." With Snapchat reaching 90% of people between the ages of 13 and 24 in the U.S, these AR-enabled concerts could be an excellent way to attract younger audiences.

To create their concert AR Lenses, Snap will turn to their own creative studio to produce content for the Electric Daisy Carnival along with working with artists at future Live Nation events. This includes popular festivals such as Austin City Limits, Beyond Wonderland, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Day Trip Festiva, Leeds Festival,, Lollapalooza Paris, Reading Festival, Rolling Loud, Roots Picnic, Governors Ball, Wireless Festival, and Lights On.

The idea of using AR and VR technology as part of a live concert experience is growing more popular among promoters and artists. Artists such as the Foo Fighters, 2 Chainz, Megan Thee Stallion, and Billie Eilish have either performed live in VR or launched a VR experience, and just recently Coachella launched Coachellaverse, a digital experience that allows fans from all around the world to interact with the festival in a way that uses a combination of immersive technologies.
Image Credit: Coachella

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Snapchat Is Bringing AR To Live Nation Concerts - VRScout

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Snap and Live Nation Entertainment are teaming up for a multiyear deal that will bring Snapchat AR (augmented reality) experiences to select Live Nation concerts that you can use to find your friends in the crowd, bring the stage and festival grounds to life with AR content, and of course share content on social media.

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The Future of In-Person Events: Integrating Technology for Enhanced Engagement

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The Future of In-Person Events: Integrating Technology for Enhanced Engagement

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Posted on July 10, 2023

In-person events have always been exciting for people to come together, share ideas, and build connections. Whether it's a conference, trade show, or music festival, the energy and interaction during these gatherings are unmatched. However, as technology advances rapidly, it's becoming increasingly clear that the future of in-person events lies in embracing and integrating technology to enhance engagement.

From virtual reality (VR) simulations to interactive mobile applications, the integration of technology is revolutionizing the way we perceive and interact with in-person events. In this article, we will explore the exciting possibilities technology brings and discuss how it reshapes the future of in-person events.

The Impact of Technology on In-Person Events

Technology has revolutionized the way events are planned, organized, and experienced. Here are some key areas where technology has made a significant impact:

Event Promotion and Ticketing

Brands now have numerous digital platforms to reach a wider audience. Based on the 2022 Global Meetings and Events Forecast by American Express, 73% of event professionals are optimistic about leveraging technology to enrich the attendee experience. Email Marketing and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow event organizers to create targeted ad campaigns, share event updates, and engage with potential attendees. Using event plugins and selling tickets for events from a web page is also possible, which is a great promotion strategy.

Coachella

It is one of the largest music festivals in the world and leverages technology to promote its event. The festival uses social media platforms to create hype, share artist lineups, and release ticket sales. They utilize platforms like Instagram and Twitter to engage with their audience, building anticipation and encouraging ticket sales.

Event Experience and Engagement

Technology has enhanced the overall event experience for attendees by providing immersive and interactive elements. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies have created captivating and unique experiences. Attendees can now explore virtual exhibits, interact with 3D models, and even attend events remotely through virtual platforms.

Volvo Reality

Volvo utilized VR technology in their trade show booth to create an immersive experience for attendees. Visitors could virtually explore the interior and exterior features of their latest car models, test-drive vehicles and visualize the safety features in action using VR headsets. This VR application provided a realistic and engaging experience, allowing potential customers to interact with the products uniquely.

Event Production and Presentation

The production and presentation of in-person events have been greatly influenced by technology. Advanced audiovisual equipment, including high-definition screens, LED walls, and immersive sound systems, have elevated the visual and auditory experiences at events. Brands utilize live streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch to reach audiences who are unable to attend physically. Live Streaming not only expands the event's reach but also provides an opportunity for real-time engagement through comments and social media interactions.

Apple

Apple's annual product launch events are renowned for their high production value and use of technology. The events feature large LED screens, intricate stage designs, and carefully choreographed presentations. Apple leverages live streaming to broadcast these events worldwide, allowing millions of viewers to watch and engage with the event remotely.

Data Collection and Analytics

Technology enables event organizers to collect and analyze vast amounts of data, providing valuable insights into attendee preferences and behavior. Through event registration systems, mobile apps, and RFID-enabled wristbands, brands can track attendee movement, interests, and engagement levels. This data helps in understanding attendee preferences, optimizing event logistics, and tailoring future events to better meet their audience's expectations.

Dreamforce

Salesforce's annual event, uses technology to collect and analyze attendee data. The event utilizes RFID-enabled badges to track attendee movements and engagements. This data is then analyzed to understand attendee interests, optimize session schedules, and improve overall event logistics for future editions.

Advantages for Technology Integration in In-Person Events

Technology integration in in-person events offers several advantages that enhance the overall experience for attendees, organizers, and participants. Here are some key benefits:

Increased Attendee Engagement and Interaction

By incorporating technology, event organizers can provide interactive elements such as live polls, Q&A sessions, and real-time feedback mechanisms. These features encourage attendees to participate and engage with the content and speakers actively, leading to a more dynamic and immersive event experience.

Enhanced Personalization and Customization Options

Technology enables event organizers to personalize the event experience for individual attendees. With mobile apps or event management platforms, participants can create personalized schedules, receive tailored recommendations, and access relevant content like flipbooks based on their interests and preferences. This level of customization ensures that attendees receive the most value from the event and feel more connected to the content.

Extended Reach and Accessibility to Remote Participants

Integrating technology allows event organizers to reach a broader audience beyond the physical attendees. Live streaming, virtual event platforms, and web conferencing tools enable remote participants to join the event virtually, eliminating geographical limitations. This expands the event's reach, increases its impact, and provides opportunities for individuals unable to attend in person to still benefit from the event's content and networking opportunities.

Improved Data Collection and Analytics

Technology integration provides valuable data insights that can inform event organizers about attendee preferences, behaviors, and engagement levels. By collecting data through registration systems, mobile apps, or interactive features, organizers can better understand their audience, track participation rates, and measure the success of various event elements. These analytics enable organizers to make data-driven decisions, optimize future events, and deliver a more targeted and practical experience for attendees.

Streamlined Event Management and Logistics

Technology tools and platforms simplify various aspects of event management, including registration, ticketing, attendee communication, and logistical coordination. Automated processes reduce manual workloads, minimize errors, and enhance efficiency, allowing organizers to focus on delivering a seamless and enjoyable event experience. From streamlined check-ins to real-time updates, technology integration optimizes event operations and improves overall event execution.

Challenges for Technology Integration in In-Person Events

While integrating technology into in-person events brings numerous benefits and enhances the overall attendee experience, it also presents several challenges that event organizers should consider. Here are some key challenges and considerations to keep in mind:

Infrastructure and Technical Requirements

Integrating technology into in-person events, including infrastructure and technical requirements, comes with challenges. To successfully incorporate technology, event organizers must ensure that the venue has the necessary infrastructure to support the technology being used.

This includes reliable internet connectivity, power sources, and suitable audiovisual equipment. Adequate planning and coordination with technology providers are essential to ensure the event runs smoothly and minimize technical glitches.

Privacy and Data Security Concerns

As technology becomes more prevalent in events, privacy, and data security concerns become increasingly important. Collecting and managing attendee data can offer valuable insights for event organizers, but it also raises questions about privacy and data protection.

Implementing robust security measures to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with relevant data protection regulations is crucial. Event organizers must be transparent about collecting, storing, and using attendee data and obtain explicit consent when necessary.

Additionally, with the rise of hybrid events and remote participation, ensuring strong remote access security measures will be essential to safeguarding the data and privacy of virtual attendees.

Balancing Virtual and Physical Experiences

While technology can enhance engagement and provide additional value to attendees, it should be within the core in-person experience. You must be careful about how technology is incorporated to enhance, rather than replace, face-to-face interactions.

