Pre-empting the evolving trajectory of the exhibition industry could pay off big time, say industry future-gazers.
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Author Douglas Adams opined that technology is a word to describe ‘something that doesn’t work yet’. This will have a ring of truth for any industry veteran who has seen fads come and go.
Looking further into the future, however, and assessing where current visitor behavioural patterns are headed can help companies make better tech choices today, say industry experts.
Depending on your age, or your capacity to be awe-struck, the future is already here. Event apps, social media monitoring, Virtual Reality (VR), drones, video walls, projection mapping, holograms and the like have helped shake the stagnant image that once plagued the exhibition industry. But, technology really only succeeds when it unobtrusively solves a need, according to UBM’s technology director Lenny Heymann.
“Technology needs to enhance the customer journey, to help them to accomplish their goals. There can be an impulse to use technology to solve problems that don’t actually exist or to make improvements no one wants,” he adds.
Looking at patterns that have dominated the past is a good way of thinking about the future, according to Wayne Morris, VP International at Guidebook. “It’s a case of looking at possibilities rather than making predictions. The ubiquity of smartphones has dramatically changed our expectations of how we communicate and created an ‘always online’ culture.”
From an events perspective, this has heralded a new breed of delegate whose needs should be understood, Morris continues: “This is a generation of second-screeners with short attention spans. Visitors want to collaborate and have some input on content rather than being passive.”
Morris says this new market is often poorly understood by organisers and can cause rash purchasing decisions. “The writing is on the wall for the bespoke development approach to apps, with savvy organisers looking for a template-driven, scalable option that is affordable and easy to deploy at scale. We are really only at the beginning of mobile and getting it right will take at least the next five years.”
Future gazing can be a bewildering business but there are various technologies vying to revolutionise events. For Mykyta Fastovets, CTO at ExpoPlatform, 3D printing is likely to do just that. “3D printing could revolutionise stand building. Every exhibitor could become its own stand builder, all they would need to buy is a stand schematic, and they could get it printed and assemble themselves.”
Other technologies that could usher in an exhibition reformation include The Internet of Things. Morris says there is little uncertainty about the importance of this movement for exhibitions.
“Smart devices, smart walls, smart badges, smart everything will be able to enhance the choice available to the delegate. Other amazing developments to keep an eye on include technologies like Li-Fi, which enables data to be transferred via light at phenomenal speeds. This trend for turnkey solutions will only increase in my view. Companies that are able to genuinely create technology solutions that make events more engaging, interactive and memorable will thrive.”
Fastovets also speculates about the infrastructure and connectivity improvements made possible by increased physical connectivity. “Perhaps ‘smart stands’ covered with thin print could be a reality. These could be remotely controlled to display any images or graphics.”
This brings us to virtual and augmented reality technologies, which are hotly debated, but generally thought to be underutilised and here to stay.
“Virtual Reality won’t be sufficient to replace meetings, but it will certainly be good enough to give, for example, virtual factory tours, even with live feeds through a drone flying around the place. Indoor drone usage might become normal,” adds Fastovets.
Heymann, meanwhile, was impressed by VR at a recent Game Developers Conference, which was filled with the latest in consumer-focused VR platforms. “The possibilities for Virtual Reality for booth rebook and other event-related tasks are tremendous. I’m also intrigued by what goes on with technology behind the scenes.”
Despite a perceived false start in AR with Google Glass, Fastovets says the technology is far more exciting that virtual reality. “Google Glass didn’t take off yet, but I would be on the lookout for similar technology that can enhance our vision with information. Imagine walking around an exhibition with a special set of glasses or contact lenses on and little bubbles popping up above people’s heads with their name, company, business interests, and how likely they are to be a good business match for you.
“When you look at a stand you get information regarding the exhibitor and the company, product catalogue, etc. And, of course, people you’ve listed as those you want to meet are highlighted in the crowd. I think AR technology will become big in this industry by 2030, because it will make spending time on networking with the right people effortless.”
