Virtual Realities

The rapidly evolving world of virtual events in the Design industry and the opportunities it brings.

Our early January 2020 assumptions about the year ahead now seem a very distant memory. Back then, we were just embarking on our usual phase of decision making – what the theme for this year’s event was to be, exploring possibilities with leading architectural and design companies for involvement in the 2020 built concept spaces, putting a name to the conference and, above all, considering how to create afresh a show that every year brings the hospitality design community together at Olympia London.

Within a matter of weeks, however, the relentless march of COVID 19 saw one event after another postponed or cancelled to be replaced by a plethora of webinars. The early results were mixed. We were all grappling with technology, some companies trying to use Zoom, others even using Chatbox, sound quality was shakey and speaker drop-outs were common. Ironically, at the very time when the shock of the pandemic and the closure of hotels and restaurants meant the industry needed to meet up more than ever, the nearest we could get to communal consolation was a passive and, frankly, often not very engaging morning in front our computer screens. No dopamine here!

At Informa - the organiser of Sleep & Eat - we decided to hold back and observe for a while. It was very soon apparent that the tech companies were in a race to better fulfil the virtual needs of events and it was not long before I was receiving calls almost every other day from firms eager to meet the challenge. The question remained however: could we really replace the all-important face-to-face exchange of a live event and, for our several thousand design and specifier visitors, the experience of touching and feeling products and materials? Fortunately, in the months since lockdowns first broke out across Europe, technology and an understanding of how it can be applied, have rapidly advanced. So now the answer to our question is - “yes” and “no”.

Sleep & Eat Virtual 2020 cannot directly replicate the physical Sleep & Eat, but in some respects it can better it. The serendipity of unplanned face-to-face meetings can’t be created in the virtual space, but we can orchestrate effective business meetings through online speed networking sessions. It is just a different kind of environment in which to have these types of encounters. On registering, attendees will be able to state what they are interested in and our system will suggest those with common or complementary interests who might be worth meeting online; users will also have the power to search for themselves and make their own decisions about who to contact. Exhibitors will be able to use the site to host brochures and videos and to launch new collections. Registered visitors can look at these and, if they want a meeting with the supplier, they can organise this through the platform, creating a digital diary date which will help them manage their visit. A potential advantage over a physical event where the stand team could simply be too busy to talk every time you swing by.

Another area of concern was how to create the experience of innovation for which Sleep & Eat is so justifiably recognised. This particularly revolves around the concept installations and, this year, we had settled on more of these than ever before – four guestrooms, immersive restaurant and bar experiences, a lounge bar, hotel lobby and a cutting-edge business networking space. However, as our designers started to think about the challenge, concern gave way to a new level of creative energy; in the virtual space, there are no cost or physical build restrictions, no health and safety rules to follow and no exhausting set-up and breakdown to oversee. The concept rooms would be limited only by the designers’ purpose and imagination.

Once again, the power of leading-edge technology came to our aid. Architectural animation specialist, Fumo Studio, is creating a five-storey virtual hotel which will take visitors from the point of arrival through each of the concept spaces. They can choose to explore the hotel by themselves or join the designer of each space as they give a guided tour via video. They can explore the concepts in detail, pause to learn more about a specific feature and link through to the suppliers via their computer, ‘phone or tablet.

Virtual also means a geographic opening-up to the world. Sleep & Eat Virtual’s audience is not constrained by the cost and time of international travel; it is as easy for people in Miami to visit the show as it is for people in Manchester. This was borne out by Designscape, a new virtual event that we ran in August; twenty-five per cent of visitors were from outside the UK. Furthermore, the Sleep & Eat conference organiser was able to search globally for her wish list contributors with the result that our keynote speakers this year are based in New York, Houston, Hong Kong and Bahrain. The conference will be pre-recorded, so no glitches on the day, and after the event both the conference and the concept rooms will be available on demand through the website. People who had to miss certain parts of the show, who are in different time zones or who simply want to re-visit a session they found particularly inspiring will be able to enjoy this ‘Netflix’ of hospitality leadership and innovation when it suits them.

For Informa, the new global context has provided a great incentive to cement relationships between our many events around the world, releasing cross-marketing opportunities and instigating new learning. At a more local level, technology means we can bring Sleep & Eat and Decorex together in one virtual place at the same time – two different but complementary and aligned events which visitors can move freely between.

So, I believe that virtual events are time-efficient and flexible for visitors in a way that suits modern life, they offer new learning opportunity beyond one’s usual orbit and the exciting prospect of engaging with people around the world. In addition, they are good for the planet with fewer people jumping on planes to get their conference fix. Meanwhile, the technology will only get better and who knows what experiences it may deliver in the future.

However, much as there are some great upsides, there have also been some aspects of Sleep & Eat which we have had to let go because the technology cannot yet support us, and, yes, despite the sophistication of the platform we are using, we cannot yet replicate the experience of running a hand over fabric and seeing for yourself how a drawer returns at the touch of a finger. Moreover, I am not such a crusader for the virtual world that I believe the enrichment and enjoyment of physically coming together has evaporated in just six months after millennia of human beings choosing to gather, share stories and socialise. Human beings are wired to do this and, since sociability is at the heart of hospitality, our industry tends to attract people who especially like to do business in this way.

I therefore do not think that it is the end for physical events. Instead, I believe in a hybrid future where increasingly sophisticated models will emerge for both virtual and physical forms as we feel our way forward and as new technologies release fresh opportunities. Importantly, these models will also need to identify the route to long term commercial viability and companies which participate will need to align their brands in new ways.

Sleep & Eat will continue to be focused on bringing our community together. For this year, it will have to mean exclusively in the virtual space but my hope is that the picture can become more diverse in the year to come.

Sleep & Eat Virtual will take place on 17 – 19 November  www.sleepandeatevent.com

This article first appeared in the September/October 2020 edition of Space Magazine. You can view this here - https://hotelspaceonline.com/

With thanks to Su Pecha at ESP.