For example, you can use interactive displays, mobile apps, or live streaming to augment the event experience without detracting from the personal connections that are often a primary reason for attending in-person events.

The Future of In-person Events: The Rise of Hybrid Events

Hybrid events are a combination of in-person and virtual experiences, where attendees have the option to participate either physically or remotely. These events leverage technology to connect on-site and online audiences, providing a seamless and interactive experience for both groups.

These events allow for increased accessibility and inclusivity, as participants can join from anywhere in the world without the need for travel. This widens the reach of events, enabling a larger and more diverse audience to engage. Also, these events can be more cost-effective for both organizers and attendees. Virtual participation eliminates travel and accommodation expenses, reducing the overall cost for remote attendees.
TechCrunch Disrupt
An annual conference focusing on technology and startups, successfully adopted a hybrid format. The event featured a main stage with live speakers and an online platform that streamed sessions to virtual attendees. Virtual participants could engage in real-time Q&A sessions, network with other attendees, and access recorded sessions on-demand.
SXSW Online
The renowned South by Southwest (SXSW) festival transitioned to a hybrid model, combining in-person events in Austin, Texas, with an online component. The virtual experience included live streaming of keynote speeches, interactive panels, film screenings, and a virtual networking hub, allowing remote participants to connect with industry professionals and fellow attendees.

Predictions for the Growth and Evolution of Hybrid Events

Hybrid events are likely to continue to grow and evolve in the future. In 2022, around 71% of organizations included hybrid events in their lineup. This percentage must increase further in 2023 and future years.

Enhanced virtual engagement: As technology advances, virtual attendees will enjoy more interactive and immersive experiences. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies will likely play a significant role in creating realistic virtual event environments, enabling remote participants to engage with content and other attendees more realistically and engagingly.

Integration of AI and data analytics: Artificial intelligence (AI) will be live to personalize and enhance the virtual event experience. AI-powered recommendation systems can suggest relevant sessions and connections based on attendees' interests and preferences. Data analytics will help organizers gain valuable insights into attendee behavior and preferences, allowing for better event planning and content curation.

Hybrid-first approach: Organizers may increasingly adopt a hybrid-first mindset when planning events. Rather than retrofitting physical events into a virtual format, event planning will begin with the intention of creating a seamless hybrid experience from the start. This approach will ensure that both physical and virtual attendees receive equal attention and opportunities for engagement.

Sustainability considerations: Hybrid events can significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with travel and physical infrastructure. The annual ICE report said that nearly 60% of participants consider sustainability a significant hurdle faced by businesses and events. And there's no doubt that sustainability will be a crucial focus for event organizers in the future. It will emphasize optimizing resource usage, promoting eco-friendly practices, and integrating sustainable technologies.

Conclusion

By leveraging AR, VR, AI, data analytics, and digital platforms, organizers can create immersive experiences, provide personalized interactions, and extend the reach and impact of events. However, as we embrace the potential of technology, it is crucial to maintain sight of the value of human connection. In-person events offer a unique opportunity for face-to-face interactions, networking, and building genuine relationships. While technology can enhance engagement, it should always maintain the essence of human interaction at the heart of successful events.

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The Future of In-Person Events: Integrating Technology for Enhanced Engagement

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In-person events have always been exciting for people to come together, share ideas, and build connections. Whether it's a conference, trade show, or music festival, the energy and interaction during these gatherings are unmatched. However, as technology advances rapidly, it's becoming increasingly clear that the future of in-person events lies in embracing and integrating technology...

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50 Ideas Using Video to Market and Improve Events...

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50 Ideas Using Video to Market and Improve Events...

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Which ones could you use for your Live Event?

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Video marketing is king! The State of Video Marketing in 2018 report from Wyzowl details numerous survey statistics about the growth and increasing power of using video for marketing products and services.

This applies to events. The creative use of video can help engage attendees and prospects. It can build attendance and greatly broaden visibility. Here are some of the ways this can happen.
Before the Event:
Events are content generators. There are speakers, entertainers, exhibitors, gala dinners, and satisfied attendees from past events. All are natural to include in email and online promotions for an upcoming event:

1. Create a video from the CEO, show organizers, and/or key volunteers about why viewers should attend this meeting. This promo clip can give a quick overview of the coming highlights of the event, speakers, key topics, performers, networking opportunities, topics, giveaways, how to register, "save the date" information and much more. Include a specific call to action (i.e. register by a specific date at a specific webpage).

Live events are replete with content opportunities to use video to extend the footprint of the meeting and for promotion of the next event. Consider some of the following:

14. Crowdsource your event content and production with a cloud-based platform such as Cinebody.

15. Webcast the keynote addresses and other key portions of the event extending the event far beyond the four walls of the meetings space. Video brings and extra dimension that is more impactful than other media channels. A video production crew should be used for high-profile video production.

17. Stream portions of your event to remote audiences in a hybrid meeting format or as a webcast to increase the footprint of your event.

30. Similarly, create product showcase videos on new or interesting exhibit products.

39. Host a video competition on social media channels (using the event hashtag) with prizes for the funniest, most creative and/or most shared videos.

There are significant opportunities to use videos of the content generated during the event to extend the life of the meeting after the event and for promotion of future events:

43. An edited video of conference highlights to showcase the event can be posted at the association, corporate or event webs and the social media channels, reminding attendees of what a good time they had and showing non-attendees what an excellent meeting they missed. Videos allow you to show rather than tell how spectacular the event was: the venue, the décor, the food displays, the impressive turnout, the exiting entertainment, and the amazing speakers. This content makes excellent material for a variety of marketing vehicles including blogs, other social media channels, mobile channels, email campaigns, and web content such as next year's event website for promotion. Include a "save the date" announcement within the video.

Videos engage viewers, increase retention of content, are accessible via many devices, and can be easily shared via social media channels. The use of videos can improve your search engine rankings and video email marketing has fully trackable and higher click-through rates compared to traditional marketing methods. The costs to produce and distribute video from point of inception to delivery have reduced dramatically. The bottom line is that video can be a very cost-effective way to promote and build event attendance.

These are just a few ways to use web video to promote your events. Many more are coming as society and meeting professionals increasingly embrace this medium.

is a speaker and independent third-party consultant focusing on meetings technology. With 20 years of experience running international citywide technology meetings, he now helps clients worldwide use technology to save time and improve productivity He can be contacted at his extensive web site: www.corbinball.com and followed at

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50 Ideas Using Video to Market and Improve Expos and Events

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Video marketing is king! The State of Video Marketing in 2018 report from Wyzowl details numerous survey statistics about the growth and increasing power of using video for marketing products and services. This applies to events. The creative use of video can help engage attendees and prospects.

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Virtual tours allow university students, staff and the wider public access to museums, galleries and heritage sites in Greater Manchester from wherever they are in the world.

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Virtual Tours - School of Arts, Languages and Cultures - The University of Manchester

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The School of Arts Languages and Cultures, The Institute for Cultural Practices, Creative Manchester, and Digital Futures have 3D virtual tours of cultural institutions at The University of Manchester, and local museums, galleries and other cultural and heritage sites.

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Images from this site could be used on your website...

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Flickr | The best place to be a photographer online.

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The nicest place on the internet is here for you: inspiration, community, creativity, art, passion, and a heaping scoop of weirdness await you. Join for free.

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Trend watch 2021: The Virtual Experience Economy

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Trend watch 2021: The Virtual Experience Economy

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Trend watch 2021: The Virtual Experience Economy

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The digitalisation of experience will continue to challenge traditional event design as part of the Virtual Experience Economy.

