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A company recently raised [funds] to create a world of virtual pets in what it’s calling — yep — the petaverse. So why stop there? Who is working on the sweataverse (for fitness) or the debtaverse (for financial planning) or the betaverse (for gambling)?
—Anand Sawal, CB Insights. |
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| January 20 | 3pm EST | ZOOM |
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| Come for the Yucks, Stay for the Metavent |
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FailedtoRender is one of the hottest places in the metaverse to hear great comedy. Kyle and Al will be joining us to give us a taste of their unique blend of comedy. Don’t miss it!
Then we’re going to watch our VEG meeting get a makeover, with Anna Marie Rembold of Metavent. We’re cringing, but I think we’ll all learn some great tricks for creating handsome events |
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| February 3 | 7pm EST | ZOOM |
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We’ll discuss the events that happened, the events that didn’t happen, and what we can learn from them going forward. Hear insights from Victor Torregroza (Intel), Mary Ann Pierce (MAP Digital), Martin Porter (Sports Video Group), Anina Net (360FashionNetwork), Jim Louderback
(Vidcon), and more. We can get smarter about the new normal together. |
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| Smaller Voices, Bigger Noise |
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All eyes were on CES this year as major exhibitors (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, LG, Haier and others) very vocally pulled off the show floor (often leaving QR codes in their place.) The show shrunk from 180,000 attendees in a typical year to 40,000 this year. Smaller companies found it hard to walk away from their investment in the show, and were
compelled to make the best of a tough situation.
And that’s where the magic of this year’s CES show happened. The small booths, for the first time ever, got the lion's share of the opportunity. New voices were heard, new business opportunities emerged and attention was paid. The quality of engagements at all booths was higher because the number of humans was down. It became a show focused on
innovation, and less about a bunch of suits pontificating on the future. Because attendees could walk the show floor, sans throngs, they could gobble up double the information without the wait time.
LG’s booth became a sea of QR codes. |
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Photo Credit Kaare Christian |
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| The Metaverse at CES: You couldn’t find it but it stole the show. |
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The most talked about thing at CES was the metaverse, which coincidentally, was conspicuously absent. Only a handful of metaverse companies like Touchcast and Omniscape exhibited on the show
floor. They were selling the promise of setting up your offices or meetings in the metaverse. Still, despite the paucity of exhibitors, the metaverse meme machines were in full swing as you looked at exhibit areas and listened in on conversations.
Big show company showcases like Intel’s took attendees into a metaverse where Alex Rodriquez touted the new chip. And a digital-first immersive experience was created at the Grand Canal Shoppes in the Venetian. |
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At the BMW pavilion attendees could not only take a video of a color-changing car that uses special hue-fluid car paint, but they could also create unique digital art in their vehicles. At the Hyundai MOBIS exhibit, attendees had the opportunity to step into M.
Vision Town, the company’s metaverse space, and let their avatar "test drive" each concept vehicle. And Samsung used CES to showcase a Second-Life type metaverse home complete with Samsung products. One journalist from Tech Radar quipped that future CES’s would be better if held in the metaverse. Companies like Next Media Partners opted to have all their clients meet them in Alt VR. |
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We’re on our own here, folks.
The events industry continues to be plagued by this plague. We’ve been keeping score on who’s in, who’s out, and who’s pivoted. Each event has had to make a series of decisions without much unifying guidance from state, country, or medical authorities. Here’s a sample list of some of the changes with shows around the world. |
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Cancelled:
- National Association of Television Program Executives: January 18-20.
- [Messe Frankfurt] Christmasworld: January 28-February 2
- [Messe Frankfurt] Paperworld: January 29-February 2
- [Messe Frankfurt] Creativeworld: January 29-February 2
- [Messe Frankfurt] Ambiente 2022: February 11-15
- Toy Fair 2022; February 19.
Pivot to Virtual/Digital:
- O’Reilly has decided to “cancel all future O’Reilly in-person conferences”
- J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference: onsite replaced with a virtual event, January 10-13.
- Computex 2022 Trends and Updates: January 20.
- Sundance Film Festival: January 20-30.
- ITB Berlin: onsite event replaced with live stream, March 9-13.
- E3 (Electronic Entertainment Experience): no date yet, but traditionally held in June.
Pivot from Onsite to Hybrid
- American Historical Society: January 6-9.
- Paris Couture Week: January 24-27 (some major brands have withdrawn, and some are providing a digital presentation instead).
Postponed:
- New York International Antiquarian Book Fair: was September 9-12, 2021, now April 2022
- Marketing Outlook Forum: was October, now February 7-9.
- SITE Global Conference: was January 27-31, new date TBA.
- Sigep: The Dolce World Expo: was January, now March 12-16.
- Vicenzaoro January: was January, now March 17-21.
- MPI European Meetings and Events Conference: was Feb 27-March 1, new date TBA.
- IMI Inkjet Conference: was February, now the week of May 2.
- IMEX Frankfurt: was April 26-68, now May 31-June 2.
Onsite:
- Modern Language Association: January 6-9.
- Mobile World Congress: February 28-March 3.
- NAB Show: April 23-27 (October 2021 event was canceled).
- Computex Taipei 2022: May 24-27.
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LinkedIn Further Ramps Up for Events
We’ve been predicting this for a while. LinkedIn is in a really good position to become an events platform and has been quietly adding features for events and business meetings. This week the company announced the rollout of voice rooms. As first reported by TechCrunch,
LinkedIn’s all-virtual events platform will eventually include moderated panel-style discussions, roundtables, and fireside chats, with the formats left up to the event hosts. |
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Touchcast’s MCity
Touchcast announced its metaverse, MCity, at CES 2022. Grab your free metaverse address on the site and you’ll become a member of a
world that promises photorealistic 3D environments, support for NVIDIA GPUs, and NVIDIA’s Maxine software. This will allow Microsoft Teams users to join Metaverse spaces for shopping, hosting events and meetings, as well as collaborating in learning environments. |
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Hybrid events can be a bi#&ch.
ViiEvents’ A2Z Hybrid in London takes a step-by-step approach to create state-of-the-art hybrid events. Register for their Jan. 20th event and download more information here. They’ve even begun a “Catch the Mice” consultancy to offer human help where it’s needed. |
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VEG Member Zuddl Receives $13.5 Million Funding
Born of the pandemic, Zuddl responded quickly and efficiently with the feature set that events producers needed to go virtual. |
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GameStop: The Cat with Nine Lives
They’re back in the news with a new division that will use NFTs, De-Fi, and the metaverse as part of their turnaround strategy. Stocks jumped higher than Mario upon announcement. |
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Radio Shack: Another Nine Lives
Another familiar brand is attempting to rise from the ashes. Instead of providing hobbyists with resistors and capacitors, the new Radio Shack mission is “Bringing Cryptocurrency to the Mainstream.” Could there be a merger with “Game Shack” in the future? |
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How Weird Can It Get?
The New Yorker looks at how we’ll buy and sell stuff in the metaverse. |
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Time to Dive In
If your staff is a little behind the eight ball in teching up their virtual lives you won’t find a better certification program than this one from our VEI partners. Special VEG discount available. |
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