Flipping the Tin
Flipping the Tin
Why go? Insights into Attendee Motivation
In this third episode of Flipping the Tin, Dr. Miguel Moital, Principal Academic in Events Management, muses on consumer psychology, and explores the motivations behind event participation, and how this has all changed within the last year by going digital.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Hi, and welcome to flipping the tin, a podcast from sardines digital engagements. We chat with event industry specialists, policymakers and conference attendees on the future of events and conferencing. Today we have Dr. Miguel Moital, to speak about consumer psychology and how this has changed throughout the pandemic and what is potentially to come with the easing of lockdown restrictions. Dr. Miguel Martel is a principal academic in events management in the department of sports and events management at Bournemouth University business school in the United Kingdom. He's an experienced educator teaching topics related to consumer behavior, marketing and new product development in events. His areas of research interest focus mainly on consumer psychology applied to the marketing of events. Within this area. He maintains an ongoing interest in the diffusion and adoption of innovative technology behaviors. He has published more than 30 journals in articles, international academic journals. He has also presented more than 25 papers in international conferences. He's the founder and chief Content Developer of the dissertation Academy he Tube Channel. Hi, Miguel, thank you so much for being on the podcast today, every day. Appreciate you being here. Hi, thank you very much for having me. It's a great pleasure to be here and be part of this great initiative to diffuse knowledge about events and especially in the new context of that we find ourselves in where the very 12 world is becoming more mainstream or has become mainstream has the Korea Yeah. And potentially, you know, the changeover to hybrid in the future and how that's all gonna come together. I'm just gonna jump right in here and and ask, basically based on upon your your expertise what would you say are the most important reasons people attend events are all sorts of events in terms of consumer value?
MIGUEL MOITAL
That's a question that it's actually challenging to answer, because it depends on on the event and on the person, I guess, and also, if you are looking at the business side of events or the personal side of events, so, if we go to the personal side of events, I would say one key reason is the playfulness element the entertainment element together with socialization, and if we go to the business side of things, the socialization through more than networking, what we call the networking element, but also the learning element, so obtaining new knowledge and skills, so and then it depends on it depends on the type of person. So if you look, for example, horse racing event, you will have those who are there for the horse racing, and therefore they are there for, you know, for the emotion side of it, maybe the betting side of it, if you have all those beautiful people attending the marquees, you know, the VIP marquees and so on. A lot of them don't even have any interest in horse racing. They go there for the self expression for the prestige, the opportunity to live a lifestyle on the day that, you know, usually they don't enjoy on their regular the regular lives. So it's quite challenging to find a single answer to that question.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, I can't imagine. So we specialize a lot in business events and academic conferences. And what would you say would be the value there I, top of my head, it's the knowledge sharing and the networking,
ELISA TUIJNDER
and making connections with other researchers. Is that something that you've experienced in your academic career as well?
MIGUEL MOITAL
Yes. So I think those two reasons are the main ones for the business side. In more specifically the academic conference side and and the meetings side, the, one of the interesting changes that we are seeing is actually the change in the value proposition of events. So for example, if you look at academic conference, which I'm a customer for them, as well, the reason to go to an academic conference in Australia, in the US, in Portugal, in Greece, wherever away from home, is actual, actual a dual one, which is the academic side of things, but also the personal side of things, it's well known that a lot of the consideration
MIGUEL MOITAL
involves actually the destination itself, the opportunity to travel to a place that we like, we've been there and we like, or we haven't been there, and we want to travel to. So you've got the the academic side, which as you said, it's about the networking and about the learning in an academic context, also about the teaching. Because as academics, we go to conferences, we learn, but we also share our research. So you've got kind of that triad of, of, you know, networking, learning, and, and teaching. But that's the the conference side of things. It's not by chance that actually the conferences themselves involve a lot of entertainment opportunities to socialize fun, cultural visits, pre and post tours, and so on. Because it's not just about the work side of things. Absolutely. Yeah. And we've all been so sensory deprived last year, we'd love to be traveling to a conference right now or even organizing a large you know, conference somewhere in the world I would love to do that's not just virtual but potentially hybrid, or even just face to face for who knows. So obviously, we've been in an interesting year and a half by now it is it time flies that were seems to fly. So what were your observations in what is it March last year, fed into February March was when we were seeing that these these face to face events, these large conferences, but also the smaller webinars, everything like that, sorry, not webinars seminars at that point. We're so used to saying webinars. What was your observation when they were scrambling to pivot to virtual worlds?