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Google Keynote (Google I/O ‘23) - Responsible AI

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Google Keynote (Google I/O ‘23) - Responsible AI

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Tune in to find out how we're furthering our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.To watch this keynote ...

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Could the metaverse perfect our imperfect world

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Could the metaverse perfect our imperfect world

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Learn about this Garden Talk

Imagine a world in which our physical and virtual lives are one and the same. Could that potential future be better than the world we live in now?

Today, when you want to interact with the digital world, you'll probably do it through a device like a phone, tablet or laptop. But since the late 1970s, the technology community has imagined that we might eventually move past the point where the physical and digital worlds are separate places. In the metaverse, our physical and the digital worlds are indistinguishable from one another.

Is the metaverse really what we're moving towards? And if we are, will it improve our lives? Professor Andy Miah has published over 150 papers exploring the effects and implications of technological change, making him the perfect person to join us in The Garden and help us navigate this brave new world and its implications for humanity.
Read this talk's transcript

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Could the metaverse perfect our imperfect world? - The Garden

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Imagine a world in which our physical and virtual lives are one and the same. Could that potential future be better than the world we live in now? Today, when you want to interact with the digital world, you'll probably do it through a device like a phone, tablet or laptop.

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Netflix's immersive LA zombie apocalypse...

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Netflix's immersive LA zombie apocalypse...

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Netflix created Viva Las Vengeance, an immersive, virtual reality experience set in a zombie-infested Las Vegas.

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Netflix's immersive LA zombie apocalypse

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When planning an incentive trip or sourcing a conference destination, safety is a top priority to provide peace of mind for yourself and your delegates. Here are Europe's 10 safest MICE destinations.

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Gaming penetration in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2013 to 2021, by age group and gender

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Gaming penetration in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2013 to 2021, by age group and gender

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A September to November 2022 survey of UK adults aged 16 years and older found that 88 percent of respondents aged between 16 and 24 years played video games, down from a 92 percent gaming penetration among the same age group in 2020. Overall, gaming uptake increased in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Video games industry in the UK

In 2022, consumers in the United Kingdom spent over 2.7 billion British pounds on digital and online games. In regard to the annual contribution of the video games industry to the UK Gross Domestic Product, it amounted to 2.2 billion British pounds in 2019.

Mobile games

The popularity of mobile gaming increased over the last decade and overtook games consoles and TV for the first time in 2014. As of 2021, approximately 37 percent of UK adults reported playing games on their mobile phone, the highest rate ever reported. The most downloaded gaming apps in Great Britain include puzzle and casual titles such as Score! Hero 2.

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UK gaming by age and gender 2022 | Statista

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In 2022, nearly nine in ten UK adults aged 16 to 24 years played video games. UK gamer penetration had decreased slightly from its peak in 2020.

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While video is a great opportunity we realize it can be confusing and even frustrating. It takes more than just video creators to produce effective content. That's why Flex Media consists of a talented team of video, marketing, and sales professionals ready to help you achieve your video goals.

You're an expert in your field and we're experts in ours, so let us guide you through our simple content creation process to show the world just how awesome you are. But we don't stop there. After we create your content, we give you the tools and the knowledge to use it because we believe you shouldn't have to be a sales and marketing expert to achieve business success.

Work with, video, marketing, and sales experts to help you strategize, clarify, and outline your goals

A simple process to create great looking and high performing videos to achieve those goals

Receive the tools, knowledge, and support you need to to effectively implement your current and future video campaigns

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While video is a great opportunity we realize it can be confusing and even frustrating. It takes more than just video creators to produce effective content. That's why Flex Media consists of a talented team of video, marketing, and sales professionals ready to help you achieve your video goals.

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Bespoke browser-based event visualization solution

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Following incorporation in 2016, Preevue has rapidly grown to become a leading provider of laser scanning and 3D Digital Twins for the Creative Industries.

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Music industry turns to livestreaming to boost revenue...

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Music industry turns to livestreaming to boost revenue...

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Consider whether this article could link to any academic references about the importance of profitability and the application of events technology...

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Caroline Burgess-Pike is a huge music festival fan. She normally attends two a year, including the granddaddy of them all, Glastonbury.

This year the PR director from Kent signed up for the Glastonbury Live event.

She says livestreams are a fantastic way to fill the gap when in-person live events are cancelled.

"They are great for families who might struggle to attend a festival with young children in tow."

During the Covid pandemic, she says livestreams have been "important to help support the live music and event industry at such a difficult time".

It was back in March 2020 that the UK's first Covid lockdown was announced.

Before all the restrictions came into effect, Sam Divine DJed at the Defected Virtual Festival which took place in a London megaclub - without an audience.

" Finding yourself alone in the Ministry of Sound with no-one apart from the tech guys, lighting guys and some dancers, was very weird. But there was something magical about it, too.

"I was going to be playing to thousands of people who should have been on the dance floor but instead were in their living rooms," the Ibiza-favourite says.

Just days after the event, the lockdown meant Sam found herself DJing in her living room. She experimented with different streaming platforms and chose one called Twitch, which allowed some interaction with fans.

"It was crazy to see the number of people in one chat room, watching their favourite DJs [during livestreams]. The community came together from all over the world and supported each other - it was beautiful."

Sam says she won't be turning off the streaming with the ending of Covid restrictions. "I'm starting a brand called Cloud 9. It'll include a nine-date club tour in the US, streamed to audiences in the UK."

No part of the music industry has escaped unscathed from Covid - including Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, a punk band with a reputation for raucous live performances.

In November 2020, they livestreamed a gig from the O2 Academy in Brixton over the Melody VR app.

Frank Carter himself wasn't initially sold on the idea.

"We were very hesitant to do any kind of livestreaming; our shows have always been about interaction - that energy from the audience has sometimes been what's got us through."

Guitarist Dean Richardson says because of this, audience interaction was crucial.

"There were three huge screens which we faced as we played and there were 20 fans on each screen. It was like the craziest CCTV show ever.

"There was a band in their rehearsal room and kids moshing off their sofas with parents trying to keep control. Seeing that meant you knew you were performing to someone."

However, Dean adds a caveat: "It was an incredible livestream gig but it was not an incredible gig compared to Alexandra Palace. A lot of the discussion is whether it's a viable alternative, I don't think it is, I think it's a different thing."

Frank agrees. "You've got to have the blood, sweat and tears, otherwise you've got a high-production band practice.

"You also see there's a future where you can combine the audience and a livestream to homes of people who can't get to a gig or may have anxiety or a disability which prevents them from having the experience that they'd want to have.

"That's the greatest thing that's come out of it. That's what I'm excited about."

If Dean, Frank and Sam Divine have found the last year hard work, venues have also had to adapt.

When the pandemic hit, Huw Humphreys, head of music at London's Barbican Centre ripped up a schedule planned up to four years in advance. The Barbican had occasionally facilitated a livestream but this didn't prepare Huw for what was coming.

"We almost needed a blank sheet of paper. We worked on a series of concerts from September 2020 to Christmas. We had some existing kit for streaming but supplemented that with new equipment."

Streaming tickets cost £12.50, and Huw reckons one-and-a-half to two people per ticket watched a livestream.

To attend in-person, when restrictions allowed, tickets cost £20. Yet whereas the 1,900-seat auditorium was running at a reduced, socially-distanced capacity, the size of an audience for a livestream is limitless,

"Shows were able to pay for themselves so it was financially viable and we've definitely attracted audiences overseas who wouldn't otherwise be watching," says Huw.

When no "in-person" concert-goers were allowed in the hall, Huw says there were some surprising results.

"The conditions allowed us to do things we'd never be able to do in a normal recital. When we livestreamed pianist Benjamin Grover, we put the piano on a platform over the stalls and filmed in 360 degrees and over the top. That's the kind of thing you can't do with an audience."

