Skypark by AJ Hackett will offer a first of its kind hybrid experience
ON October 20, during the “Homecoming” reception of WiT Experience Singapore 2021, a new virtual home of Skypark by AJ Hackett, Sentosa, will be unveiled. Built by Allseated EXVO, it marks the American 3D virtual event platform’s debut in Asia, as part of a tripartite collaboration with WiT and the adventure park.
The initial idea behind Allseated “was to bring digitisation and visualisation to the events industry,” CEO Yaron Lipshitz said of the company’s launch in 2014. It created an online collaboration platform for event planners, venue managers, designers, caterers, and clients. Looking at event venues in 2D, participants could drag and drop different elements, and view and modify the floor plan, guest list and seating chart.
“I think not much has changed in that industry for the last 5,000 years,” he quipped in an interview with Forbes in August 2021.
Well, during the pandemic, everything changed and Allseated saw a massive opportunity. He told WiT, “The pandemic created a disruption in the events market never seen before where everything had to be done virtually. While many Zoom-like solutions came to market quickly by leveraging 2D video communication, we realised that the market wanted something more than that – an actual experience.
“Since we already had thousands of customers using our product to see events before they happen and host virtual tours and site inspections, we naturally expanded our platform to create and deliver virtual events with a focus on experience.”
It helped that in 2018, it had developed a 3D product, Allseated VISION, which allowed customers to see the event before it happens and with this product, it had developed a library of more than 100,000 floor plans of different venues.
During Covid Allseated created EXVO, a virtual world based on Vision and the 3D models of the venues, giving its customers the tools to create virtual or hybrid events. Lipshitz said, “We realised very early on that what is happening in the events market will have a long lasting effect on the industry and we wanted to do things differently than the rest of the pack – more creative, more cutting edge while also including our industry friends – planners, production companies and venues.”
For Allseated, hybrid “means that you can offer the same experience to the virtual user that you are giving to the user in the physical space”.
Network as avatars in a 3D world
And this is what the “Homecoming” reception at WiT Experience on October 20 will offer – a physical gathering of 50 guests at Skypark by AJ Hackett and a virtual experience for everyone else.
Teams from WiT, Skypark and EXVO have been collaborating for months to create the hybrid venue in which you, as an avatar, can speak to other avatars. Said Lipshitz, “We build worlds that are great to spend time in.”
“When I was introduced to Allseated EXVO and saw a demo of their product, I thought it was a great opportunity to showcase it at WiT. We are creating a hybrid experience with our conference, with our partners Marina Bay Sands and GEVME, to create our physical and virtual homes.
“It made sense to create a similar experience for our social event, to show off a different type of networking platform,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder, WiT.
On its partnership with WiT and Skypark, Lipshitz said, “We see a great market opportunity in Asia and while we do have some customers in Asia already, we are certainly interested in expanding our presence. It’s a great market that is spread over a significant geography which makes virtual events more appealing. Also, culturally, gamification and adoption of innovation seems to be happening at a very fast pace and that’s making our product more valuable.”
Luke Johnson, general manager of Skypark Singapore, said that even though it continues to be difficult for the industry to come together at this time, WiT Experience has made this possible. “It’s given us the opportunity to connect with the tourism community and to showcase Skypark Sentosa by AJ Hackett at the Homecoming reception.”
“Hybrid events will be the norm”
As a venue, Johnson admits “the world has changed, and hybrid events are going to be the norm”.
“I am upbeat because platforms such as Allseated exVo provide a greater opportunity to connect and showcase businesses anywhere in the world, at any time. They allow for flexibility and greater reach while allowing us to continue business as usual, no matter the challenges we are facing.”
Winner of the Best Event Technology Winner at the 11th Global Eventex Awards 2021, Allseated has been on an expansion path. “We are doing hundreds of events with many blue chip names and our team has tripled in a matter of eight months to 120 employees. We are a global company headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Atlanta, Germany, UK, Israel (where we do our development) and UAE.”
Allseated has raised $25 million to date and in December 2020, it acquired Dusseldorf-based, easyRAUM GmbH to scale its rapid expansion into the European market.
Lipshitz said that despite physical events returning in the US and Europe, it continues to see an increase in business enquiries. “Our product was designed from day one to be a hybrid one, as the virtual element of our events is done in a venue digital twin – so we can offer a unified experience to physical and virtual attendees.”
He sees virtual as being part of the future even when things return physically. “Organisers understand that the reach they can get from virtual is orders of magnitude larger than in-person events. Moreover, they now have access to lots of actionable data from virtual platforms. The drawback of the first generation platforms was that they lacked real experience. We can offer experience at scale which is the best of both worlds.”
Note: Delegates to WiT Experience Week will be able to experience the virtual venue. Sign up here to experience it on October 20 evening.
