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5 Event Start-ups You Need to Know About

The events industry is embracing tech more and more; recent additions to the growing collection of event-focussed start-ups are proving very exciting. We’ve picked five of our favourite new apps and tools that could help you make the most of your next event, without making much of a dent in your budget. These are too good to miss!

Prezentt

Prezentt is a web app that helps you get better interaction and value from your presentations. Instead of relying on printed hand-outs and exchanging business cards, presenters can use Prezentt to share slides live with their audience – you can even share contact details, social media links and files. The future is here!

Eventstagr.am

Start-up Eventstagram makes exciting social media feeds for events, from private occasions like birthdays and christenings to large-scale events like product launches and conferences. You bring the projector – they’ll do the rest.

Periscope

Periscope is an app that’s growing hugely in popularity lately. It’s unique in that it allows you to explore the world through someone else’s eyes, as they live stream what they can see via Twitter. The uses of this for launch parties; conferences and even meetings could be very interesting indeed. Jamplify

Managing a festival, exhibition or conference? Jamplify could help you out. This app turns attendees into promoters - Everyone can promote events in return for VIP tickets or other forms of reward.

Snapcastr

Snapcastr provides social media solutions for events and brands with live social walls, social hubs, social marketing, and analytics. These tools help event organisers to really push audience engagement and generate social buzz.

Luma is a digital experience agency developing experiences that wrap the real world with the digital, creating seamless and dynamic interactive spaces. Follow our blog for the latest in high-tech event ideas and inspiration, as well as behind the scenes action from recent events and news on our interactive entertainment products.

Designing Nike Air Max with the YrWall Touch in Shanghai

A member of our team headed to China in March to support Nike at China’s leading international design event, Design Shanghai, as part of Shanghai Design Week 2015.

The show, held at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, featured many of the World’s premier design brands eager to satisfy the thirst of Chinese architects, interior designers and the country’s most influential buyers.

Our team were tasked with helping global sports brand Nike showcase the history of its iconic Air Max shoe - thank you to creative agency Rosie Lee for getting us involved.

Taking pride of place on the stand, our brand new YrWall Touch enabled visitors to customise their own Air Max shoes, print the design and download the images using a printed QR code.

YrWall is a graffiti experience with a digital twist. The new touchscreen version of our Digital Graffiti Wall can be easily implemented anywhere, including outdoor events. The huge canvas and wide colour palette means plenty of space to interact and create, again and again. So Nike’s visitors could unleash their creativity to design something totally tailored to them.

The concept of the exhibition stand was part of a wider campaign to celebrate Air Max; we took our templates for the Air Max designs from this film, which stars Paris-based artist and avid sneakerhead Yué Wu. To honour Air Max Day in 2015, he created an animated video highlighting 33 different Air Max models. The countdown ended with the Air Max Zero, which is now available on nike.com.

Over the four-day exhibition, visitors designed 260 unique Air Max shoes using Luma technology. The stand attracted bloggers, members of the press and sports shoe enthusiasts as well as members of the public.

10 Ways to use Social Media for Events

If you’re looking to create maximum buzz around your next event social media is an essential tool – using it correctly can get your message across like nothing else. Here are ten tips on how to make sure your event is a social success.

1. Create a twitter handle for your event

First things first, create a twitter handle for your event and connect with guests, speakers and suppliers. Make it something catchy – you want your guests to remember the twitter handle on the night.

2. Communicate your hashtag

Creating an event hashtag is a sure-fire way to ensure that your message is heard loud and clear. Ensure your hashtag hasn’t been widely used for any other events recently, and go for something short. You want people to be able to fit your hashtag into their tweets easily. Publish your hashtag on all event communications, including the website, invitations, email updates and anything else you send to guests.

3. Add a twitter wall

A twitter wall is a great way to encourage your guests to get tweeting. Set up a large plasma screen displaying guests’ tweets, with top tweeters in a leader board.

4. Make sure your venue has Wi-Fi

Nothing ruins a good social media strategy quite like a Wi-Fi blackout! Ensure your venue’s Wi-Fi is working properly and able to support all your guests using it. Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people forget this simple check!

5. Display the Wi-Fi password – and make it simple!

You don’t want guests to have to hassle staff for the Wi-Fi password, display it around the venue along with your hashtag to encourage guests to get online and start sharing content.