Although Huw's looking forward to welcoming back full audiences, he says the Barbican will keep the livestreams going, making them "better and better".

Now people are becoming increasingly used to watching livestreamed events, the number of services designed to facilitate them has also increased.

One of these is Swedish-based firm Doors, founded by Joel Broms Brosjö.

It aims to provide artists with "everything you need to create unique livestreamed experiences and get paid". This includes things like dealing with ticketing, local taxes and performance rights fees.

Artists get 70% of revenues after taxes and rights payments - the platform gets the remaining 30%.

Joel says his platform is aimed at artists who have already have a fanbase and now want to bring in some cash.

"If you're a band with 500 people at your gigs, that's a really good starting point for us. Aspiring artists would grow their fanbase on other platforms and then monetise it through us when they're big enough to sell tickets."

One act that has used Joel's platform is Swedish singer Tomas Ledin who played a set on Doors this Midsummer's Eve.

"Ledin tours up and down the country, but has cancelled two summer tours because of the pandemic. From an island in the archipelago, Ledin connected with an audience that tuned in on tablets, smartphones, TVs and desktop computers to share an intimate moment of music and hope."

New Tech Economy is a series exploring how technological innovation is set to shape the new emerging economic landscape.

Livestreamed music events are new but have really become popular during the pandemic. There are some definite advantages and many events look set to continue using the technology to reach fans.

Yet they are unlikely to ever replace the the excitement of in-person events.

"They're just not the same as experiencing live music in person, as they can't fully replicate the magic of the event," says festival-goer Caroline Burgess-Pike.

"I'm not sure I'd even watch the next Glastonbury Festival being livestreamed if I couldn't be there - I'd feel I was missing out.

"Although for those who can't get to an event livestreams do of course have their benefits."

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Music industry turns to livestreaming to boost revenue

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Caroline Burgess-Pike is a huge music festival fan. She normally attends two a year, including the granddaddy of them all, Glastonbury. This year the PR director from Kent signed up for the Glastonbury Live event. She says livestreams are a fantastic way to fill the gap when in-person live events are cancelled.

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Navigating AI Ethics in Events Management

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Navigating AI Ethics in Events Management

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Navigating AI Ethics in Event Management

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Delve into the ethical and privacy issues of AI in event management. Learn about data security, attendee rights, and responsible AI use in event planning.

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Event strategy: what is an immersive event anyway?

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Event strategy: what is an immersive event anyway?

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Immersive is the new black. From films to music and from video games to exhibitions, prefixing an event with 'immersive' seems to be the done thing these days. But as with any overused term (remember 'millennial'?), the true meaning is often misinterpreted, misrepresented or lost entirely.

Ubiquitously used as short-hand for any event that features ambitious tech or multi-sensory experiences, immersion, in truth, has nothing to do with technology. Consider the fans weeping at the end of a football match or the look on a child's face when they open a christmas present - that's true immersion.

Being immersed in something is about complete engagement and total commitment: it's about feeling involved, emotionally connected and 100% present in the moment.

While tech can play a crucial role when utilised smartly, simply bringing in lots of gizmos and gadgets won't be enough to create an immersive experience. You need to appeal to people on a human level. A truly immersive experience has storytelling and a clear purpose at its heart. So, how does this apply to events?

Understand your audience

This is always a good place to start with event strategy. If you don't know your audience, how can you even begin to consider creating something they'll engage with?

Your event needs to be tailored to the needs of your delegates and needs to answer several key questions - Why should they attend your event? What can they get from it that they can't get anywhere else? What are their goals and objectives?

Once you know your audience, you can create a purpose and a start framing your event around a narrative that speaks directly to them, not at them.

Understand your audience's emotional triggers

Your event should aim to help delegates find solutions to their problems and they will always come to those solutions faster if there is an emotional, personal catalyst.

If you can offer delegates relevant information - something that they need - you'll be more likely to grab their attention. What's more immersive: a quick play on a VR headset or the solution to a problem that's been keeping you awake at night? Consider - what are your delegates' pain points? What's the cause of their stress?

At its core, immersion is about feelings. When we're emotionally connected and engaged, we are immersed - which is why you need to get specific about your delegates' emotional triggers.

Keeping up with the Jones'

Buzz is another key factor in creating an immersive experience.

People need to feel that they'll be missing out if they don't come to your event. When you create this Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), people will turn up with a sense of purpose and excitement. An effective way to build on this 'fear' is by posting engaging promotional offers or subtle but engaging teaser videos on your social media platforms. Because we all know that social media is the key driver of FOMO.

Create a community

When people feel like they belong to something, they're instantly more engaged. A simple way to do this is by encouraging connections and online networking prior to your event. Keep your hashtags simple and memorable so that people can find each other easily and you'll hopefully be able to foster a community that comes together over your brand and your offering.

Encourage conversations on your social media platforms by suggesting topics or asking questions. You could also think about hosting a 'tweet-up' (real-time social media meet up) for Twitter followers working in the same areas or an 'Insta-meet' for your Instagram followers.

The more invested people feel in your event prior to it happening, the easier it is to create an immersive experience once they're actually there.

Anticipation

Your event doesn't start when the doors open, it starts months before. If you want people to be engaged when they turn up, you need to carefully plan your pre-event strategy and how you're going to build anticipation.

Excitement is crucial in creating an immersive experience - people have to want to be there, and a great way to achieve this is by giving away just enough to keep your audience wanting more. If you offer them a forensically detailed programme of what's on offer, what's the point of them turning up after all?

Instead, opt for a less is more approach. Reveal clues about your event on social media, post teaser pictures and videos that tease a flavour of what they can expect on the day. All of these things will help to build a sense of excitement around the event.

Encourage participation

Immersion requires involvement. When we're part of something, we're actively engaged, rather than being passive observers. You need to make delegates feel as if they are an intrinsic part of the event rather than attendees.

Once again, a lot of this comes down to your pre-event communications. For example, you could partner with speakers and sponsors to conduct questionnaires, surveys or polls, which can be used to gauge interest and help plan what you end up featuring at the event. You could then use this information for press releases, white papers or even a takeaway survey - by attendees, for attendees.

At the event, encourage interaction between management and delegates. If you have guest speakers, make sure they know how to actively involve the audience; simple things like asking for a show of hands or asking for volunteers to share their problems or why they've attended. This might not sound like much, but it can make a big difference in terms of creating an immersive experience.

All the tech

Tech alone will not give you an immersive event. However, if used as a strategic tool it can heighten engagement and facilitate a more immersive experience. Just be mindful of how you use it.

Any tech you use needs to align with your brand message and the narrative of your event. Randomly sticking in some VR or AR experiences just because you've seen them at other events is not conducive to immersion - in fact, it's likely to have the opposite effect. If something jars, it creates dissonance, which, in turn, can make people feel disconnected.

If it's appropriate and helps to tell your story, a tool like AR is an effective way to increase active participation and enjoyment. With the use of their smartphones, delegates can make an object or space digitally interactive and they can feel like an active part of the experience. This can be a powerful way to explore a new product or to tell part of your story in a creative way.

The key to using technology comes down to purpose. If you've got a robot, what purpose does it serve? If it's a gimmick, people will see it for what it is. Technology needs to facilitate immersion as a means to an end.

True immersion

Creating an immersive event starts with stripping everything back. To create a truly immersive event, you need to get the foundations right. What story are you trying to tell? How can you tell it in an engaging, relevant way? How can you make people feel something?

Immersion isn't about the fanfare of sword swallowers and pyrotechnics - those things have a part to play but they're just decorations. In order to immerse people in your event, they need to feel actively involved, excited and, ultimately, absorbed in the experience. The key to achieving this is to create an event that is positive, beneficial and relevant.