VR is also trumped as a technology that can adapt to visitors’ needs and create a truly personal experience at events. It’s in keeping with a vision. FreemanXP’s SVP Kim Myhre has been extolling. “We are rapidly moving in to an era of personalisation. Event audiences are no longer happy to be one of the crowd. They will insist that events and brand experiences recognise them and know what they value.
“This will create a positive and revolutionary approach to brand experience. We really do need to stop thinking about live events as a broadcast medium, and instead recognise the value of people connecting in meaningful ways.”
But, to truly personalise an exhibition experience, Big Data, or the smart use of data is a necessity. Heymann says Big Data represents a balancing act for organisers, and UBM’s purchase of Alibaba was an attempt to meet this goal. “With live events, it is tough to keep the buyer-seller dialogue going through the year. While online, there is no physical interaction or development of a personal relationships. So we’ve partnered to experiment with collaborative cross-promotional marketing, match-making services and audience development. One way technology can better help customers, I think, is to be less intrusive, more in the background.”
The related part of that is to make sure any technology, especially anything that uses personal data, is as valuable to the attendee as it is to the exhibitor, he continues: “Marketers are already used to getting rich, detailed data about customers from their digital marketing efforts. I think we need to match that at events – so that’s more about smart data acquisition and analytics than the shiny technology attendees actually experience as part of the event.”
The problem, for Heymann, is context. “Needs won’t be the same for every audience, and the most adept organisers are able to respond to unique audiences. It’s critical to match technology to customer expectation. Something like tracking beacons might help an attendee at, say, one of our jewellery events. But the attendee at an event focused on security and personal rights in a digital age would never stand for it.”
Myhre agrees, adding that a sense of purpose and direction is important in navigating current technology. “This is about applying technology in a seamless, non-interruptive way that enhances the live experience. In the near future we will expect technology to be present but not an interruption.
“We call this creating an ‘onlive’ experience where the live and online experience are seamless and invisible to the attendee.”
With all this talk of futuristic technology, Juraj Holub, marketing manager at Slido reminds us that the good old fashioned Internet should remain the primary focus for the industry.
“For events, the next 15 years will be about bridging and managing the online and offline communities. Whether triggered by a marketing strategy or initiated by a spontaneous act, people have been forming online communities – fandoms – around their shared passions and interests for some time now.
“However, it is only recently that they have started stepping out of the virtual world to organise events and meet face-to-face. There are now conventions for everything as people crave the in-person interaction with one another as well as with brands they love.
“Ironically, once onsite, attendees have a need to document these live experiences, which means sharing back via the online channels. And as a result, the online-offline-online community gets formed,” he adds.
Technology then, has followed peoples’ propensity to self organise. As it morphs into unexpected new forms, it tends to work better when it goes unnoticed, and serves rather than controls.
Digital: an exhibition goldmine
Feathr co-founder and president Aidan Augustin says exhibitions in mature markets’ single largest revenue growth factor over the next five years will be digital:
From a pure monetisation standpoint, exhibitions are sitting on a goldmine. They have cultivated incredibly valuable B2B audiences that marketers would give their left arm for. Not only are they very well-categorised and industry-specific, but event attendees represent literally the most valuable buyers of any given industry.
Facebook makes a fortune off allowing advertisers to target based on the fact that users indicate interest via a mere ‘like’ click. Events could allow advertisers to target based on the fact that I bought an event ticket and a flight and a hotel and spent three days in-person connecting about a very specific topic or industry.
The information handed over by attendees is worth a fortune, but event organisers have been giving it away.
Augmented vision
Following Cvent’s US$1.2bn sale, David Chalmers, marketing director of Cvent Europe says AR will revolutionise the exhibition industry:
We’ve already witnessed a huge leap forward in the AR use, and what started out as a futuristic phenomenon used by only a few is finally making its way from the mainstream world into events and exhibitions.
Before we know it we’ll be checking in at registration using automated face recognition, finding potential business leads using the power of AR and identifying and making instant business connections. Better still, we’ll be navigating events without having to refer to pocket maps or sign boards.
My prediction is that in 15 years time we’re all going to live in a world of events that have perfectly augmented vision.
