Shaping the Future of Events

Get ready for the dynamic duo - Bogdan Maran and Merijn van Buuren - as they kick off the first episode of "Ctrl+Alt+Event" on the intersection of Events, Marketing, Data, AI & Technology!

"Ctrl+Alt+Event" is not just a keyboard shortcut; it's our way of taking control of the world of events.

We're here to Ctrl the narrative, Alt-ernate perspectives, and Event-ually drop some knowledge bombs! 💡🚀

Here you'll get your weekly dose of tech, humour, and the occasional self-mockery with a sprinkle of data visualisation and AI. 

Let's Ctrl+Alt+Event our way to better events! 🎧✨

Here's what's in store for this premiere:

👋 Meet Your Hosts: Meet Bogdan and Merijn to get to know the minds behind the mic.

💡 What to expect: Who is the Ctrl + Alt + Event concept for, and what is it all about?

📊 Data Visualization Surprise: A special data visualization for tech-savvy minds.

🔮 Future of Event Predictions: What's in store for the events landscape?

🗓️ Weekly Rendezvous: Mark your calendar! "Ctrl+Alt+Event" will be live on LinkedIn every Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT to answer all your burning questions.

🔄 Host Rotation: Bogdan and Merijn will alternate hosting the live event each week, so make sure to follow them both to receive notifications.

🔗 Connect with Us: Bogdan Maran, Merijn van Buuren

👥 Get more involved: reserve your spot here

🎙️ Become a guest on our show: apply here

It's not just a podcast; it's a tech-forward experience you won't want to miss!

See you next Tuesday at 3:00 PM GMT! 🎉✨

Chapters

• 0:10 Event Technology and Data Visualization Introduction
• 15:44 Future Event Predictions and Technology
• 21:25 Understanding Integration Terms for Event Professionals

Transcript

Bogdan Maran: 0:10

Hello, can I start nice and say that you're on mute just to go with the fight that you had in the last five years, or something like that Got to love it.

Merijn van Buuren: 0:22

Welcome everyone, so good to see you here. Thanks for inviting me, Bogdan. You came up with this amazing concept, so let's not let people down. Today we're going to dive right in. As you probably know, my name is Merijn van Buuren, I'm founder of Event Mender, and I'm here together with Bogdan Maran, founder of Visual Hive.

Bogdan Maran: 0:44

Hello everybody and thank you for joining us. And hello, nathan. I can see there that you've jumped on and high-end as well. We've got people watching us, which is something new, and this should be fun. So let's start telling people who we are, or who most people know us. But who are you, Merijn? Where are you coming from, what have you done and why are you here?

Merijn van Buuren: 1:11

Well, I think the main reason I'm here is because I've been a big tech entogist for quite a while now. Obviously, I started within the event industry in the physical event space, but during the whole pandemic that shifted to more virtual, I decided to help more companies embody that virtual and help them with the transitioning from virtual, from physical to virtual, and in that I encountered a lot of different technology suppliers and also the fact that there are so many of them. We barely know where to get started in doing the research. So that's where the idea for Event Mender came on Work together with over a hundred virtual and hybrid event platforms planning software, ticketing software, you name it and that's where I got introduced into really event technology and that's where my passion and expertise comes from. How is that for you, Bogdan?

Bogdan Maran: 2:08

Not to say I'm old enough to have a previous life no, but I used to be. I quote Nathan because I know Nathan is here and he said hi and me and Nathan go a while back and he has the ability to describe my thoughts better than I do usually and he said that I'm a former photojournalist and data scientist, which is not particularly accurate because I'm not a data scientist per se. I'm a more of a data enthusiast. I would go with data storyteller and we can go in details a bit later.

Bogdan Maran: 2:40

But Visual Hive was founded in 2019 out of a couple of long conversations and beers with Nathan, and we're looking at specifically working with data science around visual content and by visual content I mean photos and videos, not content by somebody speaking on a stage, because that's another thing that you're going to go into today about how we describe things in technology and how complicated and how many we have many words that mean the same thing, but we got into the pandemic. We're apart from having a podcast at 6am with Nathan that was very fun to have live at 6am, don't get me wrong like we do live today, we've built custom platforms for event professionals. We've done a lot of data visualization, a lot of integrations and nowadays, Visual Hive is back with working on a data driven AI marketing engine for marketers and events, and we're not that far away in our journey, as you are. We've just tested an alpha, we got some good feedback and now we are working harder to get there. Congratulations. That's me on the long line.