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What is an immersive event and how to create one? - Rapiergroup

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Immersive is the new black. From films to music and from video games to exhibitions, prefixing an event with 'immersive' seems to be the done thing these days. But as with any overused term (remember 'millennial'?), the true meaning is often misinterpreted, misrepresented or lost entirely.

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2018 State of Social Video: Marketer Trends

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2018 State of Social Video: Marketer Trends

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According to our 2018 State of Social Video: Consumer Trends report, which was also released today, video ads are the #1 way that consumers have found out about a new brand or product before purchasing. But what are businesses doing to reach these customers? We surveyed 500 marketers to find out how they're using social media to connect with customers.

We wanted to learn more about why brands are using video, how they're using video, and what sorts of results they're getting. Here are a few highlights:

93% of marketers say they've landed a new customer thanks to a video on social media.

88% of marketers are satisfied with the return on investment (ROI) of their video marketing efforts on social media.

Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are the top 3 platforms for marketers posting social marketing videos and video ads.

Check out the full infographic below. Interested in learning more? Animoto Chief Video Officer Jason Hsiao and our Social Media Strategist Sally Sargood will be discussing our annual 2018 State of Social Video report today at 11am PT/2pm ET on Facebook Live. to watch.

Interested in sharing this infographic? Feel free to control-click or right click to save and share this image. Reach out to our PR team at pr[at]animoto.com for more information or to request individual stat images.

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2018 State of Social Video: Marketer Trends [Infographic]

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According to our 2018 State of Social Video: Consumer Trends report, which was also released today, video ads are the #1 way that consumers have found out about a new brand or product before purchasing. But what are businesses doing to reach these customers?

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LinkedIn Resource: Learning SketchUp Free

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LinkedIn Resource: Learning SketchUp Free

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Learning SketchUp Free Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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Learn how to bring your 3D ideas to life with SketchUp Free, a browser-based 3D modeling and visualization tool that Trimble offers as a subset of the powerful SketchUp Pro.

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What Zoom fatigue? Pandemic virtual concerts may have changed live music forever

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What Zoom fatigue? Pandemic virtual concerts may have changed live music forever

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What Zoom fatigue? Pandemic virtual concerts may have changed live music forever

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Consumers are excited to get back to live events. But ‘virtual’ shows aren’t going away, according to a new study from UTA.

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'Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine'

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'Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine'

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When Melissa Heikkilä looks back on her past four years writing about artificial intelligence (AI), two key things jump out to her, one good, one bad.

"It's the best beat... AI is a story about power, and there are so many ways to cover it," says the senior reporter for magazine MIT Technology Review. "And there are so many interesting, and eccentric people to write about."

That's the positive. The negative, she says, is that much of the wider media's coverage of AI can leave a lot to be desired.

"There is more hype and obfuscation about what the technology can and cannot actually do," says Ms Heikkilä. "This can lead to embarrassing mistakes, and for journalists to feed into the hype machine, by, for example, anthropomorphizing AI technologies, and mythologizing tech companies."

Go back to early 2022, and AI was a little searched for term on Google. It had a so-called Google Trend score of just 11, with 0 being not searched for at all, and 100 indicating that something is the hottest of hot topics.

Last year, you wouldn't be surprised to know, AI surged in Google Trends to 100. The BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman says it is good to see AI now attracting so much attention, but that this puts a responsibility on the media to report on it accurately.

"AI is going to have an impact on all of our lives sooner rather than later, if not already, and so it deserves media scrutiny," she says. "I think the media tends to use the term AI as an umbrella term for lots of different types of the tech.

"I also think generative AI is behind the majority of this latest buzz - that is, tools which create content, like text, images, video and audio. ChatGPT has a lot to answer for!

"I do think journalists have a tendency to focus on the negatives, and I'd like to see more headlines about the positive uses of AI - formatting new medicines, for example, and providing breakthroughs in the search for nuclear fusion - alongside the risks it poses."

Reaktor is a Finnish tech firm that helps companies incorporate AI into their operations, be it an AI-powered chatbot, or using AI to help them design new products or services. Its clients include Adidas, Carlsberg, and Virgin Atlantic.

Mikael Kopteff, Reaktor's chief technology officer, agrees with Zoe that too much AI coverage is hype about the perceived downsides.

"Journalists not only have the ability, but also the responsibility, to educate the general public on AI," he says. "Currently with all the scaremongering and sensationalising they're not doing that."

He says that some journalists wrongly see AI as something "sci-fi-esque that can think and undertake a wide range of tasks like humans.

"In reality, AI programs are actually only capable of performing very specific tasks".

Mr Kopteff adds that in the future media coverage of AI should become better, simply because AI will become an "everyday" thing. And therefore journalists will automatically become more knowledgeable about it.

In the meantime, he says that tech firms such as his need to help better inform the media world about new AI technologies.

Emily Bell is director of the Colombia Journalism Tow Center for Digital Journalism in New York. She says that reporting on AI today is more difficult than covering the rise of the internet in the early 2000s, or the growth of smart phones from 2007, because today's news cycle moves far more quickly.

"What's different today is that there are announcements about AI products, and then there is the noise of social media around it," she says. "Executives like Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk are putting their opinions forward on a frequent basis, and there's also the immediate critique of releases from experts that feeds into the news cycle, so everything is sped up."

Ms Bell adds that there are "endless" AI stories to write.

Felix Simon is a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute, a part of Oxford University, where he is researching how news organisations both report on and use AI. He says that experienced tech journalists are doing a good job to demystify AI.

"Many reporters have a solid grasp of this field, and I'm happy to see that we've moved past the point of calling everything AI-related a killer technology, thanks to reporters being more critical of what they write on."

Mr Simon adds that it is key for reporters to keep their guard up. "To report on technological progress while not succumbing to industry narratives always was, and remains, challenging."

David Reid, professor of AI at Liverpool Hope University, is critical of most coverage of AI in the media, which he describes as "disappointing".

"I would put media reporting at around two out of 10," he says. "When the media talks about AI they think of it as a single entity. It is not.

"And when people ask me if AI is good or bad, I always say it is both. So what I would like to see is more nuanced reporting."

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'Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine'

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AI reporters and experts discuss how well or otherwise the media covers the topic.

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Who are the top metaverse companies? (in 2022)

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Who are the top metaverse companies? (in 2022)

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In each edition of Business Leader Magazine, we profile the top 32 companies in a specific sector. For our latest Top 32 list, we profiled the top companies that create technologies for use in the metaverse, the universal and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by using virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.

How were the Top 32 chosen?

We asked our readership to suggest companies that deserve to have the spotlight shined on them for their impressive exploits in the metaverse. However, if you feel there are others that deserve to be included on this list, then please email editor@businessleader.co.uk and we will add them to the digital version below.
This list is in no particular order.
Voxels
Ben Nolan
Voxels is a user-owned virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain that supports VR experiences and PC use. Players can build real estate and put it up for sale, including empty land parcels, prefabricated buildings, and art galleries, whilst there is a large marketplace for buying and selling digital collectibles, such as NFTs, which range from wearables and gaming props to artwork and apparel.

Accenture
Julie Sweet
Global professional services firm Accenture serves clients in more than 40 industries and 120 countries. It also operates its own metaverse, known as the Nth floor, where the company's 699,000 employees can take part in new hire orientation and immersive learning, or meet and socialize with one another. They are expecting 150,000 or more new hires will work in the metaverse on their first day. Through its investment platform, Accenture Ventures, the company has also recently invested in enterprise VR training platform Strivr.

Emperia
Olga Dogadkina
Emperia develops immersive virtual stores and galleries for the fashion, retail and art sectors, boosting sales, customer engagement and brand perception. Consisting of a team of 3D environment engineers and technical artists along with fashion and art industry veterans and branding experts, the Emperia platform enables luxury brands like Burberry, Dior and Lacoste to express and display their collections in more bespoke, engaging and unique ways in the digital realm.