MIGUEL MOITAL
March 23 20, was one of those moments, you know, it's a big shock for everyone, for people for businesses, and and therefore there was, you know, a couple of months that everyone was, you know, is it going to be long term short term? You know, everyone started to think that it was going to be something that wouldn't last for long, and therefore, there was no point, you know, let's delay things of it. And it's all the conferences postponed. Yeah. Because everyone thought that it would be a short term issue. And I think after probably a couple of months, by May,
MIGUEL MOITAL
suddenly, I think the most astute in the industry started to feel that it wasn't going to be a short term
MIGUEL MOITAL
disruption. So and a lot of not a lot, but the most daring and the most prone to change, I guess, read the market and went online. And you saw that from May last year, then a lot of events, specially the business events, because the leisure events were mostly still not going on at the time in an even individual context. But a lot of the business events from May last year move moved online. And and those are now reaping the rewards of one of my alumini is in Germany and his company managed to, to move quite quickly towards the the virtual to the point that they have now very little interest in in going back to the physical one because they become so good. So good at the virtual side.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what we try and do as well. And sardines, digital engagement kind of work on that virtual side, because people have seen the benefits of them as well. Did you did you feel initially that this would be a great shift and something that could kind of shake the events industry to its core? Because we've been doing the same thing for a very long time? Did you immediately understand that there would be a number of benefits to going virtual or or was it more the sadness of not having a certain event this is particularly in the business side of the business and academic sense, because leisure events tend to be a lot more complicated in that asset factor.
MIGUEL MOITAL
I feel that one can actually look at it from a grief perspective, people so used so fabby familiarized with with the in person event, that as we kind of realize that it was going to take quite a while to get them back on perhaps not, you know, in the same way, there's a personal process of going through that grieving of accepting that, you know, the type of events may not be there. And even if they come back, you know, it may take a while for them to come back in the same
MIGUEL MOITAL
in the same in the same way. And in the same size, kind of the same dimension, all those you know, 1000s of people flocking on the same on the same venue and interacting do going, you know, going about doing their business. So I think there has been a grieving process on one hand of people getting used to losing the New World, which is a condition for people to embrace the new world. So the to go hand in hand, I don't think you can it's like in in griefing, in a way in their field, we usually can't move on with our lives until we grieve the person that we lost. And here are the mechanisms, the psychological mechanisms are not too different. So I think a lot of people still go through that grief because they consider that virtual events don't offer the same level of experience, and therefore they reluctantly participate in them. But as we, on one hand, as consumers, engage more with them, but also, as providers provide a lot better experiences. Because we have to put this in time in a timeline. And if we look at where the industry was in terms of providing digital experiences in, let's say, may 2020, where anything went as long as you could connect online.
MIGUEL MOITAL
And now where we found ourselves in just 12 months later and see the the scale of development in the in the technological platforms in terms of the concepts, the skills that the agencies
MIGUEL MOITAL
have developed over time. We see you know, it's tremendous, the change is tremendous in 12 months, if we look at it in, you know, from a longer timeline, it's nothing. And if we do that exercise of going back 12 months and see where beautiful events were and where they are now, the change has been has been substantial. So let's now try to move forward 12 months and in May 2022. Where will virtual events be if the pace of change
MIGUEL MOITAL
Continuous If not, you know, accelerates, then, you know, the experience online will be, you know, again quite different in 12 months time, and I think that dynamic nature of the market, you know,
MIGUEL MOITAL
event managers are very good at reading it, you know, getting feedback and they're very creative by nature trying to come up with, with innovative ways of, of designing experiences of delivering value, I guess that
MIGUEL MOITAL
we can be quite satisfied with how the industry responded, and how the industry is, is responding, because it has done a good job and, and had, it has kind of put industry on on a great speed to continue offering value and eventually
MIGUEL MOITAL
help everyone grief and, and become satisfied with the value that is offered online.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, we absolutely come leaps and bounds and I'm so excited to see what comes next, within the virtual event space. Well, we touched on it a little bit just now, but however, virtual event changed the consumer psychology. So, this is more from the events organizer perspective, but how is it How is the consumer psychology changed throughout this this year, this disciple experience is quite different. Yeah. Because both the environment, the environment in which that experience is being attended is very different.
MIGUEL MOITAL
The interactions are very different, the nature of the interactions are very different. And, and the ability of the person to immerse in the experience is also very different. So we are looking at, if we look at the factors that influence one influences, one, one's experience, we have four of them. One is the setting, the other one is the staff hour, you know, the consumer interaction with the staff, and the consumer interactions between themselves, and then the state of mind of the consumer itself. And we can see that in those four areas, there are substantial changes. So the experience, if the inputs change, the output is going to change, there's no other option here. So we went from a setting that is strange to us, that is different all the time. Because you know, even regular events, they tend to change a lot of elements of the setting of the bit of the visual of the of the event, venue stand, you know, sometimes change and so on. So there are lots of changes, you know, the environment becomes the familiar for us, whether our homes or our our offices.
MIGUEL MOITAL
So and, and therefore, there's a big difference straightaway, our interaction with staff and staff here understood there's, you know, the people doing the registration, but also the speakers because they are working on behalf of the organization, they are helping to produce the show, they are part of the product, the product, it's also an I can't attend a great talk. But opportunities to interact with the speak to with the speaker are much reduced, they can still be facilitated, but they don't happen in a spontaneous way. And this is something we can we can go back to.
MIGUEL MOITAL
So those interactions between the consumer and the staff, those producing the show whether you know, delivering the content or the all the the side services that need to be there for the event to run smoothly, they change. The third element is the interaction between participants themselves. And I think that's where that's where it's, it's more difficult to provide value in a virtual context.
