Reimagining Global Events for the Pandemic World - TDEW #3

Register for the Enterprise Blockchain Awards Gala, Free to Watch and Streaming Live on July 7th at 7:00PM EDT.

Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, BlueJeans – we’re all spending time on video conferencing and for many of us it’s working pretty well. But how can an organization hold a spectacular big event online?

We were confronted with this problem when we had to postpone our Enterprise Blockchain Awards Gala. Last year the black-tie event was pretty spectacular, with great food, drinks, a gorgeous warehouse event in Toronto and performers like Imogen Heap.

So we had to dig deep to come up with something that might be acceptable online. The solution? A virtual stage, with hologram presenters and performers along with award winners “beamed” in Star Trek style.

We’re inviting the world and the gala is free to attend. While all “attendees” will need to provide their own food and wine, the event is shaping up to be extraordinary, innovative and maybe a lot of fun. The stage looks like it cost a million dollars to create and the presenters will appear from around the world to the same digital place. Me, my co-host Alex Tapscott, MC Catherine Clark, and other guests will be in black tie, but I guess it’s optional for attendees. 

The “Virtual Stage” is being created by Arht Media, a company specializing in delivering speakers to events as holograms. I discovered them when they “beamed me” from a stage in Toronto to a conference in Singapore. At first some of the attendees thought it was actually me on the stage. Rather than putting me – made of atoms – on a plane I sent my bits instead. Now with the pandemic they have created a “virtual stage” product that enables multiple people to appear on the same cyberspace stage.

Around the world, innovators are dreaming up other creative ideas. Events I’ve spoken at recently have private “backstage” Q and A sessions for VIP guests. One event did a virtual VIP cocktail party using Zoom. 60 quests were moved to various 10 person private salons where we could meet each other in a small group setting. In an hour I felt like I had met everyone at the event, tough to do at a traditional convention cocktail party. 

Other organizations are holding online “hackathons” where programmers around the world collaborate, but this time online. 

One of the biggest of these is Campus Party, where I have given speeches to multiple events around the world. Pre-covid these events were massive physical events where 15,000 programmers lived in tents inside a building like the abandoned Berlin Airport or a massive warehouse. The tents are at either end of the facility and in the middle are thousands of tables and people connected to a highspeed network developing applications. 

There are multiple stages, including a main stage where presentations go on 24 hours a day. This year July 9-11 Campus party in Brazil is going global inviting its 700,000 "Campusios” to attend and I can’t wait to address the crowd. There are 2,000 speakers with 150 simultaneous transmissions going out to attendees from 3o countries. 

Please join me for these events in early July and let me know what you think!

Don Tapscott is co-author with his son Alex of the best-seller Blockchain Revolution. He is Co-Founder of the Blockchain Research Institute, an Adjunct Professor at INSEAD, Chancellor Emeritus of Trent University in Canada. He has authored 16 widely read books about the digital age.