New technologies are becoming a primary part of the tenders or contests of corporate events. Customers are looking for innovative tools that offer them greater visibility, real-time data and feedback in order to make the events more personalized and effective. What will 2020 bring us? According to the CWT 2020 M&E Trends Report study, technology will not only come to stay, but will also dramatically change the experience and how events are handled.
More interaction
The new trend of transforming event attendees into participants will be driven by better apps and other technology platforms. Regardless of age, attendees want to have more ways to communicate with others and express their opinions during and after an event.
Additionally, apps for events can be used to evaluate the interaction during an event and link to the social networks of the attendees, allowing them to connect easily and quickly with the organizers or other managers.
Gwénaël Mulin, Senior Director of France, CWT Meetings & Events, believes that “the optimization of the experience is becoming a decisive factor, the audiences are changing, there is a greater proportion of millennials and they are waiting even more. We are no longer talking about the experience of the attendees but about the participatory experience. ”
This also includes capturing and evaluating emotional data to measure the involvement of the attendees during the sessions. It has already been used in events in Paris, where the cameras filmed the audience, monitoring their facial expressions to examine both features, their attention and their emotional engagement.
The custom event
The launch of 5G will make connections smarter and faster. Attendees can manage the room temperature or choose what music to listen to. The use of chatbots and ultra-fast data analysis through machine learning and AI will soon help create an even more personalized level for guests.
The feeling of being an active part of an event, contrary to a passive listener in a static environment is exciting. Even in large groups of 500 or more people, there is an expectation that there will be something personalized. This customization will be more focused as the data is more exploited to help ensure that each event interaction is relevant and meaningful.
“How can we use the chats to help guests when they are registering or registering online?” Asks Saskia Gentil, Global Vice President of Sales, CWT Meetings & Events. “In the near future, this process can be improved through chatbots while machine learning can help increase personalization.”
The apps will serve for more than just the event agenda
The use of apps for events has increased rapidly in recent years, especially since 2017. This has evolved rapidly, not only to offer travel itineraries and agendas, but as an effective way to interact with attendees.
This increased functionality has also helped speed up the laborious process of check-in, including registration, with apps already available so that attendees can print their badges on demand instead of waiting in line.
By analyzing how apps are used by attendees, valuable ideas can also be released. For example, organizers can monitor the interest shown by attendees in individual sessions or speakers. This allows the general attendance of the guests to be measured in advance, which could result in a change to a larger room to increase the capacity of popular sessions or speakers.
They can also facilitate coexistence, with similar Tinder apps, which help break the ice and increase. In addition to this, they can also offer the opportunity to create content as guests can give recommendations before and during events.
Seeking attendees online
The increase in gasoline costs due to global conflicts and economic crises, coupled with increased awareness of the climate impact caused by flights, may mean that there is a greater number of people who cannot or do not wish to attend events outside of your cities. This may increase online participation, which reinforces the need to do it in the most correct way.
“Having the right technological interface, using multiple angles with the camera and having speakers individually addressing the attendees by name will amplify the experience for those who are participating online,” adds Beau Ballin, Vice President, Business Development, North America, CWT Meetings & Events .
Dedicated social networks, discussion groups, videos or chatbots correctly focused, can also bring the experience closer to the guest. Reducing the costs of RV headsets can transform it into a more accessible option to increase the scope of an event for those who may not be physically present.
Enhanced experience through augmented virtual reality
What used to look like science fiction, today we have it within reach. Although not yet massively due to high costs, emerging technology leads to new and exciting opportunities to create more immersive and responsive experiences for attendees. Let’s think about how augmented reality could be used to share the details or origin of the event’s food or how virtual reality can introduce medical assistants inside an organ of the human body.