Merijn van Buuren: 3:53

I think it's a very good and comprehensive introduction. Also good to know, maybe, who is this actually for Control-Alt-Event? I think we mainly created this for event organizers and company that orchestrate remarkable events, or just those who really like technology To better understand what the capabilities are, to give you some actionable insights, some case studies here and there to see what's possible in event management when it comes to technology. It's quite an untapped potential, although a lot of you have scratched the surface in terms of what's possible. We would like to help you take the most out of it, and I think that's the main reason why we started this, but maybe you have something to add there.

Bogdan Maran: 4:40

Because we are both on the geeky side when it comes to technology. We really enjoy it, but at the same time we're looking at the practical side of it, because we've got our neck deep if not way more than that on a daily basis, not just with what we do, but with everything from consultancy and helping people actually get value out of it. I really liked the idea of I really like coming up with brands and the Control-Alt-Event. I really like the Windows restart concept Because we are at a point where events need to be and not just a restart but like a forced restart, because events are a very conservative industry and they're talking here specifically around B2B events.

Bogdan Maran: 5:21

And again, we all say events but we all come from different sides. Some are weddings, some are parties. We mainly tackle B2B events, if I'm not mistaken, like 95% of the cases where technology is vital and that restart needs to happen way more effectively, specifically because we have a lot of advances in technology, computing and everything else, but also because the people that we serve, the attendees, the ones who create the experiences for have technology experiences enhanced. They have enhanced technology experiences outside the events and we have to catch up as an industry and that's why the Control-Alt-Event kind of came with us. Let's force it to go to where it needs to be.

Merijn van Buuren: 6:06

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. So, in terms of what people can expect, format boils pretty much down to every Tuesday at 3pm GMT or 4pm CET, so the time it is right now will go live on LinkedIn. That's where we'll unravel different challenges, focus on specific use cases, as I mentioned, but also want to give you the possibility to actually ask questions. I see quite some people in the chat, so very good to see you there, and if you have any specific problems with technology, feel free to also make some suggestions. We are relatively flexible, although we have about 400 different topics that we want to cover in the foreseeable future.

Bogdan Maran: 6:53

That's what you came up with last night. I didn't really manage to add too much to that.

Merijn van Buuren: 6:58

We'll be around for a while, but always open for suggestions and if you have specific questions for us regarding the topic we'll be hosting about then going live on LinkedIn and joining us. There is the place to do it.

Bogdan Maran: 7:12

Yeah, pretty much, and yeah, apparently you'll also, because we've worked very hard in the last few days. You'll also find us on very soon on TikTok, on wherever you get your podcasts from. So as soon as we finish this, this will be turned into a podcast. But, as Arjen said, you need, if you have any questions regarding the subjects that we're going to talk about each week, jump on. Let's have a chat. In the questions we'll try to not just philosophical chat, but actually practical examples of how you can improve this or that in your life as a professional event. Otherwise, we'll know the people to come to if you want to make your life better in any other forms.

Merijn van Buuren: 7:53

Very true, very true. Well, I think we covered who we are, why we organized this podcast, who is for what the format is going to be, what people can expect. So maybe dive a bit deeper into today's topic. Yes, that was my cue right.

Bogdan Maran: 8:08

I missed that. Nathan is going to laugh his ass off. I missed my cue. So, apart from everything else, because I'm a data enthusiast, I kind of convinced Arjen to give me the chance that on every episode we would have a data visualization example. So we'll try to keep it within the events and because that kind of drives me to do things, I'll give you. That's my first episode, so I'll share the first bit of the data visualization. I hope you enjoy this. These are not counters. So first of all, we have to say thank you to Ufi, because Ufi, as far as I'm concerned, it comes to open data and event. It's kind of the place to go if you want to have some reliable data and play with it, at least from my kicky side.

Bogdan Maran: 8:55

So we looked here at the Aerof Fair statistics from 2022, with some side notes. There is no UK, because UK is not in Europe anymore, not even according to Ufi, which is frustrating for many reasons. But they're not going to politics. We are going and this are. We picked up 1,016 shows from Ufi's database database, from the report that they published. This is live. You can go and Ufiorg and pick it up and look at it yourself.

