Impact of Technology on Events Industry

The paper discusses the impact of technology on the events industry, highlighting its benefits and drawbacks. The use of mobile devices, mobile internet, mobile applications, and web applications has transformed events into more interactive and two-way communication endeavors. However, before adopting the latest technological advancements, organizers must carefully consider the true costs and return on investment (ROI) to avoid disappointment and resource wastage.

<University>
TRANSFORMATION OF EVENTS INDUSTRY BY
TECHNOLOGY AND COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN
RECENT YEARS
by
<Your Name>
11th December
2016
<Lecturer’s Name and Course Number>
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 1 of 10

Computers and Technology have been revolutionizing the way of living, working,
earning, entertaining and every other aspect all over the world. Things which could
only be imagined in science fictions are a routine reality we do not know what the
future will unveil. Similar has been the case with events industry. Events industry
concerns itself with managing events, ranging from Olympics-level international
events to office lunches. In this paper, we will explore the transformations which have
been brought in events industry in the recent years, along with specific examples.
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 2 of 10

Transformation Of Events Industry By Technology And Computer Applications In
Technology is advancing, and evolving and revolutionizing every aspect of humans in
their wake. As observed by MacKenzie and Wajcman (1999), from birth to death, all
our lives are intertwined with technology, which ranges from simple tools to large
technical systems. Some of this technology is more visible, and directly used by
people of the world e.g. computers, Internet, mobile devices, mobile data networks,
etc while other is not directly visible but affects us nonetheless e.g. medicine, military,
etc.
This paper is an exploration of how technology has transformed events industry in the
recent years. Events can range from international Olympics-level to small office
gatherings. Now, as will all worthwhile endeavours, managing an event requires
organizing people, delegating responsibilities, ensuring schedule and other tasks. In
addition, the organizers would like to capitalize all possible opportunities for
advertisement, as well as providing better experience to audience. Event management
becomes more important for public events, where the success or failure of the event
depends upon people buying the tickets, taking time out of their schedule to come and
then actually enjoy the event. Events were being managed earlier also, so what
changes has technology brought in the recent years?
As per India (2012), events are a public assembly for the purpose of celebration,
education, marketing or reunion, while Phuah (2012) defines it in a general way as
being a designed experience in order to achieve a given purpose or objectives. Events
are launched with a purpose in mind, have a specific target audience, budget
constraints, arrangements requirements, etc. Managing an event is about bringing
together people and their skills, materials, and technology together to bring to fruition
an event. Events are classified into many types like corporate, conferences, glamour,
music concerts, sports, high profile weddings, political, trade shows (Changi, 2013)
(O'Connor, 2011). All the people and companies that engage in managing events
professionally come under the umbrella term of "events industry".
Transformations Brought By Technology And Computer Applications
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 3 of 10

A typical event management requires going through well-defined steps. These include
defining the goals of the event, arranging for speakers, setting up a budget,
establishing sponsorship, organizing a team, identifying suppliers and ensuring
procurement, etc. Almost each of them has been influenced and transformed by
technology as elaborated next.
For a conference, speakers are the reason, why anyone would bother to take time from
their lives and visit the venue. But, speakers are not chosen arbitrarily. For the success
of the event, it is essential that speakers and their content be vetted. For last couple of
years, email has been a preferred means of communication between the organizers
and the speaker, with the organizers managing the multiple speakers and their data in
plain files, Microsoft Excel or similar software. Now, specialised web applications
have been developed which allow for a faster and more efficient workflow. A
commercial example such a software is Abstract Scorecard.
Managing an event involves dealing with and managing loads of data. Traditional
tools include emails, Microsoft Excel. All these have a lot of friction and possibly
require communication among the parties just to synchronize their communication. To
better the situation, technology has come up with a solution of having a specialized
application that will handle all aspects of managing the data of an event. Commercial
service providers include Conference Harvester, BusyConf, etc and open-source (free)
software include conftool, Open Conference Systems.
Social media is a game changer for the publicity and promotion of events. As per
Kaplan and Haenlein (2016), social media is a collection of Internet-based
applications that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content. These
include sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Heaps (2013)
recommends that in addition to posting updates about the event, the speakers should
be encouraged to provide pre-event video which will be shared on social media sites.
Event managers like Harper (2013) believe that where the promotion of an event was
an isolated event in a single point in time, now social media has been embraced and
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 4 of 10