6. Reward top tweeters

A great way to encourage your guests to share as much content as possible is to introduce incentives. You could choose the most engaging guests, those who shared the most content or pick a person who shared the best photo from the night and reward them with an exclusive prize.

7. Live pin your event

Pinterest isn’t a tool that is used much at events, but it should be. Live pinning your event on the night is a great way to share images and create a moodboard of the evening before your guests have even got home.

8. Flickr photography

To make sure the best images of your event are getting out on social media you need to hire a social savvy photographer. Ask your photographer to upload images to Flickr during your event and share links to the photo board on all social media channels as the night goes on.

9. Social photo booths

Photo booths are always popular – but if you’re looking to introduce something more social to your guests’ experience opt for one that is integrated with social media channels. Several companies, including Say Fromage, can provide photo booths that immediately tweet guests’ pictures using your event hashtag, or post them on Instagram.

10. Live blogging

To ensure your followers are getting the full story all night, commission a live blogger to post constant updates throughout the event, sharing everything on your social media channels. Posts should be short and snappy, accompanied by lots of images. You could also link this to your Flickr photography.

YrDesigner at London Fashion Week

London’s been looking even more stylish than usual of late; the capital has just hosted the biggest event on the UK fashion calendar – London Fashion Week.

As part of the weeklong festival of style, we joined lingerie brand Triumph at the beautiful Somerset House from Thursday to Sunday. Triumph had returned to London for its fourth season, supplying the catwalks with all their lingerie needs.

Somerset House served as Triumph HQ for four days, with guests being invited to come to the venue to explore Triumph’s latest collections and try their hand at a little design with our YrDesigner.

With many of Triumph’s guests coming from a fashion background, our YrDesigner was the perfect fit for this Somerset House residency. The machine took pride of place amongst Triumph’s latest pieces, with members of our team there to encourage guests to get creative.

YrDesigner is a great gadget which allows anyone to create unique, printed garments in minutes. The touch screen device went down a storm during Triumph’s London Fashion Week events, with over 400 crops and tees given away.

As well as trying their hand at t-shirt design, guests were introduced to Triumph’s latest innovations, with the brand’s lingerie designers showing off their best work.

Find out more about our YrDesigner here, or give us a call on 020 7043 2632 to book us for your next event.

5 Ways to Use Wearable Technology at Events

Wearable technology is big news at the moment, but it’s yet to make much of an appearance in the world of events. We think it’s about time this changed, though, as there are so many innovative ways to use wearable technology to enhance your event. Here are some of our favourites:

Security Gets Techie

Intellitix can make tickets a lot smarter. The system works as access control for your event, and is widely used in music festivals. Guests use RFID wristbands, cards or devices to access an event via proprietary entrance portals or handheld readers, which can then manage access control across the site and keep the event manager updated on how many guests are where – great for large events or monitoring spaces such as VIP areas.

Smart Drinking

IPourIt allows customers to pour their own beer or wine at a party through unstaffed beer and wine walls. The walls include lots of different pumps, guests simply have to scan their wristbands, which could include credit card details, and the drinks will start flowing. The idea works best for large events such as festivals and sports matches, where bars may struggle to pour enough drinks for the crowds.

Vox Pops Galore

Audio company Kapture is building an audio-recording wristband to save and share what was just said. We can think of quite a few uses for this in the events world - from recording quotes from guests about the party to capturing the sound of live bands or entertainment. Kapture could be on to a good thing.

Tomorrow’s Product Launches

We’ve seen augmented reality begin to make an appearance at product launches, but wearable technology could take this a step further. High-tech product launches have already used tablets and smartphones to reveal more about products via augmented reality, but by giving guests Google Glass (or a similar device) you could surround them in virtual information, graphics or film clips as they wandered through the event.

Lights, Camera… Action

Xylobands are LED wristbands which, when used at events, can create something really spectacular. During live music or entertainment guests’ Xyloband wristbands will flash in different colours, forming a lightshow in the audience via the LED flash patterns. Production doesn’t get much more exciting than that!

If you’re interested in hearing more about wearable technology at events we’d love to see you at the Event Production Show on 18th and 19th February; our very own Tim Williams will be discussing wearable technology at a panel session on Thursday at 12.30pm. You’ll hear from a panel of experts on what you can expect to see at your event and how you can utilise it to improve the visitor experience and grow revenues.

