GCB - German Convention Bureau
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Convention 2020 initial survey findings show hypercompetition, technology and changing delegate behaviours are driving industry transformation

New Business Models, Radical Price Incentives, Deep Personalisation and Onsite Transactions will shape the industry landscape in 2020 Convention 2020 initial survey findings show hypercompetition, technology and changing delegate behaviours are driving industry transformation Fast Future Research today launched the findings of the ‘Future Meetings Experience’ online survey. The research was conducted as part of phase 1 of the Convention 2020 study on the future of meetings, venues and destinations.

The Industry Today

• The biggest current barriers to event effectiveness are seen to be the cost of attending, poor organisation and a lack of focus in the design
• The quality of content, interaction, technology and networking were seen to be the main drivers of an effective and exciting event

For events in 2020

• Reasons to Attend - The Quality of Networking (76%) was the biggest single factor that would encourage delegates to attend events, less than 50% cited price as an influencing factor and only 1% said they would not attend live events in 2020.
• Meeting Demand - 74% felt their organisation would maintain their investment in live events in 2020, while 46% felt time and cost pressure might deter organisations from sending delegates and 59% felt their organisation would be investing far more in alternatives to live event.
• Meeting Supply - 49% said there would be fewer but larger events, while 79% expected  a growth in smaller more specialised meetings and 48% thought there would be an explosion in the number of free or very low cost evening only meetings held in low cost venues.
• Business Models - 77% believe events will need to offer strong price based incentives to attract the desired delegates, 60% expect to see a rise in pay as you go / pay per session type models and 76% think there will be far more opportunities to conduct transactions at events.
• Event Technology - The most commonly expected developments are ‘Live video streaming to remote participants ‘(75%), ‘A social network  before, during and after events’ (70%) and ‘All event content downloaded to our mobile phones’ (64%). Whilst more advanced immersive and experiential technologies were not ranked highly as individual developments, there was strong support for their potential applications when discussed subsequently in scenarios for personalisation.
• Personalisation - 79% expect a totally personalised technology experience and 70% felt this individual customisation would extend to areas such as food and seating. 93% believe that technology will enable capture and analysis of every activity, presentation and conversation.
  Sustainability - 70% say ethical and environmental factors will continue to influence the decision to attend.
• Convention Centre Challenges - The greatest competition to convention centres is expected to come from ‘Schools, universities and colleges’ (63%), ‘Museums, galleries and libraries’ (56%) and ‘Meeting facilities in office buildings’ (50%)