Bogdan Maran: 9:28

Not this colorful slightly better probably but we looked at how many events did we have in terms of from these events. We looked at the number of companies with individual stands versus the total square meters books. The idea was to give a little bit more perspective from just the number of 1,006 events, which usually events that you don't do, usually mainly use counters. So I wanted to put everything about data straightening. It's put it in context. So on the button here you'll see the total square meter booked for all this 1,600 events. So you have the number of companies with individual stands and at the top here you have if this works, it should work at some point.

Bogdan Maran: 10:14

You have Spain, which has the biggest numbers of stands or individual companies that exhibit it, but not the biggest number of visitors, because at the bottom here you have Germany, which has way less firms represented but a lot more people coming to their events. And at the intersection here you have Portugal, which had not so many events. You have on the left-hand side here on the top, how many events they had, but they had only about 1,000 firms and over 200,000 visitors. And the big orange block here is Turkey, which had over 8 million visitors with not so many firms represented. But the fun bit is, if you want to go further in, you can do visitors for each city. So I've picked up here the top 10 cities where you have, on the top right you have Madrid, at the bottom here you have Munich, so you have the German efficiency, where they only had 172 companies represented but they had over 1 million visitors, and at the bottom here you have Turkey, with a lot of cities and a lot of visitors.

Bogdan Maran: 11:25

So, because this is fun, I also wanted to look a little bit more into context.

Bogdan Maran: 11:28

So I looked at the average price of a bottle of wine in these countries in 2022, and the GDP of those countries in the same year and, as you can see, finland, which only had one event, unfortunately ranks quite high because wine is very expensive there.

Bogdan Maran: 11:44

And on the other side, germany sits quite nicely at a decent bottle of wine, but with a big GDP and a lot of visitors. So that's kind of my very fast presentation of data. So I use Power BI thank you, Ufi, for the data and hopefully every episode will have something completely different but as fun as possible. So, if Ufi is interested, I'm not applying for a job, but maybe for a partnership because they have a lot of data we can play around and we can go into business intelligence. But this hopefully gives you a feeler of what I think when I talk about data visualization. And it's not about how many times people go to the toilet and you have to scan them and you have a properly two million visitors that came to your show or something to that degree, and that shuts up now.

Merijn van Buuren: 12:36

Well, I love it and I think I see Selima also says great figures. Thank you for sharing it is. It gives a different dimension to just data that you normally see in the sheet, which doesn't say a lot, but the moment you can visualize it, it doesn't just become more fun, but also you can very quickly get something actionable out of it, because in one bird's eye view you can see that. She asks where to find this information.

Bogdan Maran: 13:05

Yeah, so if you go to Ufi website, so I'll share the link in the chat just as I finish speaking and you go to resources and you can download the reports. Those reports are very contain a lot more information than I put here. For me, the pleasure is just to play and try to tell a story with that data. But you can find a huge amount more information on Ufi website and they are amazing people. So just go and check it out and I'll put it in the chat, Absolutely.

Merijn van Buuren: 13:31

Yeah, I think this is already a little bit about navigating the future of events. Data is going to play a big role in visualization even more, so really appreciate you sharing and putting in the hard work of actually visualizing these examples. As Bogdan mentioned, he will put it in the chat now that I'm talking and he can actually focus on typing. Today is also about navigating the future of events and where this industry, as you mentioned, sometimes we feel like we need a hard reset, and part of that is also figuring out where do we then want to go, and I think we prepared a little fun element for today, which is making predictions in terms of what is going to happen in the event industry with technology More of the fun ones, not per se, the ones that are mentioned quite often and that are quite obvious from points of view, but I think you gave this also some good thoughts, bogdan. Yes, I did.

Bogdan Maran: 14:40

My first one, and one of my favorites, because I just due to some recent conversations is sustainability. And I'm not predicting that events are going to talk about sustainability, because they are going to and they're going to be very important. They are going to and they're going to have shows about it and we're going to go on and on and on, which is absolutely fabulous and important. My prediction is that by the end of the year, 99% of people will see, will still think sustainability means environment, which is not necessarily true, and my prediction is that nobody's going to come and talk about the economic and social impact that events have, or at least talk about it, but just in the background, because the whole environment thinks it's sexier and, again, vitally important, but it's not the only one.

Merijn van Buuren: 15:30

All right, I think I can kind of get on board with that one, but I'm very curious to see, and hope actually to see, more people realizing the other side of it as well.

