Words by Jack Ukil, director of sales, Cvent Australia.

In a world dominated by technology, it’s often difficult for players in the tech industry to make their presence felt.

Technology has infiltrated nearly every aspect of our lives and consumers can be highly critical of trends that don’t enhance or simplify their busy lives.

In the years ahead, event technology will continue to revolutionise events. Here are top five trends that are making a significant impact in enhancing the attendee experience:

1. 3D interactive invitations – gone are the days of email or paper invitations. Expect to see invitations that use 3D graphics to engage the recipient and increase event
   attendance and excitement.
2. Mobile robotic check-in kiosks – check-in queues will soon be a thing of the past. Intelligent check-in kiosks will move autonomously to busy areas, alleviating congestion and eliminating the stress associated with the event check-in process.
3. Facial recognition and facial feedback – facial recognition technology will check you in without the hassle of scanning badges or sourcing misplaced tickets. This technology can also recognise delegate emotions and feedback from cameras placed around event spaces, giving organisers the ability to act quickly and adjust programs in real-time based on attendee feedback.
4. Telepresence and remote attendance – inability to physically make it to an event will no longer be a problem. Telepresence and remote attendees will move, interact, converse, learn, and engage as if they were right there in the room.
5. Voice interfaces – over 35 million people use voice assistants on their phones, so why not have voice interfaces that act as a concierge service? Using personalised artificial intelligence, with smart voice responses, they can answer questions from, ‘Where’s the coffee?’ to ‘What events are happening now?’.

Event organisers want multiple touchpoints to engage their delegates, but also desire simplicity and reliability. Innovative technology continues to push our industry to develop simpler, more efficient ways of communicating and interacting with our attendees and delegates.

In Australia, the interest in and use of cloud-based event management solutions has grown exponentially. The next wave of innovative technology will no doubt continue to fuel this growth leading to a better user experience.

This article originally appearing in the August edition of Spice Magazine. To subscribe, click here.