Despite that the technological advancement that continues to develop rapidly in the marketplace, participants
adopted a somewhat conservative view when selecting those that would be most commonplace from a list of 14
possible technology advances by 2020. The most commonly expected developments stated by 75% of respondents,
was ‘Live video streaming to remote participants’, a technology which is, to a large extent, available today. The
next expected developments included ‘a social network before, during and after events’ (70%) and ‘all event
content downloaded to our mobile phones’ at 64%. Despite the widespread excitement and abundance of
applications for smartphones such as the Apple iPhone, only 32% expected such technology to be commonly used
at events by 2020. Whilst most advanced and experiential technologies were not ranked as highly as individual
developments, there was strong support for their potential applications when discussed subsequently in scenarios
for personalization. These included ‘remote attendees participating as 3D holograms’ (33%), ‘every object has builtin
intelligence and can interact with the people around it - e.g. chairs, walls, tables (17%) and ‘intelligent avatars
participating in virtual events on our behalf’ (15%).