Merijn van Buuren: 15:41

But we're going to see how that pans out. When I actually was staying around with JetGPT to get some inspiration for this, it came up with events in space zero gravity, networking sessions, anyone and I think at first I had to laugh at it because I was like that's way too crazy. But then at the same time you hear Elon Musk planning to go to Mars and putting quite some steps in that direction. I think it definitely will be within our lifetime that we'll be able to travel to a planet and not take several months to get there. Will there be events in space? I think so and I think it can be very fun, probably first for those with a very big budget, not for us in the beginning stage, but maybe by the end of our lifetime it will be a bit more affordable and we'll see more events in space. I would love to see that actually as one of my predictions.

Bogdan Maran: 16:41

It might not be that expensive because if you take, for example, davos and you go out of Switzerland, I don't know how much expensive the space can be if you compare that to Switzerland. So it might be way more feasible than you can imagine at this point.

Merijn van Buuren: 16:54

Fair true, fair, true, we'll see. Time will tell. Do you have another prediction for us to share as well?

Bogdan Maran: 17:03

Yes, it's not as fun as going into space, but what is honestly a prediction is I'm looking forward. I'm trying to find an AI that can count how many times people can say video is a king, because I estimate at least 5,374 when it comes to live events and podcasts, and I think it's going to go overboard. But my hope is that it's not going to be just talk. It's going to be a little bit more than talk and we can make this educational part and link it to the social and economical sustainability way better. Going kind of dark here, you weren't very fun with it.

Merijn van Buuren: 17:45

We cover all different parts of the prediction game. It happens, I like. Obviously we've seen the Vision Pro being released into the wild, let's put it like that. I've seen quite some videos of people just tapping around in space with their ski glasses on. I think it's very fun. I see two ways of it and there's that I think it was Simpsons that predicted kind of this where everyone is walking around with their ski glasses.

Merijn van Buuren: 18:21

I'm curious if we'll see it in events. But I think there is quite a big chance that when this evolves into something more, something that you can carry a lot easier, rather than having to ski big ski goggles on your face and being really kept off interacting with people because everyone is looking at you weird, when it becomes more integrated into your self-being and you as a person, rather than really having a screen in between, I think we can definitely see that in the next five years, maybe ten, that we will have the capability that this Vision Pro is bringing to us in a bit more ease, form factor, where that will actually add another layer to events, where we can have the whole work suite of tools that we normally bring or keep at home. We can actually bring it with us at an event and that could offer quite a lot of interesting capabilities. So I think we're going there as well.

Bogdan Maran: 19:25

It would be very fun to see, apart from just seeing the monstanzas like very sexy things like coffee. Do you want a coffee or do you want to play with the Vision Pro? I did see a video this morning which was kind of the epithome of this new technology. It was a guy driving a Tesla truck self-driving trucks the truck was driving very slowly on the side and he was with the Vision Pro playing around in the carriage.

Merijn van Buuren: 19:51

Was that the guy that got arrested? I don't know if he got arrested.

Bogdan Maran: 19:54

To be honest, I didn't really follow up. He was just stuck in my head, which I found fascinating. We did have a couple of questions, one from David in terms of is there a new role for event technologists, especially if there are predictions that we've made in terms of technology is going to be kind of at the heart of it? And apart from the space bit, because it definitely is an event technologist there I wouldn't go in space with a company that organizes events that doesn't have an event technologist role, at least a minimum one.

Merijn van Buuren: 20:26

Very true. No, I think, as I mentioned in the chat real quick, if it doesn't exist yet, then you better make that role within your company, because the more we proceed into the future, the more urgent it gets to have the right coverage for technology and have that knowledge in-house, especially if we go to far places like space.

Bogdan Maran: 20:50

And it's part of what we try to do as well with this in terms of trying to get as many people as possible in conversating about events and events technology. And just to add very quick to David's point event technology and I'll lead you to that into the topic of next week, if that's possible because you're wrapping up the time Because event technology is quite a wide range of what you need to do, and one of the special things about events is that everybody needs something else or in a different format, because they need to fit whatever they do at that point in time. And event technologies are going to be ideally somebody as a generalist, because they need to understand a lot of things and know what to pick and where to pick and then have either relationships with event technology companies that can help quite quickly or relationships with people like A-DalandB, who does consultancy on events, with what we try to do when we do consultancy for events, so they can come to specialists to help them. Do you need help with AI, do you need help with integration, do you need help with registration, do you need help with specific bits? But they need to know what to ask for at some point.

