A New Dimension
To experiment with virtual reality and create memorable immersive experiences, brands are partnering with technology company Oculus Rift. As part of its Travel Brilliantly campaign, Marriott took two Oculus Rift-equipped booths on a tour across the United States, inviting people to virtually visit a London skyscraper, a Hawaiian beach, and its new lobby concept. An activation for Canon at London Fashion Weekend allowed people to become models and virtually experience activities such as exiting a car to awaiting paparazzi and walking the catwalk. Fans of the HBO show Game of Thrones scaled a 700-foot wall of ice during a mobile tour that came to events such as the Time Warner Cable Studios showcase during the Super Bowl in New York.
Gender Gap
Tech events have yet to shed their image as Âunwelcoming to women. Notable examples include an ad promoting Chicago’s Techweek Black Tie Rave party in June that showed two young women in tight clothes striking flirty poses, moving Crain’s Chicago Business to pull its Techweek sponsorship. Also, at a February Harvard computer science conference geared toward women, sponsor Goldman Sachs made a poor choice of giveaways: nail files and mirrors that bore the bank’s logo.
iBeacons Beckon
Planners and venues are making clever use of iBeacons, Apple’s digital innovation that directs targeted content to people’s smartphones when they pass by a certain area. This year, the San Diego Convention Center installed iBeacons throughout the venue, allowing meeting planners to send personalized notifications such as V.I.P. events or breakout sessions. Pernod Ricard U.K. used iBeacons at its annual Summer Party to send guests their event ticket as they approached the venue, alert hosts of guests’ arrival, and offer off-menu drink specials as guests approached the main bar.
Drone Invasion
Though drones are not yet legal everywhere, event innovators are already figuring out how to use the technology at events. From capturing aerial photographs and videos to delivering food and beverages to guests, the possibilities of the tiny flying devices at events are ever expanding.
Boston Strong—and Secure?
In August, a report revealed that Boston police experimented with a new event-monitoring platform using facial-recognition software at the 2013 Boston Calling music festival—the first large public gathering in Boston since the 2013 bombings at the city’s marathon. Police said it helped with crowd and traffic management and other large-scale event security tasks, but civil liberties experts have questioned the constitutionality of the practice.
Radio Days
Radio frequency identification, or R.F.I.D., technology truly took off this year at events. Used as wristbands or credit-card-size passes, the technology was used at music festivals like Lollapalooza—which officially went cashless in 2014—and at other events to post to social media sites.