MIGUEL MOITAL
And for for the simple reason that a lot of the we call customer customer encounters, you know, in a venue, they happen spontaneously, they happen by chance that someone we are having a coffee, someone, you know, sits on the same table, we started chatting, it's someone who sits next word, it's someone that is talking to a friend and we join in and yeah, so, all those unrehearsed interactions are difficult to mimic in in a virtual context. You can do it but you have to,
MIGUEL MOITAL
you have to, to design them. Whereas in in a non named person context, it's almost like you only need to have the people there and things will happen in a virtual context. You have to you know, go and bring in those
MIGUEL MOITAL
matchmaking or, you know, interaction
MIGUEL MOITAL
software's or areas of software to facilitate that. And one could argue that actually, when you go to an event, and if you look at the networking, a lot of the value comes from not the formal,
MIGUEL MOITAL
you know, those that are tightly controlled by the organizer, but the uncontrolled ones, the spontaneous ones. So we have here a challenge as an industry is how we can make things more spontaneous. It's, it's going to be hard, if not, you know, impossible in the future. But nothing, you know, we shouldn't take any impossibility as a as a, as a possibility. Yeah. And
MIGUEL MOITAL
but it's, you know, we are a long way from mimicking these spontaneous chance encounters, that are the main source of one of the main sources of value in in business events, for example.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, that serendipitous discovery of people is something that's hard to create, right? It's so it's a lot more work for event organizers, also than we used to give them canopes, and a glass of wine and the world was their oyster. And now we have to think of all these kinds of things. So I was wondering if you've seen in the last year, or heard or any of the research, you've done any of the things that you any other spaces where people have been doing this? Well, what so what I've been seeing, for example, is this programs like topia,
ELISA TUIJNDER
what is called something town where people can want to what it kind of mimics this whole thing where you're an avatar walking around, and you can kind of go to these different spaces to a bonfire or to
ELISA TUIJNDER
go to a bar with background noises, etc. So wondered if you've seen anything like that, that you thought was really good, or even, you know, virtual reality coming in? and How far away are we from those kinds of things.
MIGUEL MOITAL
It's rare, very, very hard for those about in industry is very hard to keep up with all the technology for us, we, you know, we are in academia, you know, organizing events, it's not not our day to day job, it's even more difficult. Just to give you an idea, I don't know, if you are aware, there's
MIGUEL MOITAL
a directory of event technology,
MIGUEL MOITAL
designed by or maintained by a German company called pirate x. And when they launched it in maybe three months ago, they immediately themselves as a company identified 200 different technologies. And they posted it on LinkedIn. And and then people are you forgot these you forgot, you know, people community starting to add to the list. I think it's over 300 Technologies now. Okay, so I think it's, it's, you know, the, I think it's, it's, it's, it's challenging, but it's also a good sign that the industry, you know, the tech industry, together with, with events industry is really raising up to the challenge to come up with solutions.
MIGUEL MOITAL
To overcome some of these, some of these challenges, I think technology can and will improve, and I think rapidly, but imagine just, you know, when we are in a group of four, it's quite easy to keep the conversation, because you can have cross conversations in a group of four online. It's one talking and the other one's listening. Yeah, and the crosstalk is, it's a lot more awkward.
MIGUEL MOITAL
And there are no silences, that you know, unlikely to exist in a in a in an in person contact. So the dynamics of social interaction
MIGUEL MOITAL
are quite different. I have no doubt that all these texts will improve massively to to overcome some of some of these limitations. But at this stage, and maybe in a few years time have changed my mind. But at this stage, it's, it's going to be it's challenging to visualize how you can immediately replicate everything and all the conditions that you know, we know favor, great social interaction in an in person context, virtual reality. I've not tried it a lot, but I tried.
MIGUEL MOITAL
Yeah.
MIGUEL MOITAL
So having having tried virtual reality recently, in a gaming context, it seems that you know, there's a lot more potential there because you can recreate the setting because then you can you can feel you are immersed in a space. It's a virtual space, but it's certainly better than you have in your real space in your office or your your home.
MIGUEL MOITAL
I think the second question
MIGUEL MOITAL
We improved a lot by virtual reality, the interaction element,
MIGUEL MOITAL
it will improve because it will bring more physical clues, for example, to to,
MIGUEL MOITAL
to, to the to the interaction. But it's still going to be a challenge because certain things in a in a group, such as the silences, the ability of, you know, you're talking to the left, you're talking to the right, almost in a seamless, kind of spontaneous way with no pauses, no. Individual world, it's, it's harder to, to kind of replicate that.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it reminds me of one of the things that was said in our previous podcast on accessibility, that there are so many cues that we don't even understand like, or that we do naturally, like, we know when people are going to stop speaking, or when we look at each other, or these things are incredibly hard to, to replicate online. And sometimes, you know, we're not going to be able, or maybe we shouldn't also, at times, but
ELISA TUIJNDER
I'm just want to bring it back a little bit to the you spoke about leisure activities earlier. And I was just kind of interested in in what you feel is going to happen there. So we've seen Personally, I've seen a lot of benefits from accessibility to sustainability when it comes to business events. I don't see international travel for up to these big large international conferences returned to the ways it wasn't 2019 anytime soon, but that was because you know, people go there, like you said, predominantly for networking, or create these, these these moments when new new contacts a little bit about the city and the place and all of those kinds of things, but predominantly for it for you know, knowledge sharing and for for learning opportunities. But for leisure, that's completely different. Right? If you don't go to a big festival,
ELISA TUIJNDER
it's nice to watch the live stream, but it doesn't really feel the same way. Yet some of the issues are still there as well, you know, the sustainability accessibility concerns, sometimes. Haji Why do you feel that will evolve will be retained some from a virtual kind of setting? Will that kind of, you know, increase in the in the future?
