The event industry is exploding with technology that makes meetings and conferences more exciting, engaging, and innovative. As a business or event organizer, you want audiences to experience the wow-factor when they attend your conferences, executive briefings, and trade shows. The good news is event tech is evolving rapidly to help you create experiences that promote active participation and deeper information retention.
From AI to hybrid events and gamification, let’s explore the top 6 digital innovations set to shape business events and training in 2024 and beyond. These cutting-edge technologies will surprise and delight your in-person and virtual attendees.
#1 Immersive and Metaverse Events
The metaverse refers to 3D virtual spaces where attendees can digitally interact with brands, products, environments, and other people using avatars. Imagine hosting a virtual product launch inside a hyperrealistic, interconnected digital world. Your attendees will feel immersed and engaged at a visceral, emotional level.
As the tech rapidly evolves, virtual reality, augmented reality, 360° video, and spatial computing merge the digital and physical together for lifelike simulations. These tech innovations are part of the future of immersive experiences at virtual business events. It promises to provide attendees with an event experience so real it feels like they are there.
Benefits for Event Organizers
For business events, metaverse activations offer incredible potential to showcase ideas, build hype for product releases, generate leads, and inspire audiences in memorable ways not possible in real-life
Organizers also benefit through saved travel costs, global reach, and gamified engagement. While still in its early phases, virtual and hybrid metaverse events are the future for businesses looking to reduce carbon footprint and expand audience diversity.
#2 Hybrid Events
Also called blended events, hybrid events fuse in-person and virtual attendance together for an expansive, flexible attendee experience.
How Hybrid Events Work
Hybrid events provide programming and content both online and onsite. For example, keynote speeches happen live on a stage and are livestreamed digitally. Some sessions may be virtual-only, while others are in-person. Attendees can switch back and forth.
Hybrid events have many benefits like:
● Expands audience reach and boosts attendance
● Provides options and flexibility for attendees
● Captures data from physical and digital touchpoints
Advances in video production, streaming, and interactive platforms power seamless hybrid events. RFID, beacons, real-time data, and mobile apps also connect physical and virtual.
The hybrid model unlocks wider audiences, participation, and networking for event organizers. As tech improves and audiences embrace virtual/hybrid, expect the hybrid to become the new normal for your enterprise events.
#3 AI Enhancement
Artificial intelligence is transforming events through predictive analytics, streamlined operations, and highly personalized attendee experiences.
As you organize your enterprise events, AI-powered tools should be on your radar to help engage audiences and simplify planning. Chatbots, for instance, can handle common questions, freeing up your human staff for high-touch conversations.
AI in Events Use Case
With computer vision, AI can capture attendee demographics, monitor engagement levels, and analyze interactions.
You can then use these AI insights to tailor content, recommend sessions, customize gifts, and provide 1:1 support adjusted to individual interests. For example, by recognizing an attendee who works at Toyota, you could showcase your solutions for the auto industry.
Facial recognition at entry points or digital badges also helps provide frictionless, secure access while gathering valuable data.
Invest in AI and machine learning tools and platforms to become integral backbones powering your event logistics, gathering detailed analytics, and enabling hyper-customization.
#4 Wearable Technology
Wearable devices and intelligent badges are increasing engagement, interactivity, and data collection at business events.
As an attendee checks in, a high-tech badge gets activated with their name, company, and personalized agenda. The smart badge then tracks their interests and movements throughout the venue using RFID or NFC technology.
Attendees can exchange info by tapping badges together rather than swapping business cards. Gamification elements even make it fun to collect points for booth visits that get synced to a leaderboard.
For a truly immersive experience, cutting-edge headsets allow attendees to visualize products in augmented reality, interact with lifelike avatars, and explore 3D environments. Soon, expect wearable tech to play an integral role in driving interactivity, data insights, and memorable engagement at corporate events.
#5 Live Translations
As you plan your event, catering to diverse global audiences, real-time translation allows you to expand reach and boost engagement. However, real-time translation technology breaks down language barriers at international business events.
Advancements in technology like AI allow lightweight headsets that instantly translate English presentations into Mandarin Chinese. Or a boardroom video conference where French, Spanish, and Arabic speakers can fluidly communicate and understand one another.
Invest in simultaneous translation to become a staple tech solution for your conferences, conventions, and international events of all sizes. Your attendees feel included by hearing sessions in their native tongue. It also saves money on human translators.
#6 Event Gamification
Gamifying your business events taps attendees’ competitive spirits while granting valuable data insights. But rather than simple leaderboards, brands are getting creative, tying gameplay to more profound event objectives.
For example, you could gamify networking using event tech that awards points for making new connections. The system tracks conversations, automatically exchanging contact info and syncing interactions to a personalized dashboard. This motivates networking while capturing real-time data on lead generation.
Drive Booth Traffic
Leverage beacon technology or GPS mapping to challenge attendees to visit every sponsor. The first to complete the circuit wins a coveted prize like VIP access. This incentivizes booth interactions so exhibitors can highlight solutions.
Encourage Content Interaction
Embed questions within presentations and award points for correct responses. Add polling to measure comprehension while prompting participation. This boosts two-way dialogue beyond passive listening.
Gamified events incentivize attendees’ behaviors that easily achieve your core event objectives like lead gen, education, data gathering, and memorable experiences. Get creative tying gameplay elements to desired attendee actions and content.
Conclusion
Event tech expands possibilities for meaningful engagement between brands and audiences. While in-person connections remain vital, innovations like hybrid events, AI, and the metaverse allow for more interactive, data-driven, and personalized digital and physical experiences. Embrace these trends, and get ready to wow attendees at conferences in 2024 and beyond.