Condense Reality
Nick Fellingham
Bristol-based Condense are bringing real-world live events to the metaverse, providing the tools to allow artists to stream live performances into virtual events. Founded in 2019 and backed by one of Europe's top Seed Funds, Condense has raised £870k over two funding rounds.

Their deep-tech solution captures live performances as 3D models and then streams into game engines in real-time. Their cloud platform then ensures the performances can seamlessly reach a global audience.

Exarta
Qasim Tabrez, Bilal Khan and Rashid Ali
Exarta is a place where the real and virtual worlds meet. Its users can experience social interaction with gamification, retail commerce, the ability to create unique buildings as NFTs, education facilities and medical applications, all of which are powered by their own proprietary AI/machine-learning engine and blockchain. Exarta intends to build a truly unique experience that will take their Web3 metaverse to the next level, with their Unreal Engine with high-definition graphics and huge incentives for users and merchants.

Decentraland
Ari Meilich
One of the first companies to come out with a viable proof-of-concept for the metaverse, Decentraland is a 3D virtual world browser-based platform that houses an official Barbadian embassy and new Samsung mini-city. Developed by Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, users can buy virtual plots of land in the decentralised platform as NFTs via the platform's own cryptocurrency, MANA.

Its metaverse platform went public in 2020 and allows users to create content, interact with one another, and earn money, primarily through NFTs, VR real estate, and other digital assets.

Cudos
Matt Hawkins
Cudos is powering the metaverse, bringing together De-Fi, nonfungible tokens and gaming experiences to help realise the vision of a decentralised Web3. Some of the major criticisms of Web3 include its reliance on centralised entities for compute capability and storage, and the insecurity and unreliability of centralised hubs, but Cudos aims to solve these issues by distributing computing resources that blockchains can reliably leverage to supplement on-chain transactions.

Meta
Mark Zuckerberg
Formerly known as Facebook Inc, the company announced its intentions to develop a metaverse platform based on its existing Oculus products when they rebranded to Meta Platforms in October 2021.

Although they are yet to launch a fully viable, consumer-facing version of the metaverse, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta had spent an estimated $10bn on the metaverse in 2021. They also launched the first official app for the metaverse, Horizon Worlds, last year and have also released their Presence Platform, which allows for the designing of naturalised immersive experiences.

The Sandbox
Sébastien Borget & Arthur Madrid
The Sandbox is a decentralised, community-driven gaming ecosystem where creators can share and monetise voxel assets and gaming experiences on the Ethereum blockchain. It's one of largest independent user-generated content and gaming platforms, with 40 million downloads and over one million monthly active users. The platform also has an impressive list of clients, including Gucci, who have opened a VR store on their metaverse platform, and Ubisoft, who have added elements from gaming franchises like Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia into The Sandbox.

Eyeora
Daniel Corazzi
Eyeora is a technology company that is redefining how Virtual Reality content is created, shared, experienced and monetised. Its turnkey studio provides entertainers, athletes, brands, rights holders, influencers, businesses and educators with all the tools they need to create, share and monetise content quickly, easily and cost-efficiently, with no technical skills needed. Thus, making it cheaper and easier to create and share VR content in the metaverse.

Blueberry
Mishi McDuff
Blueberry empowers self-expression through digital fashion in the metaverse. The digital fashion label has sold more than 20 million digital wearables, amassed a library of more than 10,000 digital SKUs optimised for hundreds of design attributes, and scaled an engaged community of loyal customers. Boasting of an all-female senior leadership team, Blueberry is live on multiple metaverse platforms and is currently expanding to other Web2 and Web3 metaverses.

AFEN
Deborah Ojengbede
AFEN is a cutting-edge NFT project dedicated to the development of user-friendly blockchain solutions in real estate and education, arts & entertainment, and decentralised finance. The AFEN ecosystem is multi-chain and powered by the $AFEN token. It allows users to mint, buy and sell NFTs, including virtual real estate, and access blockchain courses and resources. In 2022, the company raised $1m to pursue its goal of using blockchain technology to open up aspects of the African economy.

11:11 Media
Paris Hilton
11:11 Media is a global media content company and platform that elevates creators, brands, and IP through the power of storytelling and thought-provoking content.

Founded by Paris Hilton, who Forbes have dubbed 'Queen of the metaverse', Hilton's media company launched Paris World; a virtual island complete with a replica of Hilton's Beverly Hills mansion, in the online game platform Roblox at the end of 2021. Hilton has also previously designed and sold unique art NFTs, generating more than $1m in sales.

disguise
Fernando Küfer
disguise is the platform to imagine, create and deliver spectacular visual experiences. Its extended reality solution has powered over 400 immersive real-time productions across live entertainment for music artists such as Katy Perry and Billie Eilish, film and episodic TV productions for Netflix and Amazon Prime, corporate presentations for Siemens and Verizon, and live broadcast programmes from Eurosport, MTV and ITV, in more than 40 countries.

With an ever-increasing global partner network and working alongside talented visual designers and technical teams in live events, TV broadcasts, films, concert touring, theatre, fixed installations and corporate and entertainment events, disguise is building the next generation of collaborative tools to help artists and technologists realise their vision.

PixelMax
Andy Sands & Shay O'Carroll
PixelMax creates bespoke 3D virtual workplaces that combine the power of human connection and seamless integration to transform hybrid working. Their workspaces are designed to promote engagement and well-being, and features include personalised and interactive avatars, V-commerce, wellness areas and third-party integrations. PixelMax also provides virtual events, digital twinning and product or process simulation.

Hyperlink InfoSystem
Harnil Oza
Since being founded in 2011, top mobile app development company Hyperlink Infosystem has developed more than 4,000 apps, designed more than 2,000 websites, and worked on more than 400 projects featuring the latest technologies. In addition to the metaverse, the company works on AI, IoT, Blockchain, AR and VR. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, India, Hyperlink Infosystem has more than 700 highly skilled developers working on its projects, and has offices in the USA, UK, Canada, France, UAE, and Australia.

Roblox
David Baszucki
Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. The platform has evolved to offer its users virtual experiences, which even include a metaverse game that was launched in partnership with the NFL ahead of the 2022 Super Bowl.

Free-to-use and with millions of users located around the world, Roblox experienced exponential growth during the pandemic. Its wide range of VR experiences cover a range of genres, including anime, horror, roleplay, action, and real-life simulations.

CEEK
Mary Spio
CEEK is an award-winning developer of premium social virtual and augmented reality experiences. The platform directly connects music artists and other premium content creators to their fans through VR concerts, NFTs and unique experiences in virtual worlds. Users of CEEK's immersive virtual platform can join friends, watch 3D movies, get close to their favourite bands, and enjoy live concerts, festivals, and more.

Somnium Space
Artur Sychov
Somnium Space is an open, social and persistent virtual reality platform powered by blockchain. Featuring its own economy and currency, Somnium Space offers a marketplace, games and social experiences, and allows for virtual ownership of land, goods, avatars and items.

Fully accessible from any device, this unlimited scalable world boasts of partnerships with Admix, Sony, Polygon, OpenSea, and the Blockchain Gaming Alliance to help create a truly decentralised metaverse platform.

Autodesk
Andrew Anagnost
US software giant Autodesk has technology spanning architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing, media, and entertainment, empowering innovators everywhere to solve challenges big and small. The company has over 100 million people using its extensive range of software, which includes visual effects, virtual reality and generative design software that developers and creatives can use to create virtual worlds and assets, including NFTs.