MIGUEL MOITAL
I think that there are bigger challenges in making that will events offer value. You know, from a leisure event perspective, just imagine the situation yet, you going to ladies day in Ascot, yeah, one event that hopefully a lot of the, the listeners of the podcast will will be aware of so it's a horse racing event. And on the Thursday, I believe, all the ladies put their best attire on, you know, go to the hairdresser, and ladies and men as well. And, and, you know, the ladies wear hats. So
MIGUEL MOITAL
the outfits argue that a lot of the value of that event is actually not even the event itself. It's what happens before and after. And some of the research we've done on the prestige of, of events, supports that, because it's the, it's the discussions about, you know, what, what to where all the planning, all the stories that come, you know, that are created.
MIGUEL MOITAL
They're created from the interaction that happens before as you plan, discuss, anticipate the, the, you know, your or your event attendance, because that lasts over quite a few months, sometimes many months, whereas the event is maybe six hours, eight hours, 10 hours. So obviously, that event is going to provide a very intense experience with a lot lots of memories, opportunities for self expression, lots of picture taking, and so on. But if we look at it, there's a lot of value over time over months that come from the the excitement building, ahead of the ahead of the actual event, that's what I call the anticipation stage, where you have all those you know, that emotional build up together with you know, all the preparatory activities
MIGUEL MOITAL
and you know, if you even in the event on the day, so the virtual event can be very engaging, interactive, but no virtual event can or will deliver the same source or the same amount and type of value that comes from the anticipation anticipation stage. So I find it difficult for, for for a good chunk of the latter event to be able to offer good value, when compared to the in person event, it's slightly different in a in a business context, because a lot of the value of a business event attending a business event is what happens at the event, this anticipation stage may be there, but it's not nearly as intense, as in, in a leisure event.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, talk, like, I find that really, really interesting. So
ELISA TUIJNDER
I'm gonna pick up on that anticipation stays the longevity, because one of the things I I see, or I, I try and create, as well as some of these events that now have gone virtual, they have the capacity to no longer be bound in space and time, so they can live on in that virtual space. So that has the potential to do more community building that has because everybody goes to a specific event, especially when it comes to a business event or an association or an academic, you come there first, you have a one common goal, or common interest. So you can build that community, have you seen some good examples there of, of conferences or events no longer being, you know, that one day, and then we lose all of that interaction, and we lose all of that knowledge has been shared there, but it has been kind of elongated and made longer into a community that can function outside of the actual event days.
MIGUEL MOITAL
That's, that's a very good point. And I think what explains it is time we can
my best Brazilian friend, yeah, I met her at an event. And immediately when we met up, we, you know, our Father is Portuguese and Portuguese, too. And there was a connection there from the beginning, that you can't even explain it in, in, in, in Rational terms. And, and so that connection was done, you know, in almost instantaneously.
MIGUEL MOITAL
And, in a virtual context, the building of communities requires a lot more time. And if digital events, virtual events are going to be able to deliver solid communities, they will need to build those communities around a much longer timeframe. Because, you know, it's it's not just in a word context, but virtual communities, the building of trust, which is important for for a community to be there, it's a lot slower in a virtual context than in an in person context. Because as you said, we you know, in a visual context, we have a lot less clues about the person. And in person, we can assess, you know, the mannerisms, the, the, you know, there's nothing behind I'm not kicking anyone here yet. I can see everything all the body movement, the smell, the look the, you know, a body language, whatever. In a virtual individual event, it's this little box. Yeah.
MIGUEL MOITAL
And, and it's a lot harder to to understand and trust the person on on the other side.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Do you see the potential to be to to connect in those communities and elongate, you know, say you have an events kind of calendar. And, you know, often, for example, people have an annual conference, and then people will meet up, and they love meeting up and people get some people go there every year, and they really look forward to seeing those people they've met there about 20 years ago. But then in between those times, often, though, they have same interests and objectives they don't always meet. So do you see the potential of having platforms as well and maybe just not necessarily for personal reasons, but mainly for business reasons. I think we're for research purposes, to have those connections live on in a platform or in a set, Instead of only having one or two events here, where all these people tend to come together,
MIGUEL MOITAL
the potential is definitely there, but I don't think it will happen if you've got that kind of once a year encounter. So I think moving forward, a lot of the value will be much more dispersed over time, instead of having those three days where everyone is there, and you know, and interacting, probably, you will have shorter main events.
MIGUEL MOITAL
And, you know, with with, with the addition of other opportunities for, for, for interaction, so that, as I said, in your individual communities, that drip feed of, of interaction of building over time, is, you know, is essential.
