Conferences are great for meeting like-minded professionals and networking with people across companies and industries. It is an unparalleled opportunity to exchange thoughts, experiences, and learning with others. By bringing a group of opinion leaders under one roof, attendants can participate in highly valuable knowledge transfer, which may spark new applications and ideas.
In the past, conferences were mostly an in-person affair. However, now that people understand the multiple benefits of remote conventions, everyone is willing to tune into a remote but engaging alternative. At first, a 2D meeting platform can seem like a solution, but with the growing phenomenon of Zoom fatigue, many have felt the exhaustion of communicating on video calls. Research has shown that nearly half of the surveyed professional workers, about 32 million individuals, report a high degree of exhaustion due to numerous video calls over the day. A study by Microsoft concluded that 30% of people are busy emailing during a video call. So if people are not exhausted from video calls, they are highly likely to be distracted by emails and notifications.
The core idea of conferences is to bring people together. They become the stage for networking, conversations, new ideas, and partnerships. Thanks to virtual reality and its presence effect, as well as a variety of productivity tools, conferences in VR, are an improved solution for conducting events on a global scale. At first sight, a conference conducted in virtual reality may seem like a logistically daunting task. However, with rental VR headsets available, it has never been easier to have a virtual conference with avatars. The ability to use VR from the comfort of your home and meet others in the form of their photorealistic, professional avatars is the best of both natural and virtual worlds! Using a VR headset, you will be able to enter a full focus zone and block out all the distractions. The virtual conference rooms would cost only a fraction of your hotel conference rooms. Below is a sample flow in a virtual conference room.
Ice Breaker session
You can start your conference by having a quick icebreaker event where everyone can introduce themselves. The in-person presence feel brings out the social element in people and encourages people to interact with others, very much unlike what we see in 2D video conferencing events.
Presentation
We have the perfect virtual town hall to hold presentations for a broader audience in your company. Here you can host a virtual avatar meeting with more than 90 active and engaged participants. In virtual conference halls, you will be able to see everyone. The 3D medium increases interaction and communication between the conductor(s) and the participants. You will be able to make the session more interactive rather than a monologue on a screen.
Workshop rooms
Suppose you hold a best practices seminar. Conducting breakout room discussions or a mini-workshop would be an apt addition to your schedule. You can divide the participants into smaller groups, where each group deliberates about a topic in their respective private audio zones. At the end of the discussion, the groups can step out of their audio zones and into the main room to come together and share their insights.
Wrap Up Meet
Participants can then enjoy a virtual drink or play a game like Pictionary to conclude the conference.
At Arthur, we help companies meet, collaborate, and manage work for geographically distributed and hybrid teams. To read more about the use of virtual reality in the workplace, please check out our other blogs.