its collective power is used so that the event actually becomes a part of an extended
communications cycle.
A typical workflow goes like releasing a targeted message on social networks
(hashtag on Twitter, posts on Facebook and LinkedIn, etc) to get the buzz going about
the upcoming event. This is coupled with advertisements in the traditional and online
media (websites, feeds, paid blog posts, etc). Then, the interested public is encouraged
to participate in open forums of social media. This sets up an avalanche of public
interest in motion. Once the event is live, the audience is encouraged to update live
(using their mobile devices) on their social media profiles, adding to the excitement
for people not physically present on the venue (Heaps, 2013). An example of
encouraging this hype is Samsung buying advertisements on social website Twitter,
while the event for its competitor Apple was in progress (Heine, 2012).
As per Harper (2013), dedicated online registration systems are available e.g.
in2events of UK (http://www.in2events.co.uk ), and these bring many benefits over
the traditional pen and paper. He contends that since this process is automatic, this
saves the organizer time and the attendee has a better experience. Also, since data is
collected in a software, real-time tracking of the demographics of attendees can be
done. Also, since the registration is via a website which is available round-the-clock,
from all over the world, attendees have the power to register their interest and make
payments, if applicable at the time of their choosing, without having to make a visit
to the registration centre during the working hours.
Earlier, venue floor management was more or less static, with little leverage for
changes and rising up to contingencies. Also, printouts of the floor plan, as distributed
by flyers, pamphlets, and on billboards were the only way of advertising which booth
or talk is where. Now, tools have been developed which build upon technologies like
smartphones and Web to provide up-to-date floor plans, in addition to allowing
visitors to interact with the map. Other features include syncing the position to user's
smartphone to provide navigation from his current location to the booth he is
interested in. Commercial service providers include eventScribe Floor Plan, Planning
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 5 of 10

Pod, 3DEventDesigner, All Seated, Event Floor Plans and many others. Open source
software includes OSEM, etc. As per Solaris (2016), navigation and beacons
functionality is currently not performing as expected, and bugs appear in
implementation. However, he hopes that this is a routine matter with any
groundbreaking technology and will be sorted in the coming events.
As mentioned above, attendees and general public are encouraged to interact among
themselves before the event to help generate hype and grab mindshare over their
competitors. In addition, for some restricted audiences, technologies of mobile
devices, advanced operating systems and mobile data are being used to create
applications that allow the attendees to interact among themselves before, during or
after the event. As an example, consider app TEDConnect of TED Talks. As per May
(2015), the app is designed to inspire real-life interactions. This app allows the
attendees to share contact details by scanning user badge, know where the person is
currently in the venue (Ted.com, n.d.) and build a network of old and new people.
It is not possible for all people who want to attend an event to be able to physically
make it to the venue, and neither the venue can support unlimited number of people.
This gives rise to recently identified phenomena of Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) and
Solaris (2016) confirms that companies intentionally create and foster these feelings,
and later present their products as solutions to ease these feelings of being left out, of
being not in the loop. Whatever one's views may be on the topic of FOMO,
technology now allows live streaming as well live participation in an event. Live
telecast is an older facility, always available e.g. for sports, elections, etc. However,
for the purpose of events, they build upon technologies like video cameras, protocols
like Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), fast Internet connections to provide the
remote audience opportunity to participate in the live event.
Feedback of attendees as to the performance of speakers, and how they rate as to
fulfilling the expectations of a particular attendee is important. Segar (2013) and
Wyse (2012) stress the importance of gathering feedback and contend that the
feedback should be taken as soon as possible. Earlier, this would take the form of
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 6 of 10

sending printed feedback forms via postal mail, or emails. Now, based on the
technologies of mobile, Internet, and Web applications, this part of managing an event
is instant. Visitors may visit a website, or install an app and provide their feedback as
soon as they want. Commercial service providers include Survey Magnet, EventMobi,
etc.
Technology has taken the feedback one step further with live feedback, also referred
to as live polls, and is based on smart devices, applications and mobile Internet. Apps
installed on user's mobile device, or websites accessed using the user's mobile, or
sending of a SMS Text message with the user response allow a user to instantly
provide his feedback on the talk, while the talk is in progress. In addition, these
ratings can be updated to reflect the changing feedback. Commercial service providers
include Poll Anywhere, Sli.do, Bizzabo, Poll Event, etc.
Also, when event managers are encouraging audiences, visitors and others in general
to talk about the event before, during and after the event, then the managers require a
way to monitor the chatter on Web, to calculate the Return On Investment (ROI) in
the social media. For any event, manually monitoring the multiple social media sites
like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog posts, comments on forums, etc is neither
possible nor will cover all the updates, even if manual attempt is made. To help the
event organizers keep a tab on the public opinions shaping up, many tools have been
developed which build upon the technologies of Web, social media sites, and
computers and mobile devices. A popular commercial service provider is Hootsuite.
Opportunities for impressing the audience, and possibly directing them towards sale is
possible after the event is completed. Earlier, printouts of the materials of the talk
could be handed out to interested people. Also, email addresses could be collected
from people who would like to receive digital assets (like presentations, documents,
etc). Now, based on mobile devices and mobile apps, a new less cumbersome and
more direct way has been developed. The audience can visit a unique website on their
mobile browser, on which a mobile-optimized website will be presented for a
particular event. There the user may choose to download or email the assets
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 7 of 10