ELISA TUIJNDER
you know, there's multiple, you said, there's gonna be shorter bursts, kind of, instead of having three, three day conferences, where everybody comes together, and all the excitement and everybody goes out for drinks, and, and then the next day, they're back into the rooms together. So it might be shorter and might be virtual. But that also leads me to that. And that next thing like, hybrid, like is that going to be? How is that going to fit into all of these things? Because I'm quite excited about this whole hybrid proposal by it well, we can retain accessibility and sustainability, things and lessons learned from the pandemic, we can retain that well, we can also have that face to face element for those people who really want to come up potentially, you know, conferences, that would only have people 200, people could not always be 500, or 1000. Because all these people from back home who couldn't travel because they didn't have childcare, or they didn't, or they didn't have to have a disability, or they just didn't have the financial means to travel to somewhere can also follow. And what does your research say about that? What is your personal gut say about hybrid events?
MIGUEL MOITAL
the hybrid element looks great. On paper. Yeah, you, you you, you have the best of the in person,
MIGUEL MOITAL
in person experience, mix it with the virtual experience and create something of value to everyone. However, in practices is not that straightforward. As I say to my students, sometimes students come and say, I want to do qualitative and quantitative research. And I alert them to actually, if you do that, you're not doing two types of research, you're doing three types of research, which is you have to learn how to do qualitative, you'll have to learn how to do quantitative, and then you have to learn a third element, which is how to bring the two together, because it's still a coherent project. Yeah, it's the same, the same mindset can be extended to the visual element, when you to the hybrid element, when you when you think about hybrid is not just, you know, an independent, in person element, an independent visual element, you still have to do those two, but then you need to integrate them otherwise, it's just, you know, two separate events with with, you know, very little in common and, and very little synergies in terms of cross engagement between participants, because presumably, that's the reason or the main reason why you want to do you want to do or go hybrid, it's to facilitate the interaction between both the in person public and the and the virtual audience. So, there there are, you know, challenges there are quite, quite broad in when we look at them, you know, that they are important principles to bear in mind is that when you bring two things together, you have to deal with them individually, but also how you're going to integrate, integrate the two it brings other issues like. Which one are you going to prioritize? Are you going to prioritize the virtual or the or the in person can the organization balance the the two competing, sometimes competing audiences so and then you have issues like you know, dealing with the time zones so it It brings, it brings an added level of complexity that is going to take some time for the industry to, to tackle. But it's early days. And as I said, You know, I always like to have a long term perspective on things. And a year ago, we wouldn't even hear about them today, we already seen a lot of opinions, a lot of discussions, a lot of experiences having a go at organizing the, the hybrid element. And I think it's an area where, where the industry will move forward quite quickly.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Right, in your research, or any of your students have you? Are there any examples of actual hybrid events that were organized in the past? I know, Cisco was doing some kind of satellite conferences at some point, but then ended up sending everybody back to Las Vegas, because it was kind of too complicated, but I don't know, and don't know very much about any other examples of Do you know, of any places where this has kind of been attempted before?
MIGUEL MOITAL
I think from from my research into examples, academic research on hybrid events is is doesn't exist, because, you know, whatever exists existed as a hybrid was a tiny minority, almost invisible in the in the wider industry, events industry sector, and they are so new that, you know, we academics haven't caught up with it. But my own personal observations and, and research about hybrid events, it seems that it you know, what is not an hybrid event is just streaming things. Yeah. So what people are considering as a hybrid event is, as long as there's a little bit of interaction between the virtual audience and the what's happening in the physical world, it's considering it's considered a hybrid. So it could be, for example, just interacting via Twitter.
MIGUEL MOITAL
So if you add just that dimension, one could consider, okay, there's already an opportunity for the virtual audience to engage with in person with a physical event. And therefore, it is a hybrid, technically, it is a hybrid event, because what separates the two is that engagement, rather than just passive observation, like a TED talk, or just, you know, an event that is streamed, with no opportunity to, to, for the audience, the mutual audience to interact. So I think we are still giving baby steps in that in that direction. I like to see things as going on tender like a pendulum. before March 2020, the pendulum was physical overwhelming, were overwhelmingly physical. Suddenly, everyone was forced to take the pendulum, the pendulum to the other extreme. And every one of literally everyone went when went to a virtual. And now as time passes, the both pendulum are, you know, trying to get to the middle, to find that balance where you can bring the best, you know, that as you said, all those benefits the best of the virtual world with also some of the benefits of the in person in person world.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that I really like the the pendulum kind of metaphor, because that's really what it is, isn't it? And we'll see how many times it still has to swing back and forth, before we come to some kind of agreement.
