The technology change is accelerating with thousands of new ideas, innovations, and apps to help meeting planners, exhibitors, and participants to make their job better.
These are the meeting technology trends to watch for in 2018 and the years to come:
1. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR):
Many events and conferences are already using this immersive technology very effectively, and it will see major growth in the years to come.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) has been creating the buzz ever since the launch of Oculus Rift. It was further followed by HTC vive and Google Glass which brought in a remarkable technological wave to excite the people. With so many big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Samsung making massive investments in the technology, VR and AR will make a remarkable advancement, and we will see enough usage at the events and exhibitions, and it will dominate next few years.
2. Internet of Things (IoT):
The Internet of Things will keep people and objects connected to make the experience of events and exhibitions even better.
The Internet of Things connects objects with all other objects and with the people in a way that we can control many of things by transferring data over a network with barely any human interaction. Each and everything (from appliances to pets, from TVs, watches, and cars to roads and buildings), in future, will be provided with a unique identifier to achieve unprecedented efficiency.
This will also have a huge effect on meetings and conferences, IoT will bring a great attendee experience. Hotel rooms, transports, TV, Wallet everything will be connected; Beacons will track participants’ movements throughout the facility area and allow organizers to inform them necessary notice and information, assist them whenever they go.
3. Event Apps:
Mobile applications for events will be much more mature, which will make event planning and event organizing much more efficient.
Mobile apps are already widely used at events, meetings and conferences, tradeshows. But in future, they won’t be a mere replacement for the paper. They will combine with all other technologies (yes, all other meeting technologies trends mentioned in this article) to provide a great experience to the attendees. And with loads of new sensors in mobile devices, event app will be a goldmine of information about participants, that will help event organizers to provide customised content to the participants based on their interests and to improve future events.
Speaking of event apps, we provide event apps with amazing attendee experience; our products always match the current needs and trends. You can try webMOBI – Event Networking App to explore events around you and you can even publish your event in our app for free and make attendees’ lives easy exploring your event.
You can add some extra features like Activity feed, Banner Ads and so on or just can go for Premium plan and order a Custom App for your event.
4. BLE and Beacon technology:
Location-aware technologies like Beacon technology and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) technology have already started seeing some interest from event organizers. Though it is still not so mainstream, it will continue to evolve and mature and will see more use at events and exhibitions.
Beacons can help attendees as they use these beacons through a mobile app for local networking, get push notifications, alerts and other information based on the location and it takes care of many other aspects of an event.
5. RFID:
RFID (Radio frequency identification) is an excellent piece technology, that is increasingly being used by event organizers mostly because its ability to speeding up the registration time, reduce the effort for the organizers by automating the check-in process. Incorporating this technology in some devices like badges or bracelets it used in many ways:
- As an entrance ticket (this is how it speeds up registration time)
- As an entrance ticket (this is how it speeds up registration time)
- To share virtual business cards
- For automated voting and surveys
- For cashless payments
A combination of an RFID and Beacon technology can help in many aspects of an event like attendees can keep track of different booths, and organizers also can track attendees in turn.
6. Wearables:
Smart watches, bracelets, badges and all other wearable devices, using some of the technologies mentioned above helps both participants and organizers many ways.
Participants can get directions using GPS, can open doors, receive alerts, exchange contacts, perform audience polling, use as admission tickets and much more.
Those are the trends in event and meeting technology we think will be the biggest thing. We are looking forward to the advancement on all among technology, and we are innovating to improve our apps to keep up with the technologies to come.
We provide mobile app and website solution for events and exhibitions, if you need to make your event an amazing experience for your attendees, we will help you do that.
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