B2B Sales Arrow - Is Metaverse the future of the Event Industry?

- Paras Lohani

Metaverse, a dawning technology concept, is fast catching the fancy of American and European business leaders, who see it as a plausible solution for interacting in 3D spaces in ways beyond the realms of the current virtual collaborative solutions.

Now, with the predicted rise of the metaverse technology, which uses virtual reality (VR), augmented reality, digital avatars and spatial audio to help people interact in a 3D space, virtual events and meetings will become more immersive and engaging, akin to in-person meetings. Small wonder, business leaders and marketers are excited. 

Promising technology

Technology industry doyen and founder of Microsoft Inc. Bill Gates in his year-end blog wrote that within just 2-3 years, most virtual meetings “will move from 2D camera image grids to the metaverse, a 3D space with digital avatars.” He claimed that the metaverse technology will enable people to have their own avatars who would be able to meet in virtual space. The use of VR goggles and motion capture gloves will accurately capture expressions, body language, and the quality of voice to replicate the experience and feel of in-person meetings.

Before Mr. Gates’ aforesaid proclamation about metaverse, in October last, Facebook had already announced transformation of its entire corporate identity to revolve around the metaverse. In 2020, Disney even promised to build its own version of the metaverse to “allow storytelling without boundaries.” Recently, McDonald's filed patent applications in the US for setting up a shop, the first-ever in the metaverse. Some mega sports and entertainment events such as Australian Open, Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2022) and more are also pivoting to Metaverse. In February, the metaverse elements were even added to the catwalk at the New York Fashion Week. 

Clearly, metaverse, as it emerges, is seemingly having its application and benefits in many unforeseen ways, but the resultant outcome of this nascent technology may be riddled with some initial teething problems as was witnessed in the case of Samsung’s maiden attempt in metaverse – the event experienced serious technical issues

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Downsides: India context

The novelty of metaverse may lure many to try out this new technology initially, however, once the newness fades, metaverse maybe actually a slow starter in India compared to virtual events adoption over the past two years.

Moreover, new technology adoptions in India are generally delayed by at least 1-2 years compared to developed markets like the US, hence metaverse might be no exception. Since most of the metaverse technology is developing in the US, the costs will be high initially, till Indian players start designing, manufacturing and supplying both hardware and software for this technology in the homeland. Initially, with few service providers, the costs for such events will be higher and thus the adoption might be slow.

Further, not many will be willing or even have the wherewithal to invest in the expensive headsets and other AR/VR hardware that support metaverse events. In addition to this, the minimum bandwidth requirement for joining a metaverse event is quite high, above 30 mbps per system, which not every household in India has.