As Apple reveals plans to rollout greater Augmented Reality (AR) innovations, EW asks whether this puts an onus on exhibitions
Just because Apple is doing it, doesn’t make it a success. Apple’s history is littered with products that failed (does anyone remember the Newton and Lisa?) and even the much lauded Apple watch has all but disappeared. This isn’t a criticism of Apple; we can’t stumble unless we are moving.
AR has been available on smartphones since 2010 when Layar was launched but we haven’t seen a deluge of AR applications either in the events industry or the ‘real world’. AR is a novelty, a fidget spinner; a shiny new toy that can be quite fun in the short term, but so far has no practical application in the events industry.
Some tech experts will proclaim that AR will revolutionise exhibitions; that AR could be used to overlay information about an exhibitor across their stand. But why? What does it actually add to the user experience? An exhibition stand (if designed properly) should already tell a visitor what a company does, and then, if they want to find out more they go on to the stand and engage with the stand holder. In a year’s time we will be asking: “Whatever happened to AR kit?”
Augmented reality has the potential to add dimension to events that would take them to the next level — not just allowing for deeper engagement and more interaction, but creating solutions that provide a better overall attendee experience.
Imagine attendees walking the show floor. Supercharging your show’s mobile app with a little AR magic would allow it to recognise objects around the area and feed attendees with event updates about sponsors, booths, activities, individual products on display, as well as the social profiles of other attendees.
And with next-gen mobile devices utilising frameworks and hardware that allow for proper topography of the surrounding area, you can enhance the real world, doing almost anything you can do online. You could even achieve actual wayfinding from a mobile device, with the phone recognising where attendees are in the 3D space and guiding them through the event space.
Think about creating an experience with AR at its centre, allowing attendees to continue to interact and engage in the real world while using their devices in a way that feels seamless, authentic, and enriching.
In 1992 there was a film called The Lawnmower Man, which heralded the arrival of VR. Everything was going to be VR, we were going to be able to walk down virtual shopping aisles and pick up virtual products with out virtual hands then pay at the virtual checkout.
We still haven’t really worked out what VR is. Right now, it’s a solution looking for a problem because there is no problem that needs to be solved with Virtual Reality.
For example with online shopping, it’s not virtual, it’s just clickable. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to go anywhere, whether virtually or physically, to get what you want. It’s minimum effort for maximum ease.
Another solution to a problem that never really existed is the Segway. It’s a novelty. A gimmick,
AR is something I can see having a lot of benefits, especially for the events industry, because it does not aim to replace real life, but enhance it. Because with all of these new technologies that hit the events industry, the key is to innovate. We don’t need to ‘invent’. We need to look at what’s already going on, and use the best of it to support our event objectives.
