TORONTO — September 25, 2012 — "The problem with the future is . . .  it's now!" said PSAV® Presentation Services SVP of Global Sales and Marketing Greg Van Dyke at the recent IncentiveWorks tradeshow and conference in Toronto. Addressing a crowd at Canada's premiere conference for professionals who plan, organize or influence meetings and events, Van Dyke stated: "Technology alone offers planners exciting opportunities to increase audience engagement, cater to multiple generations, and interact with an increasingly global audience."

Greg VanDyke leads an MPI Sponsored session titled: "The problem with the Future is . . . it's Now!"

As part of its extensive three-year research initiative into the "Future of Meetings," Meeting Professionals International (MPI) sponsored the aptly-named session in hopes of getting meeting and event planners more engaged in leveraging trends in technology, media, design and venue development. The goal of the MPI initiative is to increase awareness of how five forces of change -- politics, economics, environment, social and technological -- could present opportunities or challenges for planners. As the leading supplier of audiovisual services and event technologies to hotels, associations, producers and meeting planners worldwide, PSAV was called upon to lend its expertise in discussing the role event technology is playing for sustained industry longevity.

"Thought leaders within the meetings industry have identified 'technology' as the major trend impacting the future of meetings, while industry experts from outside this sector identified 'people trends' at the forefront of change," Van Dyke said. "To provide consistently successful meeting experiences for customers, event planners must develop messages that attendees can easily understand and remember. At PSAV, we believe it's the combination of people + technology that gives any event a much better chance for success. Two audience-engaging technologies that are proving to have a substantial impact on meetings is video conferencing and interactive mobile apps for smartphones and tablets."
 
“A mobile app for your event replaces the paper-based meeting prospectuses with an interactive mobile tool that is affordable, quick to build and simple to implement,” said Rafael Mayor-Mora, PSAV marketing and communications manager - Canada. “Especially relevant today, mobile apps also support event planners' goals to produce environmentally conscious green meetings.”
 
"By making event schedules, speaker bios, property maps, and even offsite venues easily accessible in a digital format, it makes the overall meeting experience much more personal and interactive," Mayor-Mora said. "At IncentiveWorks 2012, the event app PSAV developed achieved high usage rates, and attendee feedback was extremely positive across the board."
 
Based on survey analytics, people began using the IncentiveWorks app (developed by PSAV) two weeks prior to event opening to access information. This supports meeting planners' goals to get attendees interacting with an event before it begins. Overall, the app was viewed tens of thousands of times before, during and after IncentiveWorks, with the average time per visitation lasting 2:42 minutes. In addition, PSAV Keynote Speaker Van Dyke had the second highest number of views, showing the industry's interest in better understanding how event technology can lead to industry sustainability and better meetings.
 
Meeting Face to Face, Miles Away
In addition to showcasing its event apps at IncentiveWorks, PSAV also demonstrated the interactive and long-reaching benefits of video conferencing.
 
"High-definition video conferencing brings clients together from different locations around the world in real time, creating face-to-face interactions that save on travel expenses," Mayor-Mora stated. "This can be a great help for a client’s product launch, sales conference, training session or any other important meeting. Because businesses are budget conscious, video conferencing cuts associated expenses while still bringing audiences together. With the world economies still in question, this audience-engaging technology is one of the most feasible ways to keep meeting alive across the country and around the world."
 
PSAV has a number of High Definition Event Video Conferencing (HDEVC) packages to fit small events (for three to five people), large breakouts (for 15+ people), general sessions (100+ people) and TelePresence meetings, where the room environments need to be similar.
 
"We hope everyone attending IncentiveWorks understands the impact that technology + people can have when planning events long into the future," Mayor-Mora said. "When an audience experiences multi-sensory stimuli in support of a message there is a tendency to retain what they learned longer. Sounds are visceral, and evoke powerful emotional responses. Matching those sounds with visual aids is a proven memory-aid technique. Meeting and event planners are finding that by integrating better technology into their messaging, more effective communication is achieved."
 
For more information on PSAV Mobile App and Video Conferencing services in Canada,  contact Rebecca Bartlett-Jones at647-723-7089 or by email at rbartlett-jones@PSAV.COM