The Creative Event Professional
We’ve all heard that automation, robots and artificial intelligence are going to fundamentally change the future of work but do we know how? One area where technology is already starting to make a profound change is in the events industry. This industry is bigger than the automobile industry and encompasses conferences, conventions, meetings and festivals. About 18 million events are organized in the US alone each year and it generates hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How artificial intelligence is changing the events industry
- Creativity and events
- Event Professionals Summit
- Meeting Planner vs Meeting Designer
- Keynote Speaker Holograms
- Augmented Reality at Events
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Transcript
We’ve all heard that automation, robots and artificial intelligence are going to fundamentally change the future of work but do we know how?
One area where technology is already starting to make a profound change is in the events industry. This industry is bigger than the automobile industry and encompasses conferences, conventions, meetings and festivals. About 18 million events are organized in the US alone each year and it generates hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide.
I’ve recently been interviewing some of the world’s leading event professionals, meeting planners and conference organizers for a new event I’m co-hosting called The Event Professionals Summit. You can go to EventProfessionalsSummit.com to get a Free Pass for the event and hear from the professionals who create events for Google, Adobe, Twitter, Coca Cola and some of the world’s biggest brands.
This is an industry that has had to adapt to a more social, mobile and digitally empowered attendee. Already we are starting to see chatbots, customer service and keynote speaker holograms and augmented reality challenge the very idea of what a ‘meeting planner’ is.
What myself and my co-host Erin Gargan have discovered is that these new disruptive technologies are allowing meeting and event professionals to be more creative. Technology is doing an increasing amount of the heavy lifting when it come to the ‘planning’ functions of an event which is allowing event professionals to focus more on event design, participant engagement and creating more immersive events for attendees and exhibitors.
In fact even the title of the ‘event planner’, which has traditionally been one of spreadsheets and tactical work, is being replaced with that of the ‘event designer’, a much more creative and strategic role. Event professionals are using their creativity to incorporate storytelling, experiential design and curation to create truly remarkable events.
As a keynote speaker who travels the world speaking at many of these conferences, AI, automation and robots present both a threat and an opportunity. In times past people would attend events for both the content and the networking opportunities. However due to the proliferation of online content and courses, TEDx talks and webinars the role of the speaker is having to change from the sage on the stage to more of a guide on the side. The speakers of today are having to understand that their role is not just to educate, entertain and inspire but also interact and actively help develop the community and networking aspects of events.
So whether you are organizing a small internal meeting for your organization or a large conference, event professionals will have to tap into their creativity in order to harness this technology to create more immersive experiences. If you’d like to learn more about how AI, automation and augmented reality are changing events then grab one of the Free Passes for the Event Professionals Summit by going to EventProfessionalsSummit.com. Thanks for watching.