Match Group
Bernard Kim
The parent company of Tinder and Match.com, the Match Group announced at the beginning of 2022 that they were planning to take dating into the virtual space. The company sees the metaverse as an opportunity to fulfil its mission of helping people make "meaningful connections", and they plan to create virtual rooms where people with shared interests can strike up a conversation with other avatars, check out the full profiles of other daters and send messages to them.

Com Laude
Glenn Hayward
Although Com Laude is primarily famous for corporate domain name management, they are also a key advisor in acquiring blockchain domains. Blockchain domains are essentially the way that metaverse and Web3 content is located on the internet, and they operate separately to how regular web domains do.

Securing blockchain domains is important for brands looking to get involved in the metaverse and Web3, and Com Laude is trusted by many legal and business professionals to keep their brands and intellectual property safe in the blockchain domain name system.

DAACI
Rachel Lyske
Informed by the core principles of musical composition, DAACI is a fully formed AI system that composes, arranges, orchestrates and produces the highest-quality original music. DAACI is set to power music creativity for the next generation of composers and content creators, forming a central part of game production, the metaverse and play-to-earn business models by providing the next step in the evolution of music creation.

SportsIcon
Chris Worsey
SportsIcon is the company behind The Sports Metaverse, the world's first virtual world specifically focused on sports. Built on the Flow and Ethereum blockchains, the platform aims to bring together the biggest sports stars, brands and clubs in one space, and enables users to watch live sports, acquire NFTs, play mini-games and take part in various fan experiences.

UFC icon Amanda Nunes has already signed a partnership with the platform to offer personal training in her metaverse gym, and former Premier League footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips has purchased land.

Spinview
Linda Wade
Enterprise metaverse platform Spinview creates accurate volumetric digital twins of buildings and infrastructure to deliver insights on the health and structure of any building or space. Combining IoT, Building Information Modelling, scanning and advance visualisation, they process this data into one simple to use visual model of the asset, whilst their AI translates and automates it into useable information for all the employees in a business.

MoonPay
Ivan Soto-Wright & Victor Faramond
MoonPay is a financial technology company that builds payments infrastructure for crypto. The platform is active in more than 160 countries and trusted by more than 300 leading wallets, websites, and applications to accept payments and defeat fraud.

Recently, MoonPay introduced HyperMint, a robust and flexible interface that allows users to mint, manage, and distribute NFTs at scale. The unified Web3 infrastructure effectively removes the barriers to entry for anyone who wants to tokenise their IP.

OnePlan
Paul Foster
OnePlan is the event site and venue planning platform responsible for the creation of Venue Twin, the platform that creates hyper-realistic digital twins of major venues that can be used for operational planning of those actual stadiums and to unlock new commercial opportunities. The Venue Twin becomes the officially owned metaverse asset and can be licensed for use in any metaverse environment.

Venue Twin has already announced partnerships with the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and professional basketball team the LA Clippers.

Sociallybuzz
Andre Kay
Founded in 2009, Sociallybuzz is the company behind MetAiBlock, the first marketing agency to use the metaverse, AI, NFTs and blockchain for the franchise industry. Launched in 2022, MetAiBlock helps franchises build, market, monetise and connect their brand to audiences across the metaverse, enabling them to have a stronger presence in the global market, and give their customers a more immersive experience with the brands they love.

Amazon
Andy Jassy
Another massive company moving into the virtual world, Amazon began incorporating metaverse technology into its digital marketplace after the creation of its Amazon AR View tool. Essentially, it facilitates the process of viewing products in your home before buying them to get a better idea of how something will match in your pre-existing space. Every product supported by Amazon AR View is sized and rendered to scale, allowing shoppers to know exactly how large an item is.

Bloktopia
Ross Tavakoli
Bloktopia is a virtual skyscraper that consists of 21 levels to pay recognition to the 21 million Bitcoin. Users of its metaverse platform can not only own cryptocurrency but can also access crypto information and content, whilst Bloktopians can earn money through VR advertising, gaming, and real estate ownership. In addition to having its own cryptocurrency, Blok, there is also a networking space called Blokpad, which is a launchpad for new metaverse users and investors.

STEMuli
Taylor Shead
Founded in June 2016, STEMuli is an educational metaverse that connects companies to their future workforce and students from diverse and economically challenged households to a digital world of opportunities. STEMuli has created a 3D game-based platform that connects high school students and corporations via virtual mentorships, internships, scholarships and job opportunities. They originally launched the platform in schools around Dallas, Texas, but after a recent $3.25m funding round, they plan to expand to other major US cities.

Microsoft
Satya Nadella
Microsoft, arguably the world's most iconic tech giant, has made sizable moves into the metaverse with the launch of Microsoft Mesh, the mixed-reality space that allows people to engage with one another and collaborate on persistent 3D content. The US tech giant has also introduced an augmented reality headset and platform, known as the HoloLens, which has helped companies operating in a wide range of sectors, from manufacturing, engineering and construction to healthcare and education, to boost their productivity with the power of mixed-reality technology.

Snobal
Murray James
Snobal is a technology company with a foundational enterprise metaverse platform that enables organisations to meet, discuss, collaborate, train and scale their VR apps and experiences with ease. Founded in 2014 by Ann Nolan and Murray James, the Melbourne-headquartered firm's customers include some of the world's leading companies across a diverse range of sectors. They also recently announced plans for a listing on the Canadian Neo Exchange.

PIXELYNX
Inder Phull
PIXELYNX was created by veterans and music visionaries including deadmau5, Richie Hawtin, Seven20 and Graphite Media. Based in London and Los Angeles, the company is focused on building a music metaverse that will transform the way artists connect and engage with their fans through gaming experiences. Focussed on blurring the lines between music, blockchain and gaming, its debut mobile game, ELYNXIR, will be out later this year.

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Who are the top metaverse companies? - Business Leader News

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In each edition of Business Leader Magazine, we profile the top 32 companies in a specific sector. For our latest Top 32 list, we profiled the top companies that create technologies for use in the metaverse, the universal and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by using virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.

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Magic Leap reveals new AR headset and fresh funding

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Magic Leap reveals new AR headset and fresh funding

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Magic Leap reveals new AR headset and fresh funding

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It has, she claimed, the largest field of view in the industry, and also features "dimming" - which darkens the background environment, making the glasses easier to use outdoors and in bright settings.

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State of Media and Entertainment on Mobile

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State of Media and Entertainment on Mobile

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Mobile is the primary battle ground among media giants. In 2021, Media & Entertainment apps drove nearly 50% of global consumer spend in applications. Our latest State of Media & Entertainment on Mobile Report is powered by App IQ, allowing businesses to keep close tabs on granular shifts in consumer behavior, feature adoption, demographic preferences and regional differences in order to maximize their mobile growth. Download data.ai's State of Media & Entertainment Report to equip you with the nuanced insights you need to succeed on mobile, including:

Which subgenres represent the biggest growth opportunities and how to compete in a market where competition is heating up

What video streaming (OTT) apps are favored by Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X/ Baby Boomers and how to optimize for your target audiencein a changing landscape

How Feature Tags illuminate strategic advantages or timely pivots and how to factor into your growth roadmap

Which keywords resonate in-market and how to refine your App Store Optimization

Which Entertainment subgenres are poised for market disruption and how to incorporate into your regional expansion strategy

Who are the market leaders, what innovations have fueled their growth and how to leverage best-in-class tactics to win on mobile

And More!

Get your copy today >>

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State of Media and Entertainment 2022 - data.ai

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Mobile is the primary battle ground among media giants. In 2021, Media & Entertainment apps drove nearly 50% of global consumer spend in applications. Our latest State of Media & Entertainment on Mobile Report is powered by App IQ, allowing businesses to keep close tabs on granular shifts in consumer behavior, feature adoption, demographic preferences and regional differences in order to maximize their mobile growth.

