Immersive virtual events are set to become the next big thing in the events industry. But what are they exactly? The future of events will almost certainly include immersive online events. That’s why it’s important to keep up with this arm of the industry as it evolves.
What Are Immersive Online Events, and Why Do They Matter?
In video gaming, the term immersion refers to how games are designed. An immersive games makes players feel that they’re fully absorbed in the game. When a player is immersed in a game, it feels less like playing a game and more like being part of the game world.
Immersive virtual events platforms attempt to achieve a similar kind of effect. Designers of immersive experiences use digital design techniques to create three-dimensional virtual spaces that are more dynamic, detailed, and interesting to look at. And they use experiential techniques like gamification to create enriching, engaging event experiences. Overall, the intent is to encourage attendees to interact more with the virtual environment and with each other.
An immersive virtual event typically refers to a 3D virtual event. Attendees explore the virtual venue, either moving an avatar through the space or through a first-person eye view, as if physically present. Currently this looks similar to how a player moves through a typical video game, using a computer or phone. But there is the potential to take this even further, using virtual reality technology. With VR, it might be possible to create an event venue that attendees can explore in a much more realistic—and truly immersive—fashion.
A 3D immersive event provides the audience with a richly-textured 3D environment to explore. It also provides multiple ways to interact within the virtual environment. This means immersive online events can help virtual audiences feel like they’re part of the event action. It creates a similar feel to audiences at live events. The more immersive an online experience is, the more the audience feels like part of the event world.
Immersion Improves the Virtual Event Experience
Immersion is a hot topic of conversation in the virtual events industry. It has become clear that immersion is a very effective way to achieve better brand engagement rates. The more immersive the event experience is, the more engaging and satisfying it is. Engagement is crucial because it affects how much attendees participate in the event. It also affects their perception of the event after it’s over, and their readiness to talk about it and promote it to others.
In short: immersion boosts engagement, and engagement boosts enjoyment, participation, and post-event satisfaction. Plus, immersion and engagement make attendees more receptive to event marketing messages.
The Difference Between a Webinar and a 3d Virtual Events Platform
Just imagine: You have two virtual conferences to choose between.
- You have one “event” in which you sit in on one webinar after another, muted and only able to “participate” via the chat option.
- Or, you have the second virtual event, which takes place on a virtual resort island. You gain points for exploring exhibitor booths in the virtual exhibition hall, sending in a mock pitch, and attending the opening night’s happy hour. You have multiple opportunities for virtual networking and meeting other like-minded industry thinkers. You still may participate in webinars, but they’re one piece of a total event experience.
Which would you choose? It’s obvious why immersive events are the future of virtual events.
Take a look at this real example of an immersive event below:
Gaming Concepts for Immersive Virtual Events
Gamification
Gamification has become important for events in general, but it’s particularly important for online events. Gamification describes how concepts in games and gaming can be applied to non-game environments such as events. Adding gamified elements helps make those events more engaging, interesting, and satisfying. Elements such as points systems, achievements, and leaderboards are popular at virtual events.
Flow
There’s another concept in gaming that’s important in immersive event design. It’s called “flow.” This concept originated with a psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow describes a state of mind where a person is fully immersed in the activity they’re performing. They’re completely absorbed in what they’re doing to the point where they barely notice time passing.
In game design, it’s a hugely important concept. A game with good flow is one that people will happily play for hours on end, with total immersion and absorption. When a game has bad flow, people play less often, for shorter periods of time.
Not all aspects of the flow state are applicable to virtual events. But playing around with flow can definitely help improve engagement for online immersive events. The flow theory, for instance, is why gamification has become an essential element of many virtual events. Gamification elements give attendees short-term goals to achieve. Each time they complete one of those goals, it provokes a sense of fulfillment and enjoyment. That, in turn, makes the participant want to stick around for the next game opportunity. That contributes to flow. Other virtual event ideas center around this idea of flow and engagement as well. As with gaming, if an attendee at an event is in a state of flow, they’re likely to stay longer. They’ll visit more booths and interact with more content features.
Putting it All Together: The Need for Immersive Events
Live events have made their comeback, but virtual and hybrid events remain in demand. The advantages of holding a hybrid or virtual event are undeniable. And, many event attendees have come to expect that they’ll have the option to attend professional events virtually. Even if virtual events are no longer necessary for public health reasons, the expectation is there. A successful event today, with its full audience-reaching potential, will include a virtual option. Having a robust virtual option also improves the hybrid experience for live event attendees, because it gives them alternative means of interacting with the content, if they happen to get sick during the event, or otherwise need a break.
For event organizers and designers, that means it’s important to put the same level of care and attention into designing virtual event experiences as for live ones. Event audiences become more sophisticated over time. They have increasingly sophisticated expectations about the events they attend. That applies to online event experiences as well as live ones.
And because of that, immersive event experiences will be an important part of the virtual event industry. Learning about concepts like flow, gamification, and immersion are therefore important for event organizers. It’s key to creating virtual event experiences that help events hit their targets.
Immersive Events are the Future of the Virtual Events Industry
It’s pretty well established now that virtual events are a permanent part of the events industry. As virtual events technology improves, we can expect to see the 3D immersive virtual event become the industry standard. Immersive experiences will also become more popular, more impressive, and more effective at engaging audiences.