Why people will meet in the future?
This is the most important question we need to ask to all actors in the Events Industry as it has a direct impact and will demand something new from us all when coming back to face to face meetings.
At the moment we are fully submersed in an industry transformation process, starting from people’s professions, technology and robotic development and their impact on our daily life. This is an ongoing process as a global brainstorming is still happening. We cannot know for sure how events will look like on return. Everything points to the fact that great part of the in-person events will be hybrid. In this case, the reason people decide to meet must be more than getting some information that can be easily accessed online and the physical attendance to an event needs to be more beneficial at the end of the day than virtual attendance.
The event industry has to create new products and services, develop new skills and introduce new formats that can make the event relevant for the market.
Mathias Schulze from the German Convention Bureau presented the following graphic to reflect on what is happening when people get tired of using technology to communicate and collaborate. The human nature makes us want to come back to meet face to face in a world where Zoom Fatigue is a new condition for us all.
The change has happened, the Pandora box has been opened and there is no going back. Virtual is here to stay and the real need is to figure out how this will change our work, our profitability and logistics.
Added values like informality, closeness and reading or understanding people better cannot be provided online, no matter how much we try and for the whole humanity to lose these habits it will take more than 2 or 3 years.
How prepared is the events industry to face and survive this transition period and to make it profitably?
The key points here are digitalization is happening and will keep on growing, but we need to make sure we use it correctly and that we aim towards digital humanism.
Behind each digital tool, we need to ensure the human touch, otherwise it remains just a tool. Especially in the events industry, where trust between people is probably the most important pillar when managing an event, machines cannot go that deep. They can ease our work and make us more efficient, but they human logic, humor, strategic thinking and flexibility has not been yet replicated in the digital world.
We need to change our habits and skills and adapt to the new formats and MICE industry was claiming a digital facelift even before the Pandemics, but we need to be aware that this transition process will keep ongoing for a few years now before we can shout EVRIKA on the right balance between all these factors.
Check out more, in the follow article about “The impact of Digital Events” https://e-ventology.com/the-impact-of-digital-events/
Check also : https://bit.ly/virtualeventsarenottheenemy
1 Comment