The conference and meeting partition of the events sector is worth a whopping 19.9 billion pounds in the UK alone, with conferences and meetings being held constantly up and down the country. One of the bonuses of having a company in and around London is that London is the number one city for in terms of meetings and events activity in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The average conference in the UK has 258 delegates, now again this would be great if everyone had companies in and around London, with London being the hub, but chances are there will be companies wanting to send delegates from all over the country, and EMEA, depending on the conference. The problem is some companies especially SME’s may not have the resources to send staff to a conference, regardless of how much they would benefit from attending.
Many conferences with try to accommodate for those who cannot attend by recording the seminars and hosting and sending them to the absentees, but even still many people receive the seminar videos, with full intention of watching them, but just never get round too it, which is why working in real time is so important. This is where 360 degree video comes into the picture, as described in my last blog series “a video recording where an omnidirectional camera records in every direction at the same time. During playback the viewer is fully immersed in the spot the recording was made, the panoramic feature allows you to scroll around to see the surroundings, or using a VR headset with a gyroscopic sensor the viewer turns their head to look around them, seeing the whole environment exactly as it was recorded.”
Now envisage this in the conference environment, not only would it be great for speakers that use the whole of the stage, but imagine being able to look around using a VR viewer and seeing everyone’s reactions as the seminar proceeds, providing you with a fully immersed experience. You could implement this in several different ways, you can either record the whole seminar in 360 degree video, sending absentees the link, or you could live stream the event in 360 degree format, this way people will be able to attend from across the world in real-time and not miss buzz of finding out information as it is released.
360 Video does not simply have to be a communication tool; it can also be used in the same way videos are used, as support material for presentations. Many conference speakers like to include a life experience anecdote in their seminars, whether it’s scaling Everest or exploring the Serengeti, just for a moment imagine how good it would be to experience those moments with the speaker, if everyone in the room was given a VR viewer, the could first person see the experience of being in the Serengeti or Everest, just without all the negatives of being really cold and the 38.5 mile dangerous trek to base camp. When it comes to giving promotional items at conferences, conference folders are generally top of the list, they are useful and relevant to the event, but that’s not stopping you from adding VR Viewers. As a matter of fact in our range we have a VR viewer with all over print (fantastic for branding) that is flat packed perfect to fit in a conference folder!