Northstar

Jul-Aug 2017 45 MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS • MCMAG-ASIA.COM innovations in the service of Excel-slaying, cloud-based collaboration. Shoo, which took home the Tech & Innovation Watch Award at IBTM World late last year in Barcelona, Spain, is a collaborative online platform that focuses on the production logistics of an event. Schedules, production run-downs and cue sheets, and other on-site event documents can be shared and edited in real time, from any device, using the platform. A number of innovative cloud-based collaboration tools have emerged in recent years, from companies like EventCollab and Hubb, and Shoo reveals a natural progression. It delivers the on-the-y, real-time control that ensures programmes are awlessly executed. With an ever-increasing variety of cloud- based platforms making their way into the marketplace, ditching quickly outdated paper schedules and still-ubiquitous Excel documents just might be an attainable goal after all. 6 Virtual reality. Over the past two years, virtual reality has evolved from sci- shtick into something far more practical in our industry. Because technology has improved and production costs have come down, VR is now a reasonable way to showcase a destination or room setup. Thanks to Google Cardboard, a cheap set of goggles and a smartphone is all anyone needs to experience a virtual site inspection. Of course, VR also can be used to surprise and delight. Attendees at last year's SXSW event, for instance, were able to virtually tour Anheuser-Busch's brewery via Budweiser's Immersive Tour and Beer Garage. Participants could "walk" through the brewery via VR goggles, and could even smell the hops via applied scent technology. "What's so amazing about VR right now is that anyone can start experimenting," says FreemanXP's director of technology solutions, David Haas. "The technology is here; it isn't the hard part anymore. It's all about using your imagination." For site-selection purposes, hotels, convention centers and other venues are investing in 360-degree photography to create virtual-tour experiences for planners. In the coming year, expect to see more 360-degree tours of a venue's meeting rooms, with dierent room setups available as well. 7 Wearables for payment. Payments made from mobile and wearable devices are projected to reach nearly $100 billion globally by 2018, according to U.K.-based Juniper Research, with both smartwatches and wristbands the fastest-growing source of those payments. That means the general public is going to grow a lot more accustomed to paying for stu with a wave of their smartwatch- and bracelet-clad wrists, thanks to current and near-future innovations like Apple Pay, Android Pay and tness devices from Jawbone and Fitbit. For events, one high-prole example is Disney's MagicBand, and the company's just-released MagicBand 2. Disney's approach to wearables is already robust, as the MagicBand acts not only as a payment method, but also as a hotel room key, parking ticket, FastPass for selected rides and identier for on-site photos. The bracelets also are collectible fashion accessories in their own right, some being produced in limited editions. Expect to see a lot of innovation around wearable payments for events over the next couple of years, and look for them to become increasingly multifunctional. A free attendee wristband that counts your steps, guides you to your next meeting and lets you pay for lunch is just around the corner. "The technology is here; it isn't the hard part anymore. It's all about using your imagination." DAVID HAAS, DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS, FREEMANXP Virtual dip: The Yucatán booth at Tianguis Turístico

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