10 Event Tech solutions that have become indispensable for event planners
Technology is shaping the way events are designed today. The idea of providing seamless and immersive experience has become more affordable than ever with the use of some latest innovations in the event tech space.
Here are ten event tech innovations that every event planner should try once:
Emotional Recognition
One of the biggest problems that event planners face is figuring out how attendees feel during their event and how they engage with the sessions, activations, entertainment, etc. Emotional recognition is a powerful way to collect that data – and a controversial one. Emotion recognition is a new opportunity for continuous analysis of attendee reactions throughout the event. In essence point a camera at people, let AI interpret their body language and 7 emotion metrics: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise and boom, no need for surveys. Is it the end of surveys as we know them?
Projection Mapping
Projection mapping, simply put, is using technology to project imagery onto a surface. The projections can be as simple as indoor stage effects or as complex as video onto buildings and industrial landscapes. The purpose of projection mapping in events is to provide a more engaging experience for attendees, through visual stimulation. The idea is to use technology to manipulate lighting onto varying surface types and turn common objects into interactive, 3D displays. In fact, it’s increasing in popularity because it’s a vehicle for video trends in events. In essence, it’s like painting with light – a way to add textures, colors and even feelings to an environment. You really can project anything, from sponsor branding, all the way through to cinema-style narratives.
Live Translation
Being able to offer services and content in multiple languages opens international events to under exploited non English speaking markets, and we can expect organizers and tech companies to take advantage of this trend more and more in 2020. Services now exist that allow instantaneous translation feeds via mobile devices, ear pieces, standard dial-in service, etc. Whereas wifi used to be a major challenge, the advent of 5G is going to resolve a lot of the logistical trouble with using services like these, and we expect a boom.
Blockchain and Crypto
Some say blockchain is the future of more than just currency. Today there are a plethora of blockchain conferences, blockchain networking events, and more happening around the world every year.
Blockchain would allow, for example, an attendee's ID and transactional information to follow them around an event, or even multiple events. The system doesn't really need to know who a person is at the point of validation, so if an attendee buys a coffee and pays for it using their Blockchain ID, all the vendor sees is that a transaction has taken place and the right amount of money has been delivered to them. The same is true of access control and other information exchanges. Blockchain removes the requirement for a person's identifiable information at the point of exchange.
Charging Tables for Networking
We live in a smartphone battery crisis. You see the agitated faces of attendees around the world when they are approaching 5% of their battery and they have no power bank. Events can use this opportunity not only to improve the attendee experience but also to provide marketing intelligence based on usage. Charging stations also present an opportunity for branding and sponsorship messaging backed up by easily provable ROI data from usage.
Voice Search
Voice search are more popular now than ever as people find it convenient in asking their queries than writing it down, here people can be more specific compared to typing. According to stats we found out that general audience use voice search maximum for weather conditions, cooking, to find location while driving and upto 60% people use voice search over smartphone. On that account, voice search should be a part of our event app or site as it is a widely used SEO tool for the marketers, they can implement a local SEO for the event as well. Also, the answers to the queries should be short and understandable whereas, the written content should be sufficient enough and shouldn’t be short and crisp.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Badges
RFID is not as difficult as its name suggests, it may sound scary but it’s the most effective and upgrading experiential marketing tech. trend. These badges contain small chip same as debit/credit cards and can we put on the attendee’s name tags or wristbands. They are used to give our event attendees a great experience, while at the arrival they get these tags or wristbands and the chip takes 10-15 seconds to encode before the attendees are ready to use them. The touch points in the RFID and NFC helps in collecting data and at the same time personalise data, access control, track competitions. Also, we can manage the event check in and session check in, this helps majorly to have a balance in the session areas for the amount of audience and in collecting data of attendee’s interest.
Event Data and Data Security
Event data security is a major concern and this need to be protected, they event planner put everything in their data base from attendee’s smallest details to event their bank details and it gets risky. Therefore, its our primary responsibility to protect it. The measures could be protecting through picking the strongest password and making it less risky, staying upto date in using protection softwares and lastly to manage malwares.
The joy of missing out (JOMO) is the desire to find value in the downtime, and savvy planners will find a way to create spaces that encourage people to use that downtime for networking. Charging tables allow attendees to take a breather while their lifelines devices charge and offer an opportunity to connect with each other casually over discussions of session content, the event in general, or simply mutual interests.
Facial Recognition
Facial recognition is becoming the new trends majorly at the registration desk where we can recuse time in looking for entries data and then assigning badges to them and again searching for corrections or other issues. It also will help in having accurate data and an ease in handling the attendees at various check points.
The FR will help in providing assistance to the event planners and attendees both, it will be a cutting-edge event check experience.
(With inputs from Savi Khanna and Charvi Malhotra)
