Alright New York Event Planners, what new event tech have you implemented into your events and planning since the new year began? None? Well, the team at The Event Planner Expo rounded up the latest and greatest in event tech trends of 2019 to show you where you can put these bad boys into effect.
While most trends have the tendency to change over time (like virtual reality for starters), it’s always shocking to us how many trends do stay the same, while developing over time in some sort of subtle way or the other. As far as technology goes, we’ve noticed that the biggest difference in trends is usually accessibility. So as event tech continues to be refined and developed, it becomes seamless to implement, which makes accessibility better than ever. That’s excellent news for New York Event Planners.
Let’s review some of the latest and greatest in event tech trends…
Artificial Reality and Virtual Reality
After making a dramatic entrance on the event scene, artificial reality, and virtual reality are still the most relevant trend and becoming even more dynamic with every year that passes. It’s become easier and less expensive than ever before – which in turn has made it become more accessible for those Event Planners in New York who are working with smaller budgets. You can use AR & VR tools for better engagement, branding purposes, and more. So far, we’ve noticed that using this form of event tech always adds a wow factor for attendees.
Virtual Events
Taking time off work and having to travel can be an inconvenience for many professionals. Between the lack of flexibility and expense, offering an alternative comes handy at time. While virtual events are less effective than attending an in-person business event, they are in fact becoming more and more popular each year. From livestreaming on Facebook, Instagram, twitch streaming or other social media platforms, the virtual events concept has truly grown. As technology improves, the features for virtual events are increasing which affords users that ability to interact more and chat in real time. Yes, some people may feel that offering a virtual event option will only cannibalize ticket sales in addition to decrease ROI (return on investment), but the truth is that in most cases when you provide a virtual event as an add-on option to a live event it can boost attendance. They can also be considered an excellent alternative for those with tighter budgets to attend.
Chatbots – Artificial Intelligence
Chatbots started as a customer service tool for businesses who have an online presence to ease communication between a company and their consumers. Now that they’ve been around for a while, they’ve become quite useful in the events industry and as they continuously get smarter, they’re being used to provide recommendations, answer attendee questions, and they also serve as another touchpoint to connect with attendees. When used strategically, chatbots can be reinforcement for a brand and serve a necessary purpose. Are chatbots right for you? Or, are mobile event apps (the industry standard) a much better option? It’ll be fascinating to see how much further chatbots advance in the coming year.
Mobile Event Apps
Speaking of mobile event apps. In the past, mobile event apps were not only a unique concept, but also challenging to design, and quite expensive. Nowadays? They’re practically universal. It is no longer a selling point if your event has a mobile event app. Actually, it’s rather a negative point if it doesn’t. 2019 trends are demonstrating new ways to engage and enable more personalized interactions with attendees. Mobile event apps have become the gateway to capturing new attendee data that can be used later on for further personalization opportunities.
Beacons
Beacons have been around for several years but are now developing as a much bigger player — a perfect mate to the mobile app for your event. Event tech trends are not intended to just be showstoppers for your attendees. Some trends help Event Planners in New York. Beacons help both parties. You can use beacons to track attendees and to deliver a better flow to the event. The tracking component will help you recognize movement patterns that will help you understand where to adjust the location for certain booths or to ensure that you put the coffee station in the right area of the room. You can also use beacons for check-in and proximity marketing.
Facial recognition – Biometric Authentication
Among other challenges, facial recognition is still facing some privacy hurdles but is yet another way that you can track attendees and ease the check-in process. Another plus is that it’s more secure than other approaches for the check-in process. Security is often a concern at events and safeguarding that you know who’s attending your event is key. This is yet another event tech trend worth keeping an eye on as they tighten privacy laws around the globe.
Event Diagramming
Event diagramming tools are continuously being improved. They allow you to lay out your event in any way you want. That permits you to plan and control your event much better. Diagramming tools are becoming more available to event teams of all sizes.
Event Automation
If you have been waiting to take the plunge with event automation, here’s the good news: event tech is cultivating by leaps-and-bounds. If you are still doing most of your event planning tasks manually, then now may be the time to change things up. There are simpler ways out there. From data gathering to automation, event insights to push notifications, event management technology provides the ability to enhance the entire attendee experience and show the ROI of your event. This is the year to demonstrate your success!
Event Gamification
Whether through the use of beacons or mobile event apps (even facial recognition!), gamification is all the rage. Attendees love a little rivalry and enabling a way to engage makes the event even more exclusive. As the event tech advances, the games and challenges will follow suit.
Conclusion
If you’re an Event Planner in New York who has yet to implement any of the above event tech trends, make this the year you try something new! While some trends are more adventurous than others, don’t be frightened to start small. You’ll be switching up from sticky notes and Excel spreadsheets to event management technology that will make a huge difference in your event planning process. The bonus is that these tools will cut down the amount of time you spend doing dull tasks!
Want to learn more about event tech trends that will improve your event planning process? You can find out about the latest trends in event planning each year at The Event Planner Expo 2019! Come join us.