MIGUEL MOITAL Where I know one thing, if you look at all the sectors, there's probably not a sector that is more dynamic in embracing change. Absolutely. Then sector, I can't think of any other maybe the tech one. But you know, when you look at future events is very close to tech development. So, yeah, I have no doubt that you know, in 12 months time, if we had this conversation again, it's going to be quite different.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Absolutely. And that's why I love working in the events industry as well. It's so diverse, it's so different. It's It's fast, and it's exciting, all at the same time. From your expertise Actually, I just want to quickly I just want to stay with these hybrid events a little bit because one of the things that is I think is the hardest also to to merge and is a is that it from a consumer psychology I think point of views as well is making those two groups, the ones kind of that are from home and trying to engage them from their computer screens and in their in their home offices. And those people who are on site, how do they it's often described as not making them feel like sideboard one second class to the other. And so from I was wondering, from a consumer psychology point of view, if he had any ideas around that, or
MIGUEL MOITAL
on the observations, the concept that we can bring he bring here is that of CO creation, okay. And in order for an experience to be co created between participants both need to feel that they they are involved equally involved in the interaction and equally benefiting from it,
MIGUEL MOITAL
you have one challenge, when trying to involve those in person, those were attending the event in person with those who are online, because how are you going to convince if that interaction is going to happen, then those who are attending in person will have to use technology?
MIGUEL MOITAL
Okay, the ones I told they already using technology, so it's not an issue for them. But you will have to persuade the those were attending in person that they need to do all the things that you can do in person with all the distractions and opportunities that attending in person provides, but also
MIGUEL MOITAL
it connected with their technology so that they can engage with with those were at home or in their office, those who are attending remotely. And and one wonders in what would they gain? If there are so many opportunities for interaction and networking and learning? If you weren't attending in person? What's the motive? Well, what's the carrot to motivate them to take time stop their their interaction and engage online. So I think it's going to be challenging to involve those attending in person and, and ask them motivate them to help deliver a good experience to those attending remotely, those attending remotely that they have no option. It's remotely or nothing. Yeah, those in person that have a competing option, which is actually the reason why they went there. They went there for the in person interaction. So now you're asking me to, to go back to my technology and interact with people virtually? it defeats a bit, you know, my purpose, sir, that there are there are barriers, I would say I would call them structural barriers from a consumer psychology perspective.
MIGUEL MOITAL
Because you will have to motivate a group of people to do something that perhaps naturally, they wouldn't do.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think, obviously, because they haven't happened yet, I'm kind of taking my cues a little bit from the online gaming industry, who actually has been doing this for quite some time. And they have people there that are ambassadors, and actually, those are the absolute fanboys they attend these EA games, but then there's millions of people around the world that are actually following online and of ambassadors walking around. And so I'm hoping it's going to be a little bit like that, although obviously, the gaming industry isn't exactly like that. I don't know, if you've seen any observations, or if you're a bit familiar,
MIGUEL MOITAL there's a difference, because those that you are talking about the indie games, with big followers, and so on, they already opinion leaders in their area. So they have a big following. It's almost like they are hired to produce the show, they are not regular attendees of the event. Here we are talking about the regular attendee event, obviously, you can always
MIGUEL MOITAL
run the event in a way that the people who kind of are working for you or review the whatever you ask them to do, those paying guests that are attending the event of their, you know, it's not cheap to go to an in person event most times, why would they be willing to, presumably, presumably, and I say this word and emphasize it, presumably, do something that is detracting to their experience,
MIGUEL MOITAL
to the benefit of the event organizer, and those those attending virtually. So it's going to be challenging for the event sector to to merge the two audiences because I can see conflicts of motivation of interest between between them.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Another challenge for the events where we already have so many hats. So yeah, hopefully to take it on. I'm actually really looking forward to seeing those first hybrid events and what they're doing and the lessons learned. And I'm hoping that some of those are going to come in throughout the summer. Hopefully, now that we're opening up a little bit.
MIGUEL MOITAL
I think there are solutions there, where you can actually design the in person event to an embed those interaction moments as part of the program in the
MIGUEL MOITAL
you know, of the in person event component. So there are ways of doing it, but again,
MIGUEL MOITAL
We go back to what we discussed, they won't happen spontaneously, everything needs to be pre planned as you know, people need to be nudged to, to to do what again, what Otherwise, they probably wouldn't be interested in doing. Absolutely a pre pandemic world was definitely easier for the event organizer, it was never an easy job. But it was, it was even it was a little bit more easy. The processes were very well established here. If you go to an academic conference, or much in terms of the overall concept, the processes that
MIGUEL MOITAL
much were they different, very little, they were different, they had little differences, but the essence, the concept was exactly the same, or every conference Yeah, with with minor adaptations. So the industry got us both, when I say the industry is both the producer side and the consumer side got used to that kind of standard process, they knew what to expect. And then there were a few elements of surprise of innovation, that usually didn't change the core structure of the event. Now we find ourselves with, you know, working in a completely different context, in the sense that there's no habit of producing, there's no habit of, of consuming both the virtual side or even the hybrid side. So there's an opportunity to actually shape you know, what's the standard is going to be like, I don't think we've got a standard yet a standard of production and the standard of consumption. So and that will take time for that standard to or standards most likely to develop?
ELISA TUIJNDER
Do you think I stay with this? Because I find this really interesting. And I have had discussions with people about this about how so obviously, like you said, your talks about the format for some of our listeners, that maybe you're not as familiar with that. It's often the keynote or the plenary speaker, and then a panel and a breakout room. And then the talks are often an hour and a half. And it's always the same thing in the breaks are that do you feel like there's scope here to completely rethink this? I've had people come with me like, what are we going to do a poster sessions? Those are ridiculous. I actually didn't like them already. Maybe we should do them differently. Do you think there's really scope to completely come up with different spaces are online? And? And do it differently than we've done it for probably the last 100 years?
