1. Glisser: Interactive presentations

Organising events isn’t always about finding glamorous locations, top-mixologists and cutting edge DJ’s. In fact: most of the time it isn’t. A large part of our work consists of of creating the best experience for gatherings that are considered inherently boring, but very necessary: team meetings, corporate workshops and conferences. We love working on those projects as they provide us with an opportunity to surprise people in a setting where they least expect it. This month’s first event-tech find is Glisser, a service that takes regular PowerPoint or Keynote slide decks and pushes them out live to the mobile devices of the audience, slide-by-slide, as they are presented.

Not only can anyone connected live tweet slides as they are presented with an automated pre-set hashtag, but the presenter can also instantly conduct an audience wide Q&A or poll – a great way to engage the crowd. After the presentation the audience is given the opportunity to download the entire deck and the speaker notes. Glissers collects data about all interactions and makes it actionable. Genius, simple: sold.

2. Beloola: Create immersive 3D space and interact with users in real time

Events create experiences for the attendees, but today’s event-tech allows us to expand the audience significantly and create experiences that matter to an infinite audience. Beloola is a brand new startup that might help with that. It lets users re-create any space and invite anyone to virtually join them and interact. As a case study the company build the entire Golden State Warriors stadium for users to play in – but any venue goes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVXr3luEJLc

This tech allows us to construct an entire event location and have people on different continents interact with visitors or brands – not limited by locations or time. The 3D environments work best with VR hardware (like Oculus Rift or HTC Vive) but also look good through any browser without the aid of an expensive device. It’s not a replacement for actually attending an event, but it looks like a good additional experience.

3. Hit or miss?

We saw a lot of “maybe’s” or “probably nots” in this month’s mailbox, but some of them do actually look like fun. Firstly there was the edible cutlery.

They come in flavours like hot and spicy, onion, tomato, garlic or sweet. The biggest button on the website is “why edible cutlery?” which I believe is a fair question. I also noticed they only make spoons. I can only assume that edible knifes can’t cut and forks break.

Then there was Ohayo, an anti hangover drink with a bottle that glows in the dark presumably so that in your inebriated state you can locate it before passing out.

Might be a nice give-away, but I’m not immediately sold on the ingredients: vitamins and electrolytes. I’ll have to test drive this one before committing. Rebel & Soul will have a busy month with events going live in Singapore and Sydney and I’m sure there will be at least one small hangover to cure – all for science, of course.

Every day the Rebel & Soul team scour the internet, plough through our mailboxes and visit events in our never-ending search for the latest trends in event-tech. Some of the gems we find go on to become big hits, others fade into oblivion. Our purpose is to post monthly updates on some of the most innovative, weirdest, most functional, fun-but-totally-useless and quirky event-tech.