There will also be exhibitors discussing the potential for wearable technology, including We Scan Tickets Ltd, a start-up business providing an online platform for event organisers to create tickets for their event, uTRAC, a service for event companies, giving them an easier and cost-efficient way to schedule and track their event staff online and digital media production agency Rewind FX. Have you found any other interesting uses of wearable technology at recent events? Tweet us and let us know.

YrWall at the Hilton, Chicago

Some of Team Luma jetted off to Chicago’s famous Hilton hotel on South Michigan Avenue for a four-day conference in January. The event was attended by the hotel group’s managerial teams and leaders, with a theme centred on the idea of ‘inspiring performance’.

This was the third time Hilton had booked Luma for their event; our YrWall has been spotted previously at London’s DoubleTree hotel in the shadow of the Tower of London, and across the pond at Hilton Orlando.

Guests in Chicago found our YrWall as part of the interactive suite. YrWall artists helped guests to design and customise their own t-shirts, with delegates also putting in their own requests for t-shirts based on any theme, name or illustration.

We even gave guests the option of making t-shirts using images from their mobile phones. We synced the YrWall with the guest’s phone, uploaded their chosen image to the YrWall and they could get creative customising their own bespoke t-shirt. The designs were then printed and pressed onto the t-shirts of our guests’ choice.

One of the great benefits of YrWall is its interactivity – it takes the age-old idea of teambuilding and turns it into something much more engaging and fun. We’re yet to meet a guest who doesn’t love the idea of making a t-shirt with absolutely any design they want on it. It brings out the creativity in everyone.

Within the interactive suite our YrWall was situated right beside Google’s Liquid Galaxy, which provides an immersive Google Earth experience. Guests step inside a chamber of monitors, which creates the illusion of flying anywhere in the world – in seconds. We were also surrounded by Chicago’s finest street food stalls – a great benefit for the Luma team!

Whilst in Chicago our team battled extreme cold (it was -20 degrees!), tried all the Chicago pizza pies we could get our hands on, listened to plenty of Chicago blues, sipped craft beers and soaked up the amazing views and architecture. Four January days well spent, we think!

How to Use Augmented Reality for Events

When you bring augmented reality into events the opportunities to amaze your guests become endless. The technology allows you to offer guests a live direct or indirect view of their physical environment, putting a high-tech spin on your event.

In short, augmented reality allows you to virtually change a person’s environment in ways that no amount of production or theming ever could. It’s interactive entertainment that could also boost your sales. But how might it work for events?

Augmented reality can be a fun addition to a huge range of events, for example Christmas parties, which make use of the technology in a wholly entertaining way. Put your guests’ dancing skills to the test with

YrMoves; in this live experience, dancers battle it out to become champions of the dance floor.

YrMoves conjures up an intensely atmospheric disco scene, complete with the latest LED moving headlights, smoke and strobe effects. The system mashes this together with an augmented reality dance game, delivering a fully immersive user experience like no other. Find out more about how it works here.

The technology is great for presentations, giving added value to any keynote speech. Virtual elements can be used to demonstrate your point in a more visual way, or to add further information, which viewers could explore in their own time. And as we all know, a more interactive presentation is always a more engaging one. People don’t like to be talked at – they like to get involved! Another great use for augmented reality is product launches; augmented reality can be used to showcase a whole host of information about the product in question.

Exhibitions also benefit hugely from the addition of augmented reality, combined with tablets for visitors to try. The main problem of exhibition stands is the lack of space you get, but augmented reality turns that on its head, allowing you to create a virtual world that complements the real life stand. For example, you could create an exhibition stand that represents an event space, with a few images of the venue as your stand background, but then invite guests to hold up a tablet to the screen and watch as the venue comes to life before their eyes. They could explore the entire venue with a 360o tour on the tablet, and before you know it they’re visualising their event.

Want to know the best bit? Augmented reality is scientifically proved to improve your chances of making a sale. Hidden Creative found people are 135 per cent more likely to buy when looking at the AR version of a product than when seeing the product image alone, as well as valuing it 33 per cent more highly. So whether it’s a product launch, exhibition or keynote speech you’re planning for your next event, augmented reality might just be a winner.

