Why Web3 and the Metaverse are Going to Change the $1trn Corporate Event Marketplace Forever. Are You Ready?

Author: Peter Gould, Founder and CEO, RendezVerse

Times they are a changin’ — Bob Dylan, 1964

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

I have been in business to business (B2B) marketing communications for thirty years. I have seen email replace the fax, websites replace printed brochures, video replace photography, social media replace magazines. The way the industry functions today, would have been impossible to conceive back when I started.

Fast forward to today and I now run one of the travel industry’s leading event and conference companies. The area that has been the most resistant to change over these years, has been the idea that face to face meetings are irreplaceable. “Get in front of the customer” is still a mantra of B2B sales directors. After all, personal relationships do matter. Taking the time to get to know your customer matters even more. This will never change. Face to face matters as much now, if not more, than it did thirty years ago. However, what will face to face look like in the future?

Times, they are a changin’…

Digital meeting formats have thrived in these pandemic times, “Zoom” has become a verb in the last two years. However, corporate events industry insiders already know that 2D meeting formats, like Zoom and Google Meet are not going to materially change the way corporate events function. We have the data, we’ve been running these events throughout the pandemic. It’s not even close, people want to meet rather than sit on Zoom calls. Who can blame them, not me. It seems that the endless digitisation of everything from music to food delivery, has been ignored by the $1trn corporate meeting and events industry.

Until now….

Before I give you the reasons that it’s all about to change, I want to be absolutely clear, I am not predicting some dystopian future of AI driven avatars taking away our very human need to meet. Far from it. What I am predicting is the cocktail of Web3 technologies and the urgent need for more sustainable business practices. Add this to the hard baked netzero goals that governments and industries have already signed up to, there will be an inflection point that will be impossible to resist.

Let’s look at the key drivers of metaverse adoption for events:

• VR and AR technologies are just about to go mainstream. If you have had a VR headset on in the last six months, you’ll know how amazing these experiences are, both visually and experientially.
• Next generation of headsets are just about to be released. Let’s be honest, the wearable technologies required today are a little clunky. However, 2022 will see a super cycle of product releases from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta and new entrants. VR headsets will get better, cheaper, lighter and more powerful. These pieces of hardware will eventually merge with your smartphone and computer. Within a few years everyone in business will have one.
• Some products and content are just better suited to being shown in the metaverse. Especially products that are far away and hard to move (holidays, experiences, real estate, boats, heavy machinery etc) or products that are in development. Also conference content can be brought to life, no more flat powerpoints for bored audiences to sit through.
• VR content is going to become much easier and cheaper to produce. New VR development technologies are driving this. Within a few years having web 2.0 content will be unacceptable for B2B communications.
• VR will be on your desktop as part of MS Office or OS. See Microsoft Mesh beta in Teams. Your avatar will soon be on your desktop, ready to join any meeting in the metaverse at a moment’s notice.
• Mass adoption of 5G will enable a mobile Web3.0
• 3D is better than 2D, just like colour is better than black and white!

So, I hope you can see that it’s a case of not if, but when…

The metaverse will become an important player in the corporate events and conference market. At RendezVerse (www.rendezverse.com) the team is excited to be a part of this inevitable shift. Hold onto your virtual hats, otherwise they will be blown away by the speed of how quickly “times they are a changin”!

Wishing you a Happy New Year.

Peter Gould, Founder and CEO, RendezVerse

About RendezVerse:

RendezVerse is leveraging Web 3.0 technologies to transform how the business-to-business events industry will operate. Bringing significant time and cost savings, resilience to travel disruption, AI-powered meeting recommendations, and the ability to achieve carbon Net Zero for the events industry, the RendezVerse answers a number of challenges that have plagued the events industry for years.

Social Media Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rendezverseai

Telegram: https://t.me/rendezverse

IG: https://www.instagram.com/rendezverse

Media Contact:

Email: James@gamesta.ai

Web: https://rendezverse.com

White Paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e6uxJsHJ9Hy7iEUO-aMspaUMu6WgF_nQlVnZsZkQM-w/edit