The aim of the event was to demystify the many emerging and immersive technologies and give people the opportunity to see these being used in a commercial context. It can be really hard to know which ones could work for you and your brand, so we wanted to help demonstrate (in a non-technical and non-condescending way) that in order to truly engage with your audience, you need to understand what is actually possible first.
So, a select team of Fluid members set about planning the event, which was to be a 30-minute breakfast presentation by Ed followed by a series of interactive demonstrations that we could take up to Stockport with us.
Ed presenting the latest iPhone with his new favourite gadget - his presentation clicker.
We had just two weeks to form an event project team, decide on what emerging technologies we were going to bring with us, and choose which demonstrations would have the most impact at the event. The level of planning required for this was immense – we wanted to make sure everyone demonstrating the technology had absolutely everything they needed and more, as well as figuring out the logistics leading up to and during the event.
The fear of something going wrong on the day materialised as a vast number of checklists, an event plan documentation and an inventory of relevant equipment.At one point my planning document got mistaken for a bank heist… I’d like to say that was a compliment!
After some deliberation on what demos to bring with us, we came up with the following:
Virtual Reality (VR)
We imagined that this would be the most popular topic, and it turns out that we weren’t wrong! Some of the guests from the event had never tried a VR headset before and did so out of curiosity, but quickly became enthralled with just how interactive and vivid the world that you step into becomes.
We chose two demonstrations to take with us - the first was a fully explorable Scandinavian style house, where users could tour around the house as if it was their own. This demo was presented in 4k, which meant detail such as rain drops running down the windows and the creases on the bedsheets were visible.
The second demo was a first-person solo climbing experience, where users could scale huge cliffs around the world using the triggers on the VR controllers to grab the cliff face in front of them.
This is me - the blonde VR model at Fluid. My role includes demonstrating various VR demonstrations and always feeling like someone is going to jump up behind me whilst I have the headset on
Augmented Reality (AR)
It’s difficult to decide whether our Technical Director Andy likes AR or The Grand Tour (it’s a Top Gear series for those that haven’t had the pleasure) more, but regardless it was a given that Andy would be presenting the various AR demonstrations that we’ve built for our clients.
Andy was demonstrating the benefits of having AR demos on such a portable device such as an iPad. Imagine viewing an entire property block and each room configuration that hasn’t even been built yet by holding an iPad to the ground and tapping. Or, the many layers and components of a manhole through an iPad? Yes, Andy can build that.
Andy going through his Amazon Prime Watchlist (mainly The Grand Tour)
CGI
I often walk past the CGI team here at Fluid and do a double-take – “Is that real or did you build that in CGI?”. So not only did we host our own “Real or No Real?” during Ed’s seminar, we also produced a showcase of some of our work.
A very intense game of Real or No Real
To view a selection of our CGI work, take a look here - https://www.fluid-ideas.co.uk/work/cgi
Interactive social
For any business active on social media channels, the term “thumb-stopping content” is something we all strive for - and live and interactive social gives you just that. If used in the right way it will also add huge commercial value. We demonstrated a format of a live interactive social campaign that we have tried and tested with success for clients, which is where the audience on Facebook decides the fate of participants. For this exercise, the question posed was which cake a participant was allowed to eat!
Conclusion
It is safe to say that I breathed a sigh of relief when the event concluded, and everything had run smoothly. No equipment had broken in transport, every demonstration worked flawlessly and were well received, and we all felt like we’d made a positive impact helping educate and open people’s eyes to the world of emerging technology.
Our aim is to make these events much more of a regular thing, with one pencilled in for each quarter. If you are interested in coming along to one, please let us know at [email protected]