This week we’re bringing you the five hottest trends you need to know from InfoComm 2015. We sent our talented Director of Event Technology, Andrew MacColl to be our roving reporter and he’s come back with a treasure chest full of cool new gadgets and ideas. Here’s what you need to know. With over 38,000 visitors and almost 1,000 exhibitors, InfoComm held in Orlando, Florida this year was massive – it’s where AV geeks from around the world congregate to indulge in the latest and greatest tech. The West Concourse at the Orange County Convention centre is full with every kind of audiovisual toy imaginable, and more than a few that challenge the status quo.
To give you some idea of just how big the floor area for the main hall is, it’s approximately the size of 17 football fields and it’s so full that the show overflows onto other levels. The marketing tag for this year’s show is ‘WOW’ and that word somehow seemed to fall from the lips of attendees over and over throughout the day.
This is one slick show, with every aspect of the attendee experience considered and executed to the highest professional standard.
But enough about the stats and boring stuff. Let’s talk tech! 1. Ultra High Definition The really big thing from the display device exhibitors is 4K resolution. Every single panel, projector or display manufacturer has moved on from 2K (High Definition, Full HD or 1080P) and has embraced Ultra High Definition, or 4K.
With eye popping sharpness, clarity and colour reproduction the image quality is breathtaking. It seems like it has reached a tipping point where the previously high cost of producing 4K panels has come down to a point where 2K is no longer the norm, and the industry may as well just concentrate on producing the higher resolution products.
I, for one, admit to remaining sceptical and feel that with little content available, this is a change driven by manufacturers obsessed with outdoing each other. One stand from a very large Korean manufacturer has signs up throughout the exhibition space banning photographs. Call me crazy but I rather feel they have missed the point of exhibiting. 2. 3D Pixel Mapping The other technology that has really matured this year is 3D pixel mapping. Whilst the previous best known use of transforming a large public building into a mythological enchanted forest or an undersea adventure park complete with scary sharks has been great fun, it’s not really been very accessible or affordable for the average event designer.
It was great to see some really high quality smaller scale applications emerge from companies like Panasonic and Barco that will filter through and find uses on shows where the budget does not exceed the GDP of a small third world country. Some of these applications such as the spinning glove and pixel mapped car on the Panasonic stand will even scale down to eye-catching POS activations for retail. 3. Mirror surface LEDs The mirror surface LED from Samsung is definitely going to have a place in events, especially for product launches. The glass of the panel is a very clear mirrored surface, just perfect for cosmetics and fashion displays. 4. 3D LED displays minus the glasses Say goodbye to those tacky black-rimmed 3D glasses, the high quality 3D LED displays don’t need glasses to enjoy the full immersive experience. 5. Architectural software/hardware display solutions A range of architectural software/hardware solutions were on show that allow striking video walls to be a hero piece in all sorts of different sizes, and orientations. As you can see InfoComm 2015 did not disappoint. Exciting times ahead for us at Staging Connections as we soon welcome some of these cool new gadgets to our ever-expanding portfolio of event technology and audio visual solutions. With over 30 years experience in the industry, Andrew MacColl is one of the most senior technical practitioners out there. We have been fortunate enough to have Andrew part of our Staging Connections team for 18 years now as he continues to set the direction for all our purchases and deployment of all show technology. … Read More
25 Reasons You'll Love Event Poll
Mar 19 2018
Want to know what your audience is really thinking? Get inside the minds of your attendees with Event Poll, technology that lets you ask questions and receive feedback in real time. #1 Brand your questions
Event Poll gives you the power to customise the polls to suit your brand guidelines. Match your presentation template, use your organization’s logo and colour scheme, or let your own imagination run wild. #2 Made for Monkeys Event Poll is designed with the presenter at the heart. From creating your first poll in 30 seconds to importing multiple polls at a time to moderating from an app – it’s so easy to use a monkey could use it! #3 Works with any mobile device
Whatever your audience can carry in, they can use. That means smartphones, flip phones, candy bar style phones, Blackberries, tablets, and laptops. #4 Post Event Report
Your full history of poll questions and participant responses are available for you after the event and can provide insightful improvement recommendations. #5 Full Moderation
You can use your laptop or phone to ensure that you’re happy with responses before they go live on screen. This also helps you to display responses that illustrate a point you’re making and ensures the discussion doesn’t go off-topic. #6 Auto-Censoring
Set-up auto-censoring with a list of keywords so no colourful responses make it on screen. #7 Ranking and Grading
Once you've created polls with a correct answer, you run a report to calculate how each respondent scored - and how they rank in terms of correct responses and average time to answer correctly. #8 Run a Competition
Get your audience to compete - for prizes or just glory - on the questions you ask. Announce a winner for a single question, a whole section, or for the overall event. And if there's a tie, we'll break it by showing you who responded the fastest. #9 Quiz Time!
Figure out who was getting the information you just presented and grade the responses in real time. You can even ask the same questions before and after your talk to see how effective it was. #10 Participation Grades
Event Polls is great for tracking who attended and more importantly measuring the level of their participation. #11 Multiple Choice Questions
Give one multiple choice question, or several in a row. Use it at beginning to temperature check the room, throw in a ridiculous option to keep the mood light, or keep it all business throughout. #12 True of False Questions
Fast and simple, put a statement up and ask people if it's true or false. Set up games, do quizzes, whatever you like. #13 Start a Discussion
Open up the floor with the Open Discourse poll. Let your audience ask questions, suggest topics, do shout-outs or give feedback and recommendations. Of course you can moderate the responses to ensure it’s all above board and on-topic. #14 Q&A / Brainstorming
Let your audience not just suggest topics or questions, but vote on others as well. Create a live updating wall of questions or ideas - provided by and voted on by your audience. Great for structuring group discussions. #15 Broaden your engagement, across borders!
Anyone with browser access, no matter where they are, can vote via the web. This means even your webcast attendees can contribute and feel part of the conservation. #16 Over 12 Types of Polling Formats We’ve thought it of it all! Event Poll’s range of polling formats means there’s a template to suit any type of question. Even better is the templates can be fully customised! #17 Mix it up
If you have multiple questions throughout your presentation you can change the polling format to suit. #18 The Ultimate Ice Breaker
Asking the audience a fun and entertaining question is the best way to start the day or revive the audience after a long session. Voting for ‘Best Dressed’ is always fun for Gala Dinners or asking ‘Where everyone has come from?’ is a nice way to start a conference day. #19 Manage your Q&A effectively
Get your audience to send in their questions during the presentation so you don’t waste time during Q&A. You can also set it up the questions display as a leaderboard with the most popular displaying at the top on the screen. #20 WordClouds Audience responses can be displayed as a branded word cloud. You can ask the audience their goals for the event and come back to the word cloud as a reminder. #21 Instant Audience Feedback
Ask your attendees to fill out a quick post-event survey while its fresh in their minds. This saves you having to send a blast email days after the event that might never get answered. #22 Embed your Poll in PowerPoint
The Pollev Presenter App allows you to easily integrate polls into your presentation so no more fussing between different screens. #23 Insightful Data and Heat Maps
After the event you can use the poll report to gain insightful data on your audience such as what location they responded from when webcasting, or which group or individual responded the most and what they said. #24 Grouping Polls
If you have a group of questions that you want to turn into polls, we let you import these in a single copy-paste so no need to go one by one. #25 Bulk import registered participants
You can immediately register all of your event participants with a simple CSV file and send them a link to have them certify any unknown information. Love learning the latest in event technology? Download our range of free White Papers today. ... Read More