Global venue association AIPC CEO Sven Bossu says 2025 could see ‘two become one’.
From the moment we wake up, technologies bridge our physical life with one that is digital. In a paper published in July 2024, Dr Matt Frew from the School of Business and Enterprise at the Sven Bossu University of the West of Scotland, stated that “emerging DARQ technologies and an accelerating Metaverse are reshaping the event landscape, birthing a new era of extended reality events (XREvents)”.
But, just how ‘DARQ’ is the future of events? As we head into the new year, two types of reflection arise: what happened over the last 12 months and what will happen over the next 12 months.
Looking ahead, the outlook seems uncertain on many fronts. At the same time, one thing is very clear: technology will continue to become more important for the events industry and we will need to understand the change that comes with it. Therefore, it is important to take a step back and read papers like the one published by Dr Frew, as they provide a broader view on event trends, which allows us to focus on what is really important.
While the title of his paper may seem alarming, the content is far less so. Events, indeed, reflect wide changes happening in society – including technology – and should be considered as portals of transition. The technology-driven events we see today have little to do with the informal gatherings which mark the start of our industry.
At the same time, the very basis of meetings and events has not changed: it is still about bringing communities together. What is new, however, is the acceleration of technologies, combined with the blend between physical and digital. As a result, communities now gather on a continuous basis in different environments, using different types of technology, including brain-computer interfaces.
Going forward, it is expected we’ll see more of these ‘blends’. Take the ABBA Voyage tour in London as an example, which is basically bringing together large crowds to watch a younger version of the band, in the shape of avatars, and with the event experience being extended via followers and influencers to improve reach and turn involvement of the event community into revenue.
Over a 12-month period, that show completed 374 performances and attracted 1,097,597 visitors, achieving an occupancy rate of 97.8%. Revenue was over £103m in ticket sales alone ($130m).
So, next to the traditional live events and cloned hybrid events, we’ll also need to consider extended reality events going forward. The challenge for the event industry will be to fully understand the potential these evolutions can bring and to decide accordingly on the technology investment that needs to be made.
All of this will not happen overnight but, given the speed at which our physical and digital lives become intertwined, this new reality will be here sooner than later, making the debate between ‘live events’ and ‘digital events’ an obsolete one. They will not co-exist – they will become one, allowing for new models of engagement and community building. So, the future is most definitely not dark.