5 Ways to Make Your Event Interactive

Here at Luma we’re dedicated to developing interactive experiences for events, so we thought we’d share some interesting new ideas with you that just might make your next event a spectacular one.

With the growing popularity of immersive theatre like Secret Cinema, and trailblazing Christmas pop-ups like Hidden House, guests are beginning to expect more at events. Make sure you continue exceeding those expectations with these five tricks.

Name Badges

Ban the boring old badging table! Now you can create the perfect first impression as guests arrive with the use of our digital surface, YrSurface. Instead of standing at a table searching for a pre-printed badge guests are invited to scribble their name onto the surface using our digital pens, and decorate it as they wish. It can then be printed onto an adhesive badge in seconds – and all of a sudden the badging table has become part of the entertainment!

The Big Reveal

Nothing builds anticipation and excitement over a brand new product like a big reveal, but it’s time we put a new spin on the age-old trick. One good example of this is a recent tech event in which guests were sent a USB with their invitations, which they need to bring to the event with them. On arrival they were asked to plug it into a mysterious looking ‘little black box’. This triggered a short animation, which ended as the product emerged from the box. That’s one way to get guests’ attention.

Entertainment

It’s no secret that everyone loves a bit of interactive entertainment. There are plenty of ways to incorporate this into your event, from surrounding your space in digital graffiti walls like YrWall, which allow guests to show off their artistic streak, to livening things up with our explosive reality dance game, YrMoves. You could even get guests designing their own printed garments with YrDesigner – there could be a creative genius amongst them!

Social Media

Make sure your event starts a buzz in the social sphere. First check the obvious things, you’ll need Wi-Fi that can cope with the amount of guests on the network, and you’ll need to create your event’s hashtag. Branded banners clearly displaying your company’s twitter handle and the hashtag throughout the space will ensure guests know what they’re tweeting, and if you incorporate a twitter wall in your event that displays guests’ tweets in real time, all you’ll have to do is sit back and watch your social reach explode.

Augmented Reality

Another interesting idea, which is particularly relevant to product launches, is augmented reality. The technology is still relatively new, so it’s bound to impress your guests, and it’s useful too. You could consider using augmented reality to reveal more information about products using animation that appears as guests point their phones at them - the more unusual you make it the more likely guests are to share their experiences, and spread the word about your event.

#eventprofs #Event Hire #Event Equipment #eventprofsuk #event #EventTechAwards

Scribing by Luma

Through popular demand Luma are super excited to officially offer a live Scribing service for corporate events!

Using either YrWall or YrSurface one of our amazing artists will illustrate key discussions, presentations and themes live at the event. Our technology adds a whole new dimension to this kind of service making any topic fun, exciting and engaging. Also as all illustrations are created digitally the results can be shared, saved and printed live at the event!

In addition, all creations can be projected live onto screens through-out the event venue, think a presentation being annotated live on a big screen behind the speaker!. We can even live record as the illustration is being created, producing a super cool animation of any subject ready to use as part of the event or saved for later.

We are really proud of this new service that adds to an already massive list of ways our technology can be transform your event

Companies who have already taken advantage of this service include:

IBM

Accenture

Blohm + Voss Super Yachts

Get in touch to find out how Scribing by Luma can transform your event.

#scribing #yrwall #YrSurface #corporate #Event Hire

Google Street Art Project

June 10th 2014

Paris' Palais de Tokyo was the venue for the launch of the Google Street Art Project. Part of the Google Cultural Institute, Google Street Art is the on-line platform using Google Maps to search and view street art exhibitions in amazing quality.

Luma brought the infamous YrWall to the interactive party and the Parisian crowd lapped it up - a one on one off system took kept our brick effect graff wall live into the early hours.

Vive le Graffiti Digital!

#googlestreetart #graffiti #yrwall

YrDesigner @ Harvey Nichols for London Wine Week

As London Wine Week approached Harvey Nichols got in touch and asked if there was an exciting and interactive way customers could create a bespoke item to take away from the upcoming in-store event.

Together with Harvey Nichols, Luma came up with the concept of designing your own wine label and having it live printed in store.

Using our YrDesigner interactive digital garment designer we were able to create a bespoke live event printing experience, ideal for the retail environment. We worked closely with Harvey Nichols to ensure brand values and quality of the wine were reflected in each label.