MIGUEL MOITAL
Oh, yeah. I think there is. We've got an academic conference, you know, internal academic conference about learning. Yeah. And, and that, you know, they're asking for posters, virtual posters, and I actually had to ask the organizer, I don't want to do a poster, because my presentation is about how I use, you know, a variety of tech equipment to deliver my, my educational experience. They didn't even contemplate that. But when I asked, I said, Oh, of course, you can submit a video, like a tour of my desk, explaining the equipment I have, and what I what it allows me to do, in terms of, you know, the educational experiences I provide for the university. And so it will be a poster of a different nature, not a static poster where you read and, and, you know, it's hard to make a piece of research or an idea come alive through a poster, it's possible, but it's hard, especially in a virtual context. So there are certainly opportunities, maybe what will we will have to move towards is to do those posters, video based posters, but then it requires the resources to make sure that the posters are over good quality. Yeah. And, and I see myself because I've, I've gone in a different direction, you know, from a lot of colleagues who are, you know, understandably, using zoom, the basics of zoom, I personally didn't want to do that. And I developed my skills in last year, where I can do, you know, fairly different things. But if academics are not doing it, then you can think of it in other sectors where people are not prepared engaged with this, with this way of thinking, but there are certainly opportunities to re engineer to rethink some of those activities that were done. And maybe also to bring in other other activities that that will not possible will not even consider would not we're not even in the realm of possibility and therefore not even in our minds didn't even get there. That we can perhaps Now, given that the circumstances are different things that we can, new things that we can add that we didn't have
ELISA TUIJNDER
Before? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the things I've also in again, is sort of staying with this theme. What I've heard a lot is that what I've seen as well is that it's hard for people to retain attention span online. And in general, there's been a trend over the last couple of years, or last 20 years, or maybe that's just, you know, a ploy that older people say to younger people, you can't have an economy, your attention span is so limited, and everything needs to be, you know, bright and sparkly and shorter and snap here. So just wanted to see whether you've seen that as well. And whether that has a potential to to not have these long lectures that are or seminars that are an hour and a half, but like shorter or, or more diverse, because I feel like that's the way we're going. So just wanted to have your take on that and seeing what your, what your research potentially has said about that as well.
MIGUEL MOITAL
So very good point, I'm going to do a little exercise here, imagine yourself attending a virtual exhibition, where you arrive at 10am, in a big halls, or several hall of exhibition, and you leave at six o'clock, after doing a few miles inside talking to lots of people, I don't think that can happen can possibly happen in a virtual context, I don't think the conditions are there for someone to be almost fully focused for eight or nine hours, you know, in front of a computer.And so we can't replicate the, the know what was happening or what is happening in the in person world. So the solution to that is two one is developing content that can engage people for longer. And and the second one is, obviously shorter content, because in, you know, it does dip in and out, in and out, in and out. So I think I think that's what the industry is already doing. I think those you know, multi day events are a thing of the past, or they are much less common. Because, you know, can I take, if I'm at my home my job, can I take three days to be in front of a computer nonstop and attend three days of Academic Presentations. Unlikely, if I'm away, I can't because I'm away from my work I put my out of office, I'm in a different mindset. Yeah, and I can almost justify that I'm away for for three or four days. The virtual world, it's it's, it's difficult, you still in on your computer, your emails are still arriving still logged on. So there's a mental capacity as well. If you get tired after a long day, your cognitive, your cognitive, you know, you you are stuck in the same room for so long. And your cognitive ability decreases, your ability to concentrate decreases. When we are in an in person event. The stimulus is always there, you know, different people, different colors, different entertainment, you know, different topic, whatever, yeah, different sorts of interactions. And therefore, our attention can focus on those different things and maintain focus for for long, we call this technically we call this state of flow. So state of flow, it's, it's also called state of optimal experience, it's when we are fully immersed in an activity, the best, the best sign of flow is actually losing sense of time. Okay, that experience that you were there and you thought, you know, an hour have gone and suddenly it's two and a half hours gone. That's the best sign that someone is in a state of flow. So, and state of flow requires a few things. One of them is that we can concentrate on the activity. So we have no distractions. If we are in our offices, we have email proper, probably colleagues coming in and asking you don't forget to reply to that email, it's urgent. So there's lots of distractions, if we are at home, people have families, you know, work is still still keeps in a year, those emails still keep arriving. So it's, it's a lot harder to keep concentration on the activity. And if you are distracted, the state of flow is going to be disrupted. And also you can stay away from the activity for a while. So you have if you have to reply to an email that takes five minutes, by the time you reengage, there's an investment in re entering state of flow. So you're always kind of on and off. Whereas in person, we get out of state of flow, but most times it's for short moments or a much shorter periods. And therefore, the kind of you can see it as a cycle of coming in and out of flow in. In a virtual world, the peaks are more intense between being in a state of flow, ie concentrated on the event, what's happening in the event and completely concentrated on something else? And also the peaks are more common or more frequent. So it's a lot harder to keep people paying attention. What is happening for long periods? Yeah, absolutely.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Picking up on that sense of flow, because I found this really interesting concept, like, what we've seen, I guess a lot is with these virtual conferences is you have a number of different ones. So you have the ones that are, here's a repository of videos, look at them at any point. And here's like a channel where you can potentially ask some questions or not, sometimes not even, then you have the ones that are live and that, you know, they try and have a continuous day of activities are multiple activities that you can choose off, and things will be able to be made available afterwards. And then you have those are solely live, and then that's it, they've tried to replicate, I definitely have a preference for life, to have made the content available afterwards sometimes. So I thought that that state of flow, that that kind of ties into that just wondering whether you'd had a preferences there? Or can you even call an event that is just your repository of visitors can videos? Can we call it an event? Is it is it is it a conference in the in the
MIGUEL MOITAL
I wouldn't call them an event because the notion of event is that engagement, the ability of engaging with with an or an audience as it is happening? You know, I cannot engage, I can't see a way of engaging with an audience when the event is not on a you can but it's not the same, it's not part of the event. symbolism is different. So it's, it's it's, for me, when we talk about events, we talk about the live delivery of an experience where whether it's in person, visually, or otherwise, we would call you know, watching a TED talk an event and we don't. Yeah, so I guess the issue with the state of flow is that it's very easy to break, it's very hard to enter a deep state of flow, and it's very easy to break. And due to the environment in which these virtual experiences are consumed.
