Non-Traditional Event Tech: What We Can Learn from Fog Screens and Google Glass

Being on the forefront of event technology is vital to success in this industry. But event technology isn’t limited to registration tools and new ways to leverage social media. People feel special when they’re able to experience technology that’s not yet available to the masses. It doesn’t have to be top secret or revolutionary to have this effect on your guests. For a while, and hopefully not for much longer, just having a pair of google glasses was a big draw at events. Everybody wants to try them on and tell their friends that they know all about google glass, even if that means they put them on their head and turned them on one time. The key is identifying pieces of technology, tangible or not, that give people this techy, in-the-know feeling, and figuring out how to seamlessly incorporate it into your event.

We have a couple examples in mind of cool tech, like google glass, that don’t immediately come to mind when you think about event technology. But these are not the focus. The takeaway from reading this should be the mindset of getting creative to give your guests as many reasons to show up and as many reasons to rave to their circles about your event as possible. New technology doesn’t need to have a direct functioning effect on your event coordination to help make it a success.

http://0.tqn.com/d/eventplanning/1/0/Y/2/-/-/welcome-reception-fogscreen-tech.jpg

Fog screens have a few applications we can think of and I’m sure there are hundreds more. You can increase branding at the event and provide a unique opportunity to your sponsors. Guests can walk through the screen without getting wet, allowing you to use it as a barrier between two sections, or to draw guests to a particular area.  You can also use fog screens to add an element of realism to your event theme. For example you could set up a waterfall, if your theme called for it, that your guests could walk right through.

http://en.cafa.com.cn/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fog-screen-interactive-installation-Dimensions-variable-2008-Ya-lun-TAO-Fu-jui-WANG-Animation-.jpg

I bet in 15 minutes you could come up with at least three innovative ways to take fog screen event implementation to the next level. Ways that are probably specific to your organization or  event. What did you come up with? Comment on this post or tweet @SquadUP to continue the discussion. We’d love to hear what other ways you’ve been able to use traditionally non-event tech to get guests excited.