Event, UK’s leading magazine for the event industry, published a short article about three experts’ opinions on the implementation of new event technologies.
Last week, I wrote about a new type of technology, emotional tracking, and what it could mean for the future of the industry. Head of digital transformation at digital marketing agency Isobar, Matt Gee, believes that emotional tracking along with motion, voice, and image recognition, “are the interesting technologies to watch because they are an extension of our natural behaviour…These interfaces can be combined to create more relevant experiences to individuals.”
In regards to virtual reality, Dan Keene, managing partner of Slice, notes that, “consumers want experiences that they can share and brag about. It is very hard to brag and physically share a VR experience. It needs to be taken out of the solo experience. AR [augmented reality] is more interesting. It needs to be used to enhance an experience, perhaps to help consumers visualise something, but the real ROI needs to be thought out.”
Russ Lidstone, CEO of The Creative Engagement Group, elaborates that again, VR can be an incredible opportunity for the events industry, but there are a still quite a few questions about implementation that need to be answered, and all event planners need to keep in mind that “ideas will remain everything – and whilst new channels or technologies enable new ways to disseminate those ideas, they should never get in the way of the ideas themselves.”
The main idea is, technologies shouldn’t be the focus of any event, they should only help improve experiences! Gee states: “We need to approach the world with a human-first, customer-centric perspective.”