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YouTube Resource: Getting Started with SketchUp Free 

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YouTube Resource: Getting Started with SketchUp Free 

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GETTING STARTED with SketchUp Free - Lesson 1 - BEGINNERS Start Here!

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Twitch reduces workforce, lays off 400 employees

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Twitch reduces workforce, lays off 400 employees

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Consider using data/statistics relating to virtual event platforms/streaming platforms reducing the size of thier workforce as a way of demonstrating a reduction in the popularity of this type of service.  This could be a challenge in relaiton to the use of this technology within events.

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Nearly 7 million people have visited Nike’s metaverse store (October 2021 - March 2022)

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Nearly 7 million people have visited Nike’s metaverse store (October 2021 - March 2022)

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Nike claims that nearly 7 million people from around the world have visited Nikeland, its metaverse store, since it opened five months ago.

There is a lot of brand hesitancy around the metaverse, due to a lack of clarity on everything from revenue share to brand safety, but what can't be doubted is the ability of well-done metaverse executions to attract huge audiences.

To date, the entertainment industry has been the biggest beneficiary of that audience hunger, but the success of Nike demonstrates that brands are becoming a draw in their own right.

Nikeland, which is the sporting goods brand's micro metaverse built in Roblox, has attracted 6.7 million people from 224 countries since its launch in November. The space allows users to try on virtual products in addition to playing to the strengths of Roblox as a platform with games such as dodgeball.

On its Q3 earnings call, Nike's chief executive and president Jack Donahoe explained how the company has been driving consumers to it, saying: "During NBA All-Star Week, LeBron James visited Nikeland on Roblox to inspire its community towards physical movement in play.

"On the Nikeland court, LeBron coached and engaged with players, and participants were rewarded for physical gameplay with the ability to unlock virtual products.

"We plan to continue driving energy there with virtual products like LeBron 19 styles special to Roblox."

Donahoe also noted that the key revenue strategy for Nike in the metaverse is branded NFTs. Nike has been among the first big brands to push the idea of virtual goods having value on parity with their real-world counterparts, in line with Burberry and some luxury manufacturers. It also adds some utility to the brand extension rather than just being a collectible for the sake of it, which is necessary to prevent NFTs simply becoming a fad.

It builds upon its creation of Nike Virtual Studios, following the brand's acquisition of agency RTFKT in December last year. Donahoe said: "With Nike Virtual Studios, our vision is to take our best-in-class experiences in digital and build web3 products and experiences to scale this community so that Nike and our members can create, share and benefit together. "

In Q3, RTFKT released the first official Nike-branded NFT - its first step into the world of digital product creation.

"We're pleased by the positive momentum and energy we're already seeing in the space and we're excited by the future as we continue to extend our digital leadership in the industry," said Donahoe.

Nike's results delivered compared with analyst expectations. Nike Digital continues to be the fastest-growing component of its marketplace, now representing 26% of our total Nike Brand revenue.

As a result, and to capitalize on the growth across real-world and virtual products, the company said it had grown its ad spend by 20% across the quarter, with the total now equaling $854m.

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Nearly 7 million people have visited Nike's metaverse store

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Nike claims that nearly 7 million people from around the world have visited Nikeland, its metaverse store, since it opened five months ago. There is a lot of brand hesitancy around the metaverse, due to a lack of clarity on everything from revenue share to brand safety, but what can't be doubted is the ability of well-done metaverse executions to attract huge audiences.

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An example of AR in Events...

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Aircards on LinkedIn: ABB Robotics WebAR Experience

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We recently created this WebAR event invite experience for ABB in partnership with creative agency Smyle. This experience featured a custom animated robot...

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How A Video Marketing Strategy Will Supercharge Your Event...

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How A Video Marketing Strategy Will Supercharge Your Event...

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Standing room only: That's what you want to achieve with your upcoming event. You've built up such a big surge of anticipation that there's more demand than capacity.

Event management and ticketing website Eventbrite reported that 94% of events that used video as a promotional tool found it to be effective. That's a powerful statistic, but it's important to remember that promotional video is a tactic. It's the culmination of planning. What makes it a successful tactic is the marketing strategy behind the video. Here are my top tips for developing that strategy.
Not so fast with the creative.
You need a plan before you need a script. That plan should consist of action steps. Each action step needs to yield a measurable result. Answer these key questions:

* Who is your event's target audience?

* Where do they hang out? What platforms do they use to get information?

* What do you want the video to accomplish for you? It's easy to say the objective is to grow event attendance. However, there are specific, measurable steps to this overarching accomplishment.

What this last point should make clear is that you don't need just one video. You need multiple videos, each helping you to accomplish a measurable step in attaining that sold-out or standing-room-only (SRO) state for your event.

It also highlights why this strategy must be in place before you start on the creative. It rewards you with the ability to efficiently produce what you'll need to assemble these multiple videos.
Prior to the event, kick off promotion.
It's easy to see why video marketing begins when you kick off promotion, but keep in mind that your visual storytelling has a specific objective. At this point, you want to help prospective attendees fit the event into their worldview. What can they expect?

You might be tempted to put every reason to attend into a single video. Instead, pick three, and use science-backed psychology to improve your communication. A video strategy means you'll have a base creative theme in place that allows you to create multiple promotional videos. This is especially helpful when new details about your event emerge. Add more excitement by building on what you divulge about the event with your pre-event video marketing.

Pro tip: Prospective attendees will have the same general questions. It'll be like the FAQ section on your website, but why not transform it into a video that you can use to amplify attention and act as an event reminder?
During the event, dive into and share your video content.
A strategic approach means you also plan to capture video that will be used during the event itself. Live posts to social media work best for short-lived events. If your event spans several days, you have the opportunity to capture activities and share them.

The benefit of thinking ahead and deciding what each video should accomplish allows you to prepare by creating preproduced elements such as a standard video open and close. You'll also be proactive on which video elements to snag for marketing use, such as close-up shots to capture emotion or span shots to show the venue.

Budgets and bandwidth will determine how deeply you dive into video during the event itself, but remember that nearly all major social media platforms offer the ability to broadcast live. The video equipment budget can be as minimal as your mobile device.

Pro tip: One of the top benefits of posting either produced or live video during your event is that you are showing those who aren't attending what they are missing.
After the event, continue your marketing efforts.
Anybody who's ever attended a tradeshow or conference knows that the event is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what ultimately happens. The event facilitates human connections. The business deals and agreements usually happen afterward.

This benefit works for your event video content, as well. The event was part of your company's overall marketing strategy. Utilize this integral relationship and use the video to support other marketing efforts.

From a strategic perspective, you'll use the video you've captured during the event to promote next year's event. Because you've approached video for your event with a strategy, you won't have a big collection of "maybe we can use this" video assets.

Pro tip: The event might be over, but your video can be evergreen if you repurpose it as a series of blog posts.
Start with why.
Promote your upcoming event with a video marketing strategy, not just a video. Know what you expect those who watch your video to do, in terms of an actual physical act. It's not just to register or to purchase a ticket. You have to know why you're creating a video before you get to a script.

You'll soon discover that a strategic approach makes it easier to create scripts and to produce marketing videos for your event.

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Council Post: How A Video Marketing Strategy Will Supercharge Your Event

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Standing room only: That's what you want to achieve with your upcoming event. You've built up such a big surge of anticipation that there's more demand than capacity. Event management and ticketing website Eventbrite reported that 94% of events that used video as a promotional tool found it to be effective.

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Free - for anyone wanting to enhance thier CAD Skills...

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Twinmotion is a cutting-edge real-time visualization tool

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Twinmotion empowers you to create high-quality real-time visualizations for architecture, consumer products, transportation, fashion, and more.