The end result meant customers could create their unique, custom labels in six easy steps using multi-touch screens and Luma’s unique software. Pre-selected images and themes along with the #HNWine stamp on each label created a real buzz on social media and incredible results.

Thanks to Event Concept our design stations built into an amazing set that truly reflected the quality of the wine and created an interactive environment that fit perfectly within Harvey Nichols’ Knightsbridge store. This is a new frontier in custom event giveaways.

The event was a huge success and we are currently in discussion to roll the solution out across Harvey Nichols stores nationwide. Would you like us to come up with a live custom print solution for your event? Call us

#harvey nichols #HNWine #YrDesigner #Custom wine labels

Clash Wall Berlin, with Converse Via Cromatics.de

Saturday 29th March 2014

Luma delivered the YrWall, Social Terminal, a bunch of YrDesigners, our dye sublimation printing get up and a few hundred tote bags all awaiting a personal touch from the hordes of creative Berliners enjoying the sun shine, music, paint, beer and bratwursts

For one day only, the vacant lot 86 Torstraße in Berlin Mitte was transformed by Converse with Cromatics, into a crate constructed playground of cultural goodness. Outside on the huge Clash Wall, publicly submitted designs [via The Paint Club] were scaled up and painted throughout the day, while inside the Design Station the YrD's were filled with 245 submitted designs for anyone to come and use, spin, tile, re-colour and re-imagine in super cool ways, before pressing save and moments later getting their own version printed on to a top quality tote bag.

#clashwall #berlin #yrwall #yrdesigner

YrStore & Luma @ the Warehouse Fashion Shooters festival

Saturday 22nd March 2014

For the second time in a week [thefirst being with Casio for the launch of the latest G-Shock watch] we brought our awesome interactiveness to The Loading Bay event space in the Old Truman Brewery. Warehouse Fashion Shooters Festival was the occasion and we provided the stunning YrStore t-shirt bar with four YrDesigners and printed the designs on to Warehouse cropped women's T's.

The YrD design content was made up of our own shape templates and lush Warehouse photographic and painterly backgrounds which were then adorned with the YrD design elements and icons.

The festival go-ers queued for 2-3 hours for the experience and personalised Tee, and were kept entertained and lively, by the 'Yr' staff The fours YrD 'teetilers'

Check out the flickr set here

#YrDesigner #yrstore #yr

Luma transforms GE Oil annual leadership forum

How do you make the GE Oil annual leadership conference more interactive? That was the question we were asked this year by the energy giant.

Our solution: 6 interactive digital surfaces - YrSurface - with pre-designed, branded illustrations of the key leadership topics of the past year for the delegates to annotate and create a backdrop to their presentations.

Delegates were encouraged to use our design stations as the focus of their discussions on the key subjects and build slides to be projected as part of the main presentation. Following a team discussion ideas, thoughts, plans were graphically laid on the design stations, slides were saved and visual presentations emerged.

In the 15 minute break the Luma team pieced together the images and handed them to the digital projectionist, ready for the teams to present. A final collage image was then created, comprising the Luma designed content and that created by the delegates, bringing together all the ideas of the day - ready for posting to social media and providing backdrop to the evenings entertainment.

The event was a massive success and we look forward to working with GE Oil in the near future. Find out how we can provide our bespoke interactive event technology for your next conference, exhibition or employee engagement event by getting in touch now.

#GE Oil #YrSurface #corporate #leadership forum

YrDesigner hits the events market!

YrDesigner is the latest addition to the growing Luma portfolio! It is a completely unique activation that is the brainchild of YrStore, the world's first all-over print fashion brand, currently in Topman Oxford Street.

YrDesigner, available and suitable to a diverse range of events offers guests the chance to create their own garment from scratch and see them printed live, right in front of their eyes.

YrDesigner is an interactive design tool which combines Luma's unique custom built software and state of the art printing technology. This amazing experience offers guests the chance to make their own t-shirt and other garments from the ground up. Functions such as filters and text as well as the ability to include any brand specific assets mean that in no time at all guests will be creating incredible, unique designs.

We are offering exclusive discounts for YrDesigner and other products at the moment, so please get in touch to find out more.

#YrDesigner #Thisisluma #yrwall #liveprint #events #eventprofs

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