It's almost a miracle that we can concentrate for long periods. Because the distractions are so immense, the fatigue comes to you a lot longer. Now, I'm sure we've been at exhibitions, for example, where we walked for miles, and suddenly it's five o'clock, we didn't even notice because we're talking from booth to booth and talking to people, different people and and in a virtual event that's unlikely to happen for the reasons that we've discussed. Yep.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Okay, well, I think we're getting to the towards some of my final question. So I think I'm gonna bring it back to your dear pendulum. Do you? Do you feel that we're now that we're easing out of lockdown? Are we going to swing back all the way? Are we gonna? For a little while before we kind of go back into both ways? Does it depend on the on the sector? Well, what's your prediction in that in that sense? What in the next maybe short term but maybe maybe a bit longer term as well?
MIGUEL MOITAL
I'm going to use the word hybrid, but in a different context. Okay. Okay. So it's hybrid participation, not hybrid production. Because, you know, we use the word hybrid, as a as part of the production is a production perspective that we use, but I'm going to use it in a consumption perspective, in the sense that we are going to be hybrid consumers because we are going to jump from attending in person events to virtual events to in person events. So I go to some conferences. Yeah. And I can't go every year to the same conference. So I might dip into that conference every three years for example. And then the other two I attend I attend virtually. So it's the same thing you know, charities do a lot of quizzes and and bingo nights until one I can see a market and an interest you know, imagine on a winter night You know, you probably don't want to I don't know fancy going to you fancy some some interaction some fun and you register for for the quiz or the Bingo Night. Probably you wouldn't do that before. First because those events didn't exist as much. And second, because you probably found them all. And having tried them if they actually it's good fun for a couple of hours. Got my glasses. wine, you know, few jokes, usually the entertainers are quite good bit of entertainment. And, you know, it offers good value. So I think we will move towards an hybrid consumption, where people will balance and try to, to, to attend in person from time to time and and compliment with virtual attendance when it's not desirable when, when when it's not possible.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Great. Yeah, that's really interesting. I haven't thought about it like that. And it's nice to instead of from an event perspective, or event organizer perspective, think about it from a consumer perspective, which obviously, you do best.I and I tend to end all of these interviews and podcast interviews with what the hope is for for digital events, because we talk a lot about accessibility inclusivity, as well. So what is no, he kind of ties in with a lot with the previous one. So but what do you hope, what the event sector, where are we going to be?
MIGUEL MOITAL
In the future, I hope that the industry can continue with the energy that he says that it has shown in the past year, from an academic point of view, it actually caused challenges to us, because we were also very, very keen on our routines, which are, you know, in terms of the examples that we use in terms of the principles that we help students learn the perspectives, we help them develop the very much tied to the in person event. And so this transition requires a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of breaking with the past and an embracing the difference. And I think acknowledging that we are all learning a lot. There will be mistakes, made, there will be opportunities missed. But it's just part of the steep learning curve, any keeps learning curve. And it's not an exception, you know, when we're faced with such tremendous, tremendous amount of change. So I think the hope, and so far, it seems that the industry is raising up to the to the challenge, rising up to the challenge, the hope is that that energy continues, and knowing what can influence that energy, I think it will continue because organizations will need to continue interacting within themselves. And between themselves, consumers will need to continue to socialize, to have fun to until one and therefore the demand is going to be there. It's it's up to the industry to develop experiences that are viable for them. But also offer value, even if it's slightly different value or the value is delivered in a slightly different way offers value to to the consumers.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Absolutely. That's a great note to end on. So then I just have to thank you, Miguel, for coming on to the podcast was really, really interesting, especially, I really very much enjoyed it and I hope he did too. And our listeners probably did as well.
MIGUEL MOITAL
Thank you for for inviting me and I look forward to listen to it and share it with my students. Absolutely my community. Thank you.
ELISA TUIJNDER
Oh, there we go. So