A post by Katie Frettingham

Have you tried Ikea’s Place App? 

Even if you’re not in the market for a chaise longue it’s worth a go. It’s a great example of just how useful Augmented Reality (AR) can be; allowing you to view furniture in-situ in your home before you buy.

Using AR to superimpose computer-generated images into the real world isn’t just great for home furnishing, it has many exciting uses within events.

Accessing AR content requires nothing more than scanning an AR code, using either your phone’s embedded functionality or an AR app. At Live Union we’re finding that more and more of our events are using AR and we now have all the necessary skills in-house to design and deploy content.

In short, AR allows you to add a whole new dimension to the audience experience and has both engagement and practical benefits.

Engagement Benefits of Augmented Reality:

1. People are able to personalise their experience, choosing the content that is most relevant to them
2. AR can produce a more reflective experience, delegates interacting with the content at their own pace, ideal for more introvert personality types.
3. It can stimulate conversation and connections. For example, on an exhibition stand sales staff can navigate potential customers through a non-linear journey, forming deeper relationships and insights.
4. AR can be used to gamify the experience, providing new ways to help people understand and retain ideas.
5. The interaction doesn’t have to be a one off – applying AR to post-event materials can be a great way to amplify your content beyond the event itself.

Practical Benefits of Augmented Reality:

1. AR can be applied to multiple surfaces, be it screens or printed collateral – this makes it extremely accessible and adaptable, depending on the space or target audience.
2. If you’re tight for space but you have a lot of information you want to share AR could be the answer. For example, if you have an exhibition stand with a small footprint you can still have your ‘hero image’ but using AR opens up possibilities to showcase photos, videos, stats, links through to social media etc. – they simply build over the image which is already in place.
3. The beauty about the overlay graphics is that they’re completely customisable – we can create bespoke items in line with your brand guidelines, or you can simply provide us with the assets and we will work in partnership with you to apply them and bring your image to life.
4. You have the choice as to whether your audience use their own devices to interact with your AR content or you provide tablets or some combination of the two.

If you’d like to see some examples of AR in action in the event environment then do get in touch.