BILL GATES, WISE, VR & THE EVENT OF THE FUTURE

Bill Gates did it again: "If in the spring of 2021 people are going to big public events—like a game or concert in a stadium—it will be because we have a miraculous treatment that made people feel confident about going out again." Read: There won't be ANY big scale events until way into 2021 unless a miracle happens. Of course, you can choose to ignore Gates warnings (or believe in miracles), but after we all were not listening to him when he warned us of the next pandemic in his 2015 Ted Talk, maybe it's now time to face reality and see how we can live without "big public events "in the next year or so.

But if not "big" what about "small "? Well, if we think about everything we know about the Virus so far, it should be possible as long as we keep our distance and wear our masks – our new fashion item, symbol and possible cash cow for the newly formed "masked society".

But can we really "pack" a venue with 100 people like that (and make it financially viable at the same time)? Outdoor events might be more feasible, since getting infected outdoors seems to be less likely. Who wants to have a glimpse of how a gradual opening up of the event industry could look like should read about the plans of the Spanish government. But even if the gradual opening up would work without another rise in infections, events would have a different feel.

Once we come to grips with the fact that we have to deal with this situation for at least another year before a vaccine can be rolled out, it means we actually can start thinking about a long term solution. A solution taking into account the Post Covid era. A solution that might define what the event of the future could look like.

A solution to the problem of how we can come together at a distance without meeting physically.

So let's think about how COULD "the event of the future” look like? Even before Covid 19 brought the global event industry to a screeching halt, one question continued to pop up in the heads of any responsible events producer. How can I make my event more sustainable? In the era of Greta and Climate Change, how could it make sense to fly speakers and bands to small conferences or big festivals across the globe to deliver a 20-minute speech or one-hour performance to a physical audience reaching, depending on the scale of the event, from a few hundred to 10s of thousands plus a few (or sometimes a lot) more in the digital space?

Of course, as anybody who ever participated in a conference, concert festival or even went to a (movie) theatre can attest: The act of seeing your favorite band (or actor) perform or listening to an inspiring speech is just one reason why you would spend your hard-earned money to go there. At least equally as important is the experience of planning to go to the event, how to go, where to stay and who to go with, who you meet there or at the accompanying dinner/lunch (and how good the latter is and where it takes place), how the atmosphere is, if you have a good time or not, the city or environment of the event, the photos or videos you take and share on your social media, etc.

Assuming the number of people who can meet in a venue (outdoor or indoor) will continue to be limited for the next year, we have to think not only about how the event of the future itself could look like but also the experiences surrounding it.

A Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts or whatever call is not only a bit sad because you can't see the other person in a physical space but also because the act of sitting alone at your desk, starting your computer or mobile device and then initiating the software is just not a very soul-satisfying experience.

But what would happen if you change this experience? Let's say before you are going to see the lecture or talk online you would meet a small group of people who are also interested in going to see the lecture/talk/concert/movie and have lunch with them either at home (maybe you can even cook together?) or at your favorite restaurant? Or maybe you do a little party on your terrace (or your favorite venue) with enough distance and a big screen to hear concerts or talks coming from another country once the Covid 19 restrictions get relaxed a little?

How would it change if instead of flying to a faraway event (again a situation which is unlikely to occur in the next year or so thanks to travel restrictions, quarantine regulations and peoples unwillingness to travel in times of Corona), we would just all walk to the event in your city or rent a bus to go there? Maybe change the event space to a resort somewhere in nature instead of a congress center in a crowded city? The time that is saved by taking a plane instead could be invested in a nice walk on greener pasture with enough distance to the other participants (who could then take turns to walk next- and get to know each other) to a more inspiring event location.

Obviously, one also needs to take into account in which city or culture the event will take place. To do an event in Berlin will be very different from one in Beijing since both of them are very different cities with different cultures and ways of interacting (not to mention you would have to drive for a while before finding those greener pastures in Beijing).

If we cannot go there physically to get a feeling for the place and its culture, how do we still get an idea or a "vibe" of what is going on in the other city and its business environment? What experience still needs to be in a physical place and which one can take place online or even in Virtual Reality?

