Technology Revolutionizing the Event Industry

This report provides an overview of how technology is revolutionizing the event industry. It highlights the latest technological advancements and their impact on event planning. The report also provides real examples of how technology has innovated events and discusses whether current technological advancements are a trend or indispensable tool for the modern event planner.

Running head: EVENT MANAGEMENT
EVENT MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1EVENT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Technology is revolutionizing the event industry...........................................................................3
Examples of technology innovating events.....................................................................................5
Current technological advancements are a trend or indispensable tool for the modern event
planner.............................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

2EVENT MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The present report provides an overview about the advancement of technology
revolutionizing the event industry over the last few decades. The event sector has been
expanding around the globe with the advent of new technologies. In the current years, adoption
of these emerging technologies has simplified the event management operation in planning an
event (Damm 2012). The latest information technology (IT) systems have made it easier for the
event company to organize event and motivate more event attendees. Some of the marketing
technologies including – social media pages, email marketing software has benefitted the event
industry to attract potential event attendees across the globe. The report also focuses on the real
events of how the technological advancement innovate events. Furthermore, this study also
highlights on how the current technological advancement has been a trend or indispensable tool
for the modern event planner.
Technology is revolutionizing the event industry
Technological advancements have revolutionized the event planning industry for over the
last few years. This means that emerging technologies have benefitted the event planners by
making it much easier to organize their events. It has also streamlined as well as consolidated the
event organizers meeting systems (B2bmarketing.net.2018). In the present decade, the event has
been considered as the extended cycle of communication as the event organizers communicates
with the audiences through registrations, invitations, surveys, events etc. However, with the
emerging communication technological tools, the event planners gets opportunity to interact with
the audience and take hold of the moment via online as well as offline mode. In addition,
technological advancement has also helped the event organizers to understand the targeted

3EVENT MANAGEMENT
audience before the event and deliver the message in effective way (Yeoman et al. 2012)
Integration of online registration system also facilitates the event organizers to save their time
and focus on the vital aspects of event (Mair and Whitford 2013). Some of the major
technologies that have changed the event industry over the past five years are given below:
 Digital administration- This is one of the important tools that helps the event planners to
manage each of the events, breakout and the attendee across the globe in real time. The
relevant content is given to the event company’s registration page so that the attendees
inputs as well as answer their registration criteria.
 RFID ( Radio Frequency Identification)- This technology allows the reader and
wireless chip to communicate over long as well as short distances. These wireless chips
are usually embedded in different materials such as wristbands and badges and thus
causes seismic shift in this industry (Meetingdesigninstitute.org. 2018). One example of
event that incorporated this technology and gained good result is the Tommorow land
music festival held at Belgium. The organizers of this event used wristbands with the
RFID chips for enabling their attendees to connect with each other.
 Augmented reality (AR)- It is basically the method of digitally imposing data over some
physical objects by utilizing mobile. This technology transformed this industry as it
permits the vendors to display their goods without even physically transporting it to
event. Moreover, it also helps the sponsors of event to show the advertisement at any
place throughout the venue. This technology also has facilitates the organizers to increase
the attendees engagement by making them more interactive.

4EVENT MANAGEMENT
 Virtual Reality (VR)- This technology is used by the event organizers to enhance the
experiences of event attendees. This application allows the event attendees to view the
festival grounds and 360 degree photos from the last year.
 Social Media- Rapid implementation of different social media sites ranging from
LinkedIn, twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and so on has widened the event marketing. This
offers several opportunities for engaging in event from live streaming to updating images
post the event (Lee, Xiong and Hu 2012). Additionally, the sponsors also focus on this
social media for determining their investment in the specific event.
 Live streaming-This technology gives insight to the followers about the event and also
boosts their involvement in the event. Moreover, the people who fail to attend the event
can follow it with the help of this technology.
 Hashtags- Application of the event hastag facilitates the event organizers to reach out to
new audience. Therefore, creating as well as using the hastag helps the event planners to
promote their event.
All of these technologies create more opportunities for the event industry to improve as well
as shape their events. It also aids the event planners to innovate new event and increase their
efficiency in their job. Recent evidences reflects that emerging technologies have been
continuously changing the method the event organizers plan their events. Moreover, the event
industry gets continuously connected to the social media even after the event in order to obtain
feedback from their attendees (Zhou and Chen 2014). This in turn helps them to improve their
event plan in future and build good relationship with them. Moreover, the organizers also post
the event videos over the social media for promoting their events and motivate the individuals to
register.

