Oct. 11, 2011 – Las Vegas, NV – On the opening day of IMEX America, global futurist and director of the Convention 2020 Research Study, Rohit Talwar, took visitors to the show’s LearningCurve Zone through some of the main trends and innovations happening in today’s meetings and events industry.
With an emphasis on real-world examples and case histories, Talwar described new and emerging techniques and technologies are increasingly shaping the value proposition for meeting, events and conference goers – particularly Gen Y and Gen Z.
Talwar pointed towards increasingly short keynotes and breakouts as well as more action-oriented formats such as speed-networking and speed meetings. The study results also show that participants also see great value in events that allow the audience to engage in Q&A’s with presenters for the majority rather than the minority of time. They also respond more and more favorably to shorter sessions repeated more frequently and to one-on-one access to the actual creators, scientists or developers behind new products and service offerings in particular.
A trend for keynote addresses to be kept to just 15 or 20 minutes followed by breakout opportunities with the speaker for more personal interaction was also noted as extremely popular.
Talwar described how co-located breakouts have also been appearing with more frequency. He told participants that having a number of speakers available via headphones and then allowing delegates to choose which presentation they join based on the samples they’d just heard is also on the rise. “Delegate choice is a bit like the killer app of our times,” he said.
He also revealed that conference and meeting-goers expect to have a direct-hand in deciding the content they receive. One example he gave was a rare mix of 15 hours of content decided and prepared by conference organizers but a huge 50 hours decided by participant consultation in advance. As well as content type, participants in this example were polled about their desired formats and delivery channels. Borrowing a marketing model more commonly used in the consumer sector, some events and meetings are also now incentivizing delegates to ‘bring a friend’ (known as ‘member get member’ in marketing terms) in order to receive preferential discounts to relevant events.
Although technology alone cannot replace the human experience of shaking someone’s hand, Convention 2020 study findings demonstrate that technology will continue to play an increasing role as a participant and a planner of meetings, conferences and events.
“Through social media, apps and mobile technology today’s event-goers already expect organizers to communicate, add value and market to them more directly and personally,” said Talwar. “That trend will only continue to grow,” he concluded.
Newer and increasingly more affordable technologies, such as RFID tracking, are also helping meeting and event planners to gain more insight into the interests, time investment and floor “travel” patterns of their delegates. RFID badge-scanning, which is being used this week during IMEX America, will allow planners to optimize layouts and content in increasingly sophisticated ways in the future, according to Talwar.
Finally Heptics, Touchable Holograms, 3D phones and 3D laptops plus augmented reality technologies, were also discussed as ‘here today’ technologies that are likely to dominate the future.