These are just some examples and questions to illustrate what could be done to enhance the experience around an event. And I'm sure people will come up with much better ones while also experimenting with different technical solutions as well as monetization options. Actually, it's already happening.

The other weekend I attended the Berlin-based Drunter & Drüber Festival online. When opening the webpage, I was directed to a festival map that looked like one you could find at most offline festivals in the world. When I clicked onto the different "floors" or "stages" I was directed to, well, different stages and floors, each of them streaming a concert or DJ set simultaneously. The most interesting part though, was the virtual dance floor. When you clicked on it, you would find yourself in a giant Zoom call with each "caller" seemingly pretty much into the music. There was a lot of dancing and head bumping going on, in some of the browser windows you could see small groups of people in party gear and "disco light" showing they were having a bloody good time. And of course, you could also interact with them, either by chat or using your microphone, therefore, providing the much needed human interaction.

On the more commercial side of the music spectrum, I watched how the DJ duo Chromeo was announced by a mage and some sort of medieval lord in the dark-aged themed self-described Virtual-Rave-A-Thon Middlelands by EDM promoter Insomniac best known for its EDC festival brand. Not crazily innovative but still somewhat oddly entertaining in its ridiculousness. The Dark Ages and EDM make a surprisingly good team in its bizarre over-the-topness (especially when accompanied by Chromeo's own funky personae and DJ Set).

Similar concept but on the electronic underground side of things, is the Berlin initiative United We Stream initiated to save the Berlin’s clubs, which have been closed since mid March.

I also recently decided to finally explore the VR world a bit more extensively and bought my first VR Headset, an Oculus Quest (I got the one with 128GB because the one with 64GB was sold out), which is a standalone VR headset, meaning you don't need a computer anymore to use it (see my article about "Why you should start with VR now"). After playing around with it for a while, I also set up my first proper business meeting in Virtual Reality to talk about, well, how to organize an event in VR. Just before I had visited a recording of the Virtual VIVE Ecosystem conference or V²EC 2020 by Oculus Competitor, VR Headset Manufacturer HTC, the first conference I attended in VR (and probably one of the first VR only conferences ever).

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Don't get me wrong: VR is not there where it should be yet, but it's getting there. And the experience was definitely 10x cooler than your average Zoom call. A reality to keep in mind (and one - again you can read about here)

There is even a Hackathon called Next Stage Challenge which tries to come up with solutions to the problem.

Photo: Tweet via Michael Zhang (@mgzhangVR)

On my quest to find inspiration for the event of the future (after all, I have to organize a future festival myself, WISE, at the end of August in Beijing) I also stumbled upon BlockByBlockwest, a music festival built entirely in Minecraft. Apparently, the demand for it was so high that the servers crashed and it got postponed to May 16th.

Wait a second? The servers crashed? Yes, according to NME, by the time the festival reached 100.000 logins, the servers couldn't take it anymore. 100.000? Did I speak of "small" events before? That's quite a bit more than your average "big" offline festival.

And if we take the 27.7 million people that, according to Epic Games, showed up at Travis Scott's pre recorded Fortnite experiences – these new types of events don't seem to be so small at all.

In fact, one could argue that they might be too big to become a meaningful way of human exchange. But it is, of course, a question of what function those events are serving. Going to a music festival with a group of friends, where you might just stay with your group to have a fun communal experience, is different than going to a conference to do business networking.

In any way: As the above examples show us, there is a whole new event world out there to be explored. A world that will see many more formats emerging in the next year or so. Across multiple channels, "genres", mixing online and offline (and one might add, realities). Small, decentralized events happening everywhere around the world at the same time under the same theme will exist next to massive centralized and "prerecorded" ones where people still meet "live". Analog will exist with- and next to digital. Virtual Reality will mix with the "real" one.

We will probably not have "the" event of the future, but a multitude of events of the future in all shapes and forms. Some of these events might still be "public" and "big" but - just as Bill Gates said - will probably not take place in a stadium. However, the more interesting ones, the ones who provide value in forms of deeper human interactions to foster personal as well as business relationships (and hopefully with a lower Co2 footprint), will likely be boutique events across multiple platforms - online, offline and in VR.

Bill Gates, WISE, VR & The Event of The Future