associated with the event. In addition, the owner will be provided stats about the
downloads. In addition, some service providers allow the event assets to be
downloaded via simple embeddable scripts on any webpage (Glisser.com, 2016).
As elaborated in this paper, technology has pushed the envelope (and will keep doing
so forever) of what is possible when organizing an event. The benefits include ease of
management, publicity, ease of use and audience delight, interactivity with audience,
etc. However, before an organizer decides to jump into the latest technological
advances, especially if they have not utilized these before, a deliberate analysis as to
the true costs and ROI need to be made. According to an industry veteran, Solaris
(2016), reasons for using these technologies like it is fashionable, or that the
technologies will solves all problems, or because the competitor used these are not
valid reasons, and jumping in without a definite measurable parameter in mind is
setting oneself up for disappointment and wastage of resources.
Technology is an inseparable part of human existence and stays and grows with man
from his birth to death (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999). Every aspect of human
endeavour is touched by technology, and there is feedback loop between user
requirements and technology. Both serve each other to grow to next level. This paper
examined the impact of technology, the changes it has brought to events industry,
both for the management side, and the attendee side. It is observed that mobile
devices, mobile Internet, mobile applications and Web applications are the
technologies that have had the most impact in transforming events into a more lively,
interactive, two-way communication endeavour. The paper elaborated upon the
aspects of event industry which have been transformed, looked into to the changes
with a mention of the current players in commercial, and free and open-source
(FOSS) software. Also, certain suggestions on the deciding upon the suitability of
using the latest technology for a company were presented as the literature suggests
that before jumping into apps and web-based tools for an event, an organizer must
commit itself in addition to having a clear ROI (Solaris, 2016).
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 8 of 10

Reference List
Changi, M. (2013). event management. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/mustafachangi/event-management-26869845
[Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Glisser.com. (2016). Glisser | Features. [online] Available at:
http://glisser.com/features/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Harper, R. (2013). How evolving technology is changing the events industry? |
B2B Marketing. [online] B2bmarketing.net. Available at:
https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en/resources/blog/how-evolving-technology-
changing-events-industry [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Heaps, J. (2013). 8 technologies all event planners must embrace. [online]
Specialevents.com. Available at: http://specialevents.com/blog/8-
technologies-all-event-planners-must-embrace [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Heine, C. (2012). Samsung Looks to Steal iPhone Thunder on Twitter. [online]
AdWeek. Available at: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/samsung-
looks-steal-iphone-thunder-twitter-143642 [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
India, A. (2012). Event management. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/aiesec_india/event-management-15783575
[Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Kaplan, A. and Haenlein, M. (2016). Users of the world, unite! The challenges
and opportunities of Social Media. [online] Available at:
http://michaelhaenlein.com/Publications/Kaplan,%20Andreas%20-
%20Users%20of%20the%20world,%20unite.pdf [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
MacKenzie, D. and Wajcman, J. (1999). The social shaping of technology. 1st
ed. Buckingham [Eng.]: Open University Press.
May, K. (2015). The story of TEDConnect, a conference app for real-life
interaction. [online] TED Blog. Available at: http://blog.ted.com/the-story-
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 9 of 10

of-tedconnect-a-conference-app-for-real-life-interaction [Accessed 11 Dec.
2016].
O'Connor, D. (2011). Events Industry. [online] Lit.ie. Available at:
http://www.lit.ie/BusAndHum/AppliedSocialSciences/Courses/26/event_ma
nagement/EventsIndustry.html [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Phuah, J. (2012). Event Management. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/JoeyPhuah/event-management-12856753
[Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Segar, A. (2013). Four important truths about conference evaluations. [online]
Conferences That Work. Available at:
http://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2013/09/four-
important-truths-about-conference-evaluations/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
Solaris, J. (2016). The Event App Bible. 1st ed. [ebook] Event Manager Blog.
Available at: http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/event-app-bible/ [Accessed
11 Dec. 2016].
Ted.com. (n.d.). TEDConnect. [online] Available at:
https://www.ted.com/attend/conferences/tedconnect [Accessed 11 Dec.
2016].
Wyse, S. (2012). The Importance of Post-Event Surveys. [online] Snap
Surveys Blog. Available at: http://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/importance-
postevent-surveys/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2016].
 <Your Name> <Your Student Number> 2016 10 of 10