Digitalisation – A Great Opportunity

While many see digitalisation as a danger or a risk, Reed Exhibitions Austria is convinced of the opposite: digitalisation is an opportunity for everyone, especially for the trade fair, congress and event business. While in some industries the onsite experience is replaced by digitalisation, in ours the experience is supported by it. People need community. And that is exactly what a trade fair is all about, that is exactly what an event is made of, and that is exactly why participants travel to a congress. Meeting someone on the spot, handshakes, facial expressions, gestures – you cannot digitalise that away.

The enormous advantage of digitalisation is that it allows efficiency in what was previously ineffective. It helps to illustrate standard procedures that had tied up resources up to that point without delivering added value. The now free resources can be used to further individualise the offers for customers.

As a market leader and innovation leader, Reed Exhibitions, which also includes the well-known exhibition stand constructor STANDout, presents itself as a progressive company. Above all, this includes a future-oriented digital strategy that the company, with headquarters in Vienna, Salzburg, Wels and Düsseldorf, is currently implementing. Practical examples of this comprehensive future strategy include a guide bot and virtual space planning. The guide bot, a mixture of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, “flies” on mobile end devices in front of users, guiding them directly through the trade fair and providing information. Based on augmented reality, the virtual room planner allows 3D configuration of events. The registration process for exhibitors and the trade fair network, a virtual space for information that used to be available in printed exhibitor catalogues, are also examples of the optimal use of digitalisation at Reed Exhibitions.

Visualisation of visitor traffi c, 3D planning for stand construction and digital handling of exhibitor and visitor registrations will follow.

Oliver-John Perry
www.reedexpo.at