Last week the event tech show hit London's Truman Brewery.
The event is Europe's only free dedicated event technology show and hosted an array of exhibitors as well as a packed agenda of keynote speakers talking about their experiences of using technology for events, and the future of event tech/social media within the industry.
The event communication from registration to the event day, harnessed the power of social media and an event application. The event producers created a central event app where you could see all what the event had to offer and build your own agenda around the topics that were on offer across the 3 stages throughout the day - these consisted of a Live Demo Stage, A Main stage and a seminar stage, all which had back to back presentations throughout the day from a variety of event tech specialist and exhibitors, the tough decision was who to see, at what time and at which stage...
The event focused heavily on engagement via the use of event applications and social media and how it has and is being used to engage audiences across the globe, for us the key point which was continuously highlighted throughout was that it's not just about using event tech for projects, its about finding the right solution for the end user, and making sure that the solutions are a fit for both the event and the client and not shoe-horning tech into an event just because we feel we should be using event technology in events.
One of the key discussion on the day was how technology is helping to harness the power of social media promote and amplify events to create a more engaging and immersive experience for attendees. The debate highlighted a number of topics with core emphasis being around privacy, and how this element will be a huge talking point over the coming months, and that there is a belief that there may be a shift from public social media sites to private closed network sites, as currently there is an ongoing debate to who owns the data on social sites and in a competitive market place its essential to have your content private and secure.
Exhibitor highlights included; Bespoke event apps, giant video walls and interactive event media including live tweet walls, augmented reality and tablet based applications
In conclusion it was a great environment to see the ever changing face of event technology, and see all the suppliers and the direction into which the event industry may be moving, however the general consensus throughout the event is that we are still in the very early stages of harnessing event technology for consumer and business events and we still have a way to go before we move towards a fully integrated virtual event.