5EVENT MANAGEMENT
Examples of technology innovating events
Innovative utilization of beacon technology
Beacon technology release signals to the event application and can also be tailored for
presenting valuable data to the attendees. For example, Levi Stadium situtated in San Fransico
had installed beacon technology in the year 2014 for managing the flow of crowd, provide better
football experience to the attendees and also sends alerts during the beginning of any special
events (Brown 2014). However, this technology also benefits the attendees by reducing their
wait time. Furthermore, one of the biggest music festivals in Romania named as Electric Castle
used beacon technology for creating their treasure hunt for over 100 acres of land. This also
pushed out riddles for the participants and quest activities in order to meet the requirements for
prizes.
VR technology is one of the emerging technologies that help in innovating events. One of
the new trends that the event planners use it at their meetings as well as conferences is the virtual
information booths (Rogers 2013). For example, the Coachella Music Festival has recently
launched the VR application prior to their event, which permitted the attendees to see the photos
in 360 degree and watch interviews with the individuals performing in the event.
Some of the companies including Visage technology uses XOX emotional technology
platform that provides sensory wristband for measuring the excitement and biometric measures
of the attendees. In addition, several compaies like TeleMe and MantaroBots uses robotic
technology in their event in order to capture the activities going on during the event. They also
uses dtones for capturing aerial photos or delivers drinks, which have been through mobile
application.

6EVENT MANAGEMENT
Current technological advancements are a trend or indispensable tool for the modern event
planner
Some of the current technological advancements that are trend for the modern event planners
are described below-
 Meerkat- This technology allows the attendees in event to share their live streams
through their smart phones or other devices.
 Eventbase- This is basically a mobile platform that has been designed for creating
connections as well as lead retrieval between the attendees and exhibitors
(Socialtables.com. 2018).
 Initlive- This technology streamlines the process of communication by coordinating with
the staffs in real time.
 Microsites- This technology helps to convey the message of the particular event rather
than implementing information pages into the existing websites.
 Com- This is a cloud based platform of event management, which provides
communication, registration and social media features to the modern event planners.
 Live slidesharing- Slideshare has been one of the flexible as well as powerful tool for
the event professionals. The modern event planners uses their smartphones to share slides
live to their attendees in order to create some memorable events.
 Geofilters- This technology helps to advertise the event and interact with the individuals
in local area.
 AI ( Artificial events) for events- It is one of the big waves of the event technology. Its
matchmaking engine helps the organizers to construe data from the attendee’s social
media profiles.

7EVENT MANAGEMENT
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that the implementation of new technologies
in the event industry helps the organizers to manage the event in easier way. The evolving
technologies benefit the event planners by reducing their workload and increasing their
efficiency level. Furthermore, it also facilitates the event management companies to reduce cost
and generate higher revenue. Emerging technologies such as scannable QR codes has been used
by this industry for online ticketing and gather data from the attendees that actively scans object
at live events. For staying at the forefront of event industry, the event planners use social media
as well as other emerging technologies for engaging the attendees and measuring the ROI
(Return on Investment) of the event. Hence, integration of new technologies has been
continuously expanding and revolutionizing the event industry. Although some of the event
organizers are facing difficulty in adopting these technologies, it has been a trend over the past
few years.

8EVENT MANAGEMENT
References
B2bmarketing.net. (2018). How evolving technology is changing the events industry? | B2B
Marketing. [online] Available at: https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en-gb/resources/blog/how-
evolving-technology-changing-events-industry [Accessed 15 Feb. 2018].
Brown, S. (2014). Emerging Professionalism in the Event Industry: A Practitioner's
Perspective. Event Management, 18(1), pp.15-24.
Damm, S. (2012). Event Management. Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag.
Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events.
Routledge.
Lee, W., Xiong, L. and Hu, C., 2012. The effect of Facebook users’ arousal and valence on
intention to go to the festival: Applying an extension of the technology acceptance
model. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), pp.819-827.
Mair, J. and Whitford, M., 2013. An exploration of events research: event topics, themes and
emerging trends. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 4(1), pp.6-30.
Meetingdesigninstitute.org. (2018). 6 Massive Technology Shifts Happening In The Events
Industry | Meeting Design Institute. [online] Available at:
http://www.meetingdesigninstitute.org/6-massive-technology-shifts-happening-events-industry
[Accessed 15 Feb. 2018].

9EVENT MANAGEMENT
Padmanabhan, U., Messing, W., Shetter, M., Gershanovich, T., Ricker, M.J., Peters, J.P., Sarin,
R.K., Matthews III, J.H., Gonzalez, M. and Park, J.P., Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC,
2015. Event-based media grouping, playback, and sharing. U.S. Patent 9,143,601
Rogers, T., 2013. Conferences and conventions 3rd edition: A Global Industry. Routledge.
Socialtables.com. (2018). 5 Event Technology Trends Shaping the Future of Event Planning.
[online] Available at: https://www.socialtables.com/blog/event-technology/event-technology-
trends/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2018].
Yeoman, I., Robertson, M., Ali-Knight, J., Drummond, S. and McMahon-Beattie, U. eds.,
2012. Festival and events management. Routledge.
Zhou, X. and Chen, L., 2014. Event detection over twitter social media streams. The VLDB
journal, 23(3), pp.381-400.