Virtual Reality is Transforming the Event Planning Industry
Interview with Sandy Hammer, Co-Founder and CMO of AllSeated
Sandy Hammer, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of AllSeated, with over 20 years experiences in the event industry, recently talked with Stephanie Senger, Manager Communications at the GCB, about the potential of virtual reality in the event industry. How is this technology making an impact on the event industry and how can digital tools help save time when planning events? Read on for a summary of the interview. For the full interview, please watch the video.
Stephanie: How is virtual reality making an impact on the event industry?
Sandy: Virtual Reality is one of the coolest technologies that will be around for the next many years. It will get cooler and cooler. For example, AllSeated uses now the first wireless VR-Headset. Virtual Reality is here to stay and for us in the event industry it is a visual tool. It is the first time that we will have an immersive experience. If you put on Virtual Reality, you are taken to another place. You are almost imported to another dimension. And that put us into the space. Venues today are calling a VR-Headset a venue on the go. If you are sitting in Germany and want to show your property in L.A. or New York, you can pack your little venue and take it with you on the go. There are exciting opportunities and I think, the biggest excitement is the visual aspect of Virtual Reality, our imagination will come to life.
Stephanie: How has technology changed the way floorplans are created, managed, and executed by event professionals?
Sandy: The biggest change over the last six to seven years is the collaboration aspect of that. Floor plans were always there, however we didn’t have the opportunity to collaborate. What is the most important thing about a floor plan? We change it all the time. Design evolves. The digital aspect of collaboration that is cloud based is, that we can invite everybody in and see things and all changes in real time. And we don’t have to be in one room at the same time: We sit together virtually and work on the floor plan together. For me collaboration of having everybody involved is the biggest transformation of where we have gone forward in digital tools.
Stephanie: How can digital tools help event professionals to collaborate more efficiently and save them time when planning an event?
Sandy: Efficiency. It is not just about seating and floor planning. Tools today like “Slack” are being built for us so that we can really become more professional, more efficient. And floor planning is just one of those things, that used to take us hours and hours of time. Today, you are not doing it all on your own. You can actually collaborate, be more efficient and save time. And that is what the future is.
Stephanie: So very exciting times ahead. Thank you very much for your time Sandy!
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