Bogdan Maran: 22:00

You know you're Polish here and you can go. Do you need to help with life captioning in multiple languages? That's a pain in the ass, big pain in the ass, very hard to solve. But you need help with what to ask for, because if you think it's going to be solved in three seconds, it's not going to be solved in three seconds. Maybe now you go to Poland, you can do it, but it's still hard work to get to that point.

Merijn van Buuren: 22:22

Very true, and I think that's also one of the topics we'll be covering a bit later. Actually, salima, you said the biggest challenge is to get sponsors and participants over 50 years old to embrace innovation in design and planning. I think that's a very good point, at least at the crossroads where we are right now, where there is that 50-50 kind of new, more tech-enabled generation entering the market, but those that don't really feel like they are super tech-enabled are still in the workforce as well. Obviously, within 10, 15 years, that will kind of solve itself, but at the moment, I think a big part of that is just educating and making sure to translate also in their knowledge and know-how what the capabilities are, but also to make it as quote-unquote child-friendly but in this case 50-plus-friendly as possible for them to understand and to embrace it. And I think that's also a perfect segue actually to the topic we'll be covering next week, where, in this case, we'll focus specifically on event professionals. But it's a good way to explain what we're meaning.

Merijn van Buuren: 23:48

Next week, we'll actually be talking about a topic that we call from AI to Zapier, and it's mainly about understanding integration terms for event professionals. So what are these terms? Which terms are out there, which ones are the ones that are essential for you as an event professional to know. But also take that one step further and actually make it actionable. And knowing what a term means is one thing, but understanding what it can do and what implications it has for you and your events, that's another. And I think that's the same translation you need to make when you're talking about 50-plus audience. If you just explain them like, hey, we have this amazing tool, okay, they know it's an amazing tool, but they haven't made the translation yet in terms of what value would it bring them and don't feel taken by the hand. And we are at least trying to achieve taking event professionals by the hand and laying a foundation, because in the third episode we'll actually dive deeper into automation and integration and then it's very handy to have that foundation laid out.

Bogdan Maran: 24:55

So I think what's the name of it? Because it came up with a fantastic name and I really liked it.

Merijn van Buuren: 25:02

From AI to Zapier, understand the integration terms for event professionals. You'll be seeing the event going live, probably by tomorrow, so then you have a few days to get it booked in your calendar because you don't want to miss it. It's really the foundation for what we'll be talking about in the future, so it's good to have that kind of A to Z handbook with you and, obviously, if there are any terms that you're unfamiliar with, please bring them to us during the live. Put them in the chat. We'll be more than happy to answer it and dive into it, give you a better, actionable insight in terms of what it actually means. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it for today.

Bogdan Maran: 25:48

Finish your content, which is a very high standard bar we need to keep from now on.

Merijn van Buuren: 25:54

Absolutely, absolutely. I agree, for those that are hungry for more, we will be finding ways how we can offer some exclusive content, behind the scenes valuable resources, some vibrant behind the scenes discussions that are not, per se, going to be here in these live sessions. If that sounds interesting, send either Bogdan or me a direct message. We will kind of create a wait list. So the moment we take that next step, after we progress a few episodes, you'll be the first one to get an invitation to join in. And also, good to know, we will be switching from one to another.

Bogdan Maran: 26:42

Next time is going to be your profile that is going to have the event. So look up to the marriage. That's correct.

Merijn van Buuren: 26:48

So make sure you follow both, either Bogdan or me, which one you're not yet connected with. Make sure to create a connection so you actually get a heads up when we go live. It will be every other week, it will be on another account. So make sure to follow both of us. And, yeah, anything else you would like to add before we chat?

Bogdan Maran: 27:11

Apart from the fact that we've did it live and thank you very much for everybody who came and I'm not going to read all the names, but it were way more than I expected and I'm completely blushed and mildest stress that we need to hopefully do a good job and you're going to come next week. Well, just that. I'm heading down towards 50. And I think 50s are going to be very tech aware in a couple of years. At least the 50s I know are very tech aware. Just make it simple and add value.

Merijn van Buuren: 27:42

All right, perfect, selima, be sure to watch out. We will send you a personal invite. That's also possible for us to invite you, so you will definitely get the invite for the next episode where we dive a bit more into the A to C, and for everyone else looking forward to the next one.

Bogdan Maran: 28:00

Thank you indeed very much for joining and happy days Indeed, have a lovely day and a lovely week. Cheers.