What Benefits Do Robots Bring to the Events Industry?
During and post the pandemic, the pressure on organizers to deliver exceptional event experiences increased manifold. The lack of demand and cash flow crunch caused event industry professionals to never-return back to events and meetings. A New England Livery Association study reported that the limousine, plus charter bus industry lost 90% of business owing to the pandemic. Also, the most recent report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the hospitality sector has been down by 1.2 million workers since February 2020. This event staff and the labor shortage is slowly bringing machines, mainly Service Robots into the picture. These co-bots are experts at managing repetitive, heavy-lifting jobs, along with their human counterparts - with flawless precision. Other contemporary event staff hiring trends are - choosing tech-savvy event professionals with niche functional expertise over generalists.
So why Robots? Well, Robots are easy to work with. They are programed much prior to event operations, navigation and security parameters. Robots can help with transporting event equipment, checking in attendees, distributing lunch coupons, taking in-event attendee photographs and streamlining event planning.
Interacting with robots may not be a common phenomenon for the most of us. But, employing robots at your event place can have other compounded benefits too! Robots can ease off the workload of your event staff, increase planning productivity and also boost attendee experience.
Your event will be talked of as ‘original’ and ‘innovation-leading’ with robot staff appointments, through rent or ownership. Even the consumer-robotics led attendee experience generation can be indeed an out-of-box event delivery that can put you straight under the media’s lenses and over and above the social media’s ‘what’s trending’ charts!
Why Hiring Robots For Your Next Event, Is the New Normal
Say Welcome to Hospitality Robots
Imagine being at a business event where robot bartenders and F&B stewards come to your table to serve you your favorite beverages and foods! In fact, today robotic arms are being employed to make pour-over coffee, including lattes and cappuccinos!!
Way back in 2013, at the Google I/O conference in May the ‘Makr Shakr’ Cocktail Maker Robot made its grand debut with its disruptive in-event put-up. The event audience could order their choice of drinks via an app and the massive robotic arms of Makr Shakr would mix the perfect combinations of syrup, fruit mixers and alcohol. The app also had an in-built ‘rate the drink’ feature and offered to share the event photographs on social media platforms.
Continuing with the trend and more, in the present times, chatbots and hospitality robots are welcoming attendees to the event, via chatting with them - gathering key data for attendee analysis. Also, DJ robots are keeping the attendees grooving by mixing and dancing on the event networking floors.
Robots As Means of Infotainment And Much More!
It has been predicted that robot-staffed and AI-built events will reach a stage where the robots themselves will help audience reach the venue from the airport as also bring the audience from the hotels to the venue. The robots here and now are striking a conversation with the audience, and answering their technical questions! Today, robot’s like the LG’s bot in-built with Alexa voice
recognition software that can follow instructions on speaking to it, is busy giving out information, monitoring movements and recognizing people & greeting them individually – thus changing in-event experience
dynamics. Hiring this robot is a must!
Events like the South by Southwest Interactive have already on-boarded holographic virtual presenters aka booth attendants for example ‘Jenny’ at their 2013 event. Her USP was that she could sense if anyone passed her by, she could speak to and gesture them, offer event information and coax the attendees to interact with the iPad kept in front of her!
Did you know Robots existing and functioning in human environment can also enable remote attendee interactions? For example, through Suitable technologies’ ‘Beam’ – the telepresence robot; and a docking station and a computer screen, attendees who are seated at their homes can attend business events and even navigate the event floor. Moreover, connecting to some robots like MantaroBots and Anybots, in case on-site attendance is not possible, can help the virtual event attendees move around the live event and interact with fellow participants.
MantaroBots use Apple or Android tablet devices that are mounted on a rolling base, the attendees can get live at the event using Skype or any other video conferencing portal and control the robot’s movements remotely.
The Anybots QB robot, with obstacle detection capabilities, is elevated 2.5 to 6.5 feet above the ground. The attendees can direct the robot with the help of the Anybots’ Web-based communications system. Another model by the same company known as Anybots - the Qx - can allow global off-site attendees to visit trade show booths or alternatively go around the entire virtual show floor.
Attendees thus save on event travel costs and attend worldwide events at the click of a button by activating the robots at on-ground events.