How can we go back to live events together

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

after being in the live events industry

for over 10 years i should be pretty

familiar with zoom calls by now

so about a day before we all went into

lockdown we threw my wife birthday party

and of course we had a whole bunch of

happy birthday balloons set up in the

house as a backdrop

so over the next few months we had about

10 different friends birthday parties

that we had to celebrate

so of course we set up our zoom camera

in front of our birthday balloons

backdrop

and of course we told every one of our

friends that we bought the balloons for

them after

every single virtual birthday call that

we had

each of the balloons started to deflate

little by little funny enough

so did our virtual birthday party

enthusiasm

by the end of the last birthday call i

don’t remember

which birthday belonged to who what if

every single one of our 21st birthdays

are celebrated over zoom

not that exciting i think that’s why the

subject is so important to me

we make this powerful human connection

that drives

each one of these memorable experiences

but they do we do them

with people we do them with our friends

we do them with our family members

for example i remember the time we

celebrated my friend’s birthday at an f1

race

not so much the zoom birthday parties

that’s kind of the funny thing about

live event experiences

ask anyone to name three of their most

memorable or favorite experiences

and they’ll pretty much tell you that at

least one of them happened at a live

event

usually with friends or family and i

think there’s a few reasons for that

the first of course is immersion or

distraction as i like to call it

we need to embrace it we need it to feel

normal we need to get away from our

normal lives every now and then

live events and experiences help us do

that second the human connection

these memories are created by the place

and the people together

not just one or the other we use

sometimes these experiences to create

some kind of a catalyst

for change and change maybe our day

maybe our week

and for some of us even our lives so

will life really feel normal if we can’t

go back to events together

probably not and so let’s talk a little

bit about some of these fears that i

think people are going to have

when it’s time to actually go back to

live events

first we have this fear of commitment

you know should i even buy this ticket

or registration will the event even

happen

will it happen next month or will it

happen in a year

next fear of deluded event experience is

this experience even going to be cool

is it going to be awesome is all these

restrictions that have been placed on it

going to impact my ability to even enjoy

it

for example do i really want to go to

the country music event or

my favorite football game and drink a

beer with a mask on

probably not doesn’t sound like that

much fun and of course

long lines we always hated lines to

begin with

and we definitely don’t like them now so

waiting in the cold or the hot weather

really sounds miserable to everybody

and that’s not going to change the

thought of someone sneezing on us now

on top of all those other conditions

makes us all cringe

and of course we also have the fear of

touching you know things like kiosks and

printed tickets

that have all been so present in live

events are kind of a thing in the past

touching credit cards and merchandise

and things like that

isn’t really something that we want to

deal with and of course

the elephant in the room which is the

fear of crowds these densely populated

areas that we have

we have people want to avoid congested

areas they want to avoid festivals of

pretty much all types

conventions and trade shows cons sports

games

uh sports venues and of course marathons

and races even

and then there’s the typical family park

or the beach

that may be overly congested this summer

so what’s the solution how do we

actually empower the industry to help

instill confidence again

in each other we’ve got to put people’s

commitment issues to rest

people aren’t just going to start buying

tickets again all of a sudden

we have to help convince them that it’s

going to be okay so how do we do that

one we have to adjust some refund

policies customers need to know that

they aren’t handcuffed

they want to make sure that we adjust

these policies and that’s just going to

be the first step

next we can offer things like event

insurance protect their purchases let

people

select whether or not they want to

protect them just like in the travel

industry

they can’t make it let them get a full

refund life is full of uncertainty and

we really need to be empathetic right

now

and last of course branding consistent

branding you know while we’re

registering or buying a ticket for

something

we need less distraction not more

keeping things put through a white label

experience or something that’s branded

for that

particular live experience or event is

going to help people from second

guessing

purchases that are getting distracted by

certain ads or other events or things

like that

next we need to reassure customers that

the event experience will be awesome

event organizers need to step up their

game we can’t just keep things the same

as they’ve always been

we need to have new ways to engage

customers on site

immersive augmented and virtual reality

tech for example

was one idea gamification tools at the

events and even online and mobile reward

systems to give

customers that are willing to actually

go a little bit louder voice

to invite their friends so how do we put

to bed

customers fears of waiting in these long

lines we were talking about earlier

customers have always wanted to avoid

lines it’s just worse now

so what we’ve seen is an adoption of

timed entry functionality plus virtual

cueing

that way we can satisfy those social

distancing guidelines

and also completely eliminate wait time

it’s pretty simple that way customers

can choose the date and time they want

to go

which eliminates essentially 99 of all

the wait time and virtual queuing just

sends us a text message when it’s time

for us to go in

so how do we reassure people that they

don’t have to actually touch everything

kiosks credit cards pens they’re just

dirty

we can pretty much do away with them

completely most of these companies are

migrating to contactless payment systems

accepting mobile wallet payments such as

apple pay or google pay

and other countries have been doing this

for a long long time so it’s

definitely time for us to hop on board

this also helps our carbon footprint

and our efficiency at the same time

companies like square have boosted their

contactless payment hardware as well

so it’s easy for us to get we can go to

the local best buy or wherever we want

and pick up these devices now

kind of seems archaic to go back to pen

and paper after all this

and next of course caches payments

they’re pretty much a must

we have to have cashless rfid solutions

these are nothing really new to the

festival space

but for a lot of other industries

adopting them for all transactions

is going to help visibility it’s going

to help safety

and it’s also going to help that

check-in process be completely seamless

and speeds up those entry times so what

are some of the best social distancing

solutions that we can use to combat

these densely populated areas we were

talking about earlier

there’s a bunch of different innovative

solutions in the industry starting with

augmented and virtual reality event

challenges

we’re seeing a lot of marathons runs

bike races

offer these virtual athletic experiences

that we can essentially all do together

i can challenge my friends

my friends can challenge their friends

and we’re all competing through that

competitive spirit we all have

but it’s actually having some fun while

we do it festival is converting to

drive-in festivals now with parking

selection

so that way people can select the spot

that they want to go sit and enjoy the

entire festival

still with their friends but socially

distance from everybody else

it’s kind of funny how history repeats

itself from the drive-in movie theater

days

almost like the 80s except for now we

have 4k and 8k

sports venues now use seat buffering

technology for example as well

this basically creates a layer of a

number of seats around

a group to make sure that their social

distance automatically

we have all these live experiences that

play such a vital role

in our memories we need them to survive

we need them to be happy

one thing this pandemic has taught us if

nothing else is that we have to value

each other’s company together

we need to work together to encourage

and innovate these new solutions

we need to make us feel like we can

enjoy this world the way we used to

no one wants to throw another virtual

zoom birthday party if we don’t have to