Indoor GPS seems to be a topic that keeps cropping up
in the industry but personally, I can’t see what benefits it could bring.
I’ve been to a lot of events but I don’t recall
thinking that the floorplan was too complicated to navigate. Most exhibitions
are laid out on a grid which makes it relatively easy to find your way around.
I honestly wouldn’t bother using an event app’s version
of sat-nav to get me from one stand to another – even if it knew where I was
supposed to be next because of an appointment schedule.
Should an organiser really be encouraging visitors to
their event to stare mindlessly at their devices rather than wandering around,
seeing other exhibitors and potentially networking? There are already enough
distractions on mobile devices anyway.
To me it feels just like TV manufacturers attitudes.
Over the past 5-10 years we’ve seen more and more gimmicks that don’t
necessarily add anything, but sound good when you’re looking at them in the
shop. Then you purchase and when you get home you find that actually you don’t
really use any of the new features.
Originally published in Conference News
