Is Metaverse the future of the Event Industry?

Authored by Paras Lohani, Founder & CEO of B2B Sales Arrow

Metaverse, a latest technological concept that is quickly gaining the attention of corporate leaders in the United States and Europe, who see it as a viable solution for communicating in 3-dimensional areas in ways that go beyond the capabilities of existing virtual collaborative solutions.

Virtual activities and meetings will be more realistic and engaging, equivalent to in-person meetings, with the expected emergence of metaverse technology, which employs VR, AR, digital avatars, and spatial audio to allow people to communicate in a 3D space. It’s no surprise that corporate leaders, advertisers, and marketers are absolutely delighted.

Technologically Promising

In his year-end blog, Bill Gates, the tech industry doyen, and creator of Microsoft Inc., predicted that most virtual meetings “would shift from 2-dimensional captured image grids towards the metaverse, a 3-dimensional realm with digital avatars” within the next 2-3 years. He said that metaverse technology would allow anyone to create their own avatars that they could communicate in virtual space. Virtual reality eyewear and motion capture gloves will accurately depict expressions, body language, and voice quality, simulating the sensation and feel of in-person meetings.

Before Mr. Gates' declaration about the metaverse, Facebook said in October that it was transforming its entire corporate brand to center around the metaverse. Disney even stated in 2020 that it would create its own metaverse to “enable storytelling without bounds”. McDonald’s recently submitted trademark applications in the United States for the first-ever metaverse shop. Some of the world's biggest sporting and entertainment events, including the Australian Open, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2022), and others, are moving to Metaverse. The metaverse features were even put on the catwalk at New York Fashion Week in February.

Undoubtedly, the metaverse, as it evolves, appears to have applications and benefits in a variety of unexpected ways, but the end result of this young technology may be fraught with teething problems, as was the case with Samsung’s first try in the metaverse, which had major technical faults.

Downsides: Indian context

The novelty of the metaverse may entice many to test out this brand new technology at first, but once the novelty wears off, metaverse adoption in India may be modest as compared to virtual event development over the past two years.

Furthermore, new technology uptake in India is typically 1-2 years slower than in developed markets such as the United States, thus metaverse may be no exception. Because the majority of metaverse technology is being developed in the United States, the costs will initially be high until Indian players begin designing, manufacturing, and distributing both hardware and software for this new technology in India. Because there are few service providers at first, the expenses of such events will be greater, and uptake may be slow.

Furthermore, few people will be able to afford the high-priced headset and other AR/VR devices required for metaverse events. Furthermore, the least bandwidth requirement for participating in a metaverse event is rather high, exceeding 30 Mbps per system, which is something impossible for almost all Indian families.

Conclusion

Metaverse events are an effort to bridge the gap between virtual and real-world events by allowing much bigger groups from all over the world to converge, connect, attend seminars, workshops, and panels, and even participate in entertainment activities.

As the technology enables much larger-scale networking, collaboration, branding, and lead generation without the need to engage in logistics such as travel and lodging for attendees, it may result in a greater return on marketing spends.

On the other hand, event planners must consider the possibility that after the novelty wears off, metaverse will just be another screen to add to guests' screen weariness.

In general, it’s safe to assume that metaverse will be more useful in the B2B market in the country, which has superior infrastructure than the B2C segment. the Metaverse might become a cost-effective option for experience creation and networking over time as the technology becomes more affordable and more providers join